In order to create an influential presence in the global web sphere, user engagement tops the priority list. A website which is interactive and brings like minded people together is cherished by all and stands out of the brimmed web space on any given day. For adding up interactivity on the website, there is no replacement for having an active comment section. Commenting allows the visitors to interact, question and share information and feedback among each other as well as the website admin.
Let us take a look at 7 of the premium comment managing plugins that can be used in your WordPress site.
Akismet
Akismet is a wonderful comment management plugin. The plugin checks the database for any spam markers in a comment and moves such items in the respected spam folders.
Depending on the daily comment uploads on your WordPress website, the spam folder can get even hundreds of new spam comments a day. Those messages take up a lot of space on the database and it is quite a task to clean them in thousands.
With this plugin, you might want to store the spam comments for a while. This is because sometimes, some of the good comments also get along the spam ones in the spam folder. So, in the settings, un-check the box that says: “Auto-delete spam submitted on posts more than a month old.”
Growmap Anti-Spam
Although captchas are important, but sometimes they can be annoying. The hard to figure-out captchas can even make the commenters leave your website. Growmap Anti-Spam Plugin is a perfect solution for WordPress website owners to control automated spam and avoid frustrating the commenting audience.
You can select from a variety of options to select a captcha for a visitor. If you want to keep it simple, you can simply add a box which the people have to check-mark for adding a comment. The checkbox simply asks the visitor to click in the box to confirm that he is not a spammer. This decreases the spam comments from the automatic spam bots as they are not able to find the box to click into.
wpDiscuz
The wpDiscuz is a real time WordPress comment management plugin. The plugin is free to install and boosts up the native WordPress comment handling system. You can also pick from various add-ons to further optimize the comments on your website. The plugin features a quick voting system for like and dislike a certain comment and add more comments through AJAX.
This plugin is highly beneficial, especially if your website is filled with comments from the visitors and followers. You can always load any number of comments via AJAX. wpDiscuz supports many anti-spam plugins like WordPress Zero Spam. These plugins monitor the website for spam comments and the developing community is highly active on the WordPress.org.
wpDisquz is a community-driven WordPress plugin where users have a track of the comments they write. Other wpDisquz users can also follow any other registered member and get notifications about his comments. This enables a good mode of socializing and sharing thoughts among the comment uploading audience.
Jetpack Plugin
Jetpack is more than just a comment management system. The plugin is considered as one of the best plugins available for website management and optimization. As far as managing comments is concerned, the robust plugin by Automatic improves the quality of comments on your website and keeps the audience engaged.
There are many ways your website followers can reach your site and post a comment. This can be done by :
- Using the default WordPress comments feature
- Logging to WordPress.com
- Google+
The plugin gives a notification to all the active commenting members of a blog. This accounts for a more social channel to the audience and allow options to have an organized discussion sessions.
WordPress Moderator
WordPress Moderator enables you to manage live comments on your website from a desktop. The plugin is an adobe air application which is highly useful for real-time comment management. You can instantly delete, approve and report the comments for spam. The plugin runs in the background and notifies the website of any pending comments for reviewing from the system tray.
To get started with this plugin, you can simply download it from the WordPress website and activate it. Installation is easy and you will get all the instruction to manage the comments effectively. One drawback here is that you cannot edit any comment. Yet, you can simply delete it from the thread.
IntenseDebate
The plugin was created keeping in mind all kinds of comments that come up on a blog. Intense Debate offers comment subscription via email, social media, CSS and RSS integration. Although there are not many functions to play with, but if you are well-versed with CSS, you will find this plugin quite interesting.
The best part about the plugin is the threaded representation of comments. Where other systems find it hard to represent the comments and replies, Intense Debate plugin provides the data in a chronological order. You can find clear places with a conversation to add a comment, which makes it ideal for debates.
It is quite discouraging if you leave a comment and do not get a reply or appreciation for it. The thumbs-up and thumbs-down function in this plugin is a great way to address the thoughtful responses. You can also click on ratings and get all the best comments on the top of the list. This keeps the audience engaged and they like to add comments and share ideas on your WordPress website. You can also make use of the “report” option to manage the irrelevant comments on your post.
Postmatic
Postmatic plugin is a power-pack of all the necessary features. Using this plugin will enable your readers to subscribe to posts as well as comments. Later, they can receive updates for the same via email. The email template of Postmatic is amazing, which displays recent comments and a summary of recent replies and conversations.
Followers can reply on any comment through their registered email. They do not have to actually come at your website and go to the comment section for adding a reply. Being a website admin, you can delete, submit or reply to the comments via email. Postmatic is a native comment system. This means that it is not a third party service, and you have access to all the data.
There is a lot more this WordPress plugin can apart from managing the comments. Comment management can be done from the WordPress mobile app and the email template is more appealing and offers a sharp user experience than the regular notification emails for comments by WordPress.
Conclusion
There are more than the above mentioned plugins available in the market that are created to manage the comment system. Yet, these above-mentioned 7 plugins have been appreciated and recommended by most of the WordPress site authors. Picking the right plugin completely depends on your website requisites. So, check for the features and benefits a plugin has to offer before installing it.
Author Bio:
Sophia Phillips is an expert frond-end & WordPress developer. Currently, she is employed with WordPrax Ltd.- a leading PSD to WordPress theme converter company. Sophia has had written a remarkable number of articles on WordPress tricks and tips.
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