For the past month or so, I’ve been experimenting with a plugin for my personal finance blog called CommentLuv. The plugin is intended to encourage commenting by doing two things. First, it makes you a member of the CommentLuv network where theoretically, you share comments on other’s blogs and they will return the favor. Second, it’s designed to allow for “do follow” links on comments.
Not Impressed So Far
My results from this experiment may not be typical, so do take this review with a grain of salt, however, so far, I’m not impressed with the experience. I am currently listing nearly 300 comments on my blog. Of those 300, more than 250 of them are spam.
Very Obvious Spam Comments
Occasionally, the comments are funny — my favorite was from someone commenting on a post called “5 Internet Financial Scams to Stay Away From” where the guy wrote “I just have one question: does anyone know how to get rid of man boobs?”
He then had a link to his website, where he purports to offer advice on how to accomplish exactly that. Now while I am certain that there are some people who want to know about this, I do not see this as being something my readers might be particularly interested in.
Another common tactic is to post a list of links, not even pretending to create a comment which is real, but instead just titling his post in Russian and then listing 30 or so links.
Still others have put up things where they try to automatically grab the title tag from my posts and stick them in to make it sound as if they’ve read the post when they haven’t (it’s pretty obvious when they do it since my blog automatically adds a pipe (|) and the name of the blog after the title, something which a real reader of my blog wouldn’t do).
Any Real Comments?
Okay, I know some readers out there are going to say, okay, so you got lots of spam with the CommentLuv plugin. You’ll get that even without it, but have you gotten real comments? The answer is, yes, I have gotten real comments. Two of them over the past month or so. Of those two comments, neither one bothered to include a website because they were just readers actually commenting on my blog meaning that they didn’t care about CommentLuv at all,
Still Leaving It In Place
For now, I’m still leaving the CommentLuv plugin in place. I haven’t had the time to do as much SEO work on my blog as I’d like and as such, I’m wondering if it’s only determined spammers who have found it. I’m hoping some real people will find it and decide to start offering real comments in exchange for a do follow backlink. However, that said, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s really worth bothering.
Don’t worry about it. If I can get some work done over the next few days, I should be okay and be able to pay it next week (I spoke to the landlord today and got him to wait until Monday).
Is CommentLuv Useful?
For the past month or so, I’ve been experimenting with a plugin for my personal finance blog called CommentLuv. The plugin is intended to encourage commenting by doing two things. First, it makes you a member of the CommentLuv network where theoretically, you share comments on other’s blogs and they will return the favor. Second, it’s designed to allow for “do follow” links on comments.
Not Impressed So Far
My results from this experiment may not be typical, so do take this review with a grain of salt, however, so far, I’m not impressed with the experience. I am currently listing nearly 300 comments on my blog. Of those 300, more than 250 of them are spam.
Very Obvious Spam Comments
Occasionally, the comments are funny — my favorite was from someone commenting on a post called “5 Internet Financial Scams to Stay Away From” where the guy wrote “I just have one question: does anyone know how to get rid of man boobs?” He then had a link to his website, where he purports to offer advice on how to accomplish exactly that. Now while I am certain that there are some people who want to know about this, I do not see this as being something my readers might be particularly interested in.
Another common tactic is to post a list of links, not even pretending to create a comment which is real, but instead just titling his post in Russian and then listing 30 or so links.
Still others have put up things where they try to automatically grab the title tag from my posts and stick them in to make it sound as if they’ve read the post when they haven’t (it’s pretty obvious when they do it since my blog automatically adds a pipe (|) and the name of the blog after the title, something which a real reader of my blog wouldn’t do).
Any Real Comments?
Okay, I know some readers out there are going to say, okay, so you got lots of spam with the CommentLuv plugin. You’ll get that even without it, but have you gotten real comments? The answer is, yes, I have gotten real comments. Two of them over the past month or so. Of those two comments, neither one bothered to include a website because they were just readers actually commenting on my blog meaning that they didn’t care about CommentLuv at all,
Still Leaving It In Place
For now, I’m still leaving the CommentLuv plugin in place. I haven’t had the time to do as much SEO work on my blog as I’d like and as such, I’m wondering if it’s only determined spammers who have found it. I’m hoping some real people will find it and decide to start offering real comments in exchange for a do follow backlink. However, that said, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s really worth bothering.
Commentluv is definitely useful – I hope to implement it into my blog shortly. Will you?
I LOVE CommentLuv – I recently wrote a post about this as well on my blog.
It encourages people to come to your site when you have left posts on other’s blogs. It does work.
If you want to get rid of the spam, be sure to install a good spam blocker within your blog. If you are using wordpress, there is one that I recently installed called Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin. I still get a trickle come through and like you said they obviously are not reading your blog post, but they are far and few between.
Linda
Well since I put up this post, I did get one legit comment. Yes, it’s worth it, just annoying.
Here, it’s not up to me. However, on my own blog, which I own, I have done so, as I mentioned.
Commentluv is very useful. It compensates the matter of “give and take” which could be a huge attraction to many readers.
My blog usually gets a lot of spam comments anyway. I find that the comments that come from people using Comment Luv are usually the ones I approve most often because you can tell they actually read the piece and aren’t just spamming.
I never said it wasn’t useful, at least in theory. In practice, I still feel the jury is out. I have over 500 spam comments on my blog (not this one, one that I run myself) and 80 that are not spam (although more than half of those may as well be — they’re basic comments with no substance, though for some reason the link was to places like Bing or Google so I let them go).
Hi Eric,
I think the issue is going to exist for a while longer sadly as visitors just don’t grasp the concept of leaving informed responses via commenting. It takes 10 minutes max to read a few of the blog posts I have visited today and I have learnt a lot thanks to gifted webmasters. If we all contributed in a positive way we could all benefit.
I have a number of blogs and deal with countless volumes of spam daily. If it is really that much of an issue I would remove commenting entirely.
Most of the comments that I read on blogs using Commentluv appear to me to be genuine contribution and not spam. As one other commenter said, “It’s a give and take thing”, and there seems to be an honest attempt a fairness.
Sadly, that hasn’t been my experience. Then again, one would assume that just because someone is running Commentluv doesn’t mean they’re approving everything. I imagine they also get quite a lot of spam which never sees the light of day.
Well the truth is that I’m just being a bit cheap about it because I’m too busy to do the right kind of SEO work on my personal blog. If I did, it would be earning enough that it would be worth paying for Akismet to combat the comment spam. I’ll probably start working on it again soon though and may just go ahead and invest in that system.
i think its a great tool im getting more comments but im also getting loads more spam people not reading the article / blog and adding irrelevant comments
Our blog usually gets plenty of unrequested email remarks anyhow. My wife and i discover that the comments which come from people utilizing Comment Luv usually are those We consent usually because you can inform they will begin to see the product and also aren’capital t merely pestering.
As someone who also has a personal finance site, I found the same thing when I was using CommentLuv before. I’m actually thinking of returning to CommentLuv after a year on Disqus. I know it sounds crazy but maybe dealing with the spam is just the price to pay to encourage comments?
Thank you.
This information is very useful for me who are still learning about building a good site. and hopefully the information I could get my site useful for the future.
Commentluv is really useful. This provides me list of DoFollow blogs so that I can learn a lot from them. Commentluv also helps me in getting more traffic and quality backlinks. This is worth buying for! Great article for my luv.
In order to get more real comments when using CommentLuv you have to go out and comment in other blogs that use it so they and their readers will know about your blog.
The reason you got mostly spam comments is because spammers know how to find CommentLuv blogs and are motivated to do so, but regular readers and other bloggers have little incentive to go search for your blog.
What a brilliant post. You should do a series! :)I did a sort of blogging for dummies over on one of the craft forums and I thought it was too simple for them, but the amount of emails I got asking questions just like what you addressed was unbelievable. As young people today we have grown up with computers, but it’s easy to forget that even people just a few years older have not! Really good post! 🙂
Yasir,
What you are trying to say here is that “spam comments” are a biproduct of commentluv! I am not sure I agree with you, not only that, I am not sure that makes any sense either! What even makes me more surprised is the few comments on the blog braising the idea!!
It is just like saying, “Is email useful?” and then conclude that it is not because you get email spam, or “is phone useful”, .. “no, because I receive telemarketing calls”!
Sorry, I just don’t get it! Comments spam exist whether you use CommentLuv or not. If you are trying to say however that, “CommentLuv increases spam comments”, then I *may* agree with you there, but just because CommentLuv increases comments in your blog altogether, which will in return increase the spam as well, but I don’t believe that commentluv will only attract spammers over any other commenter!
Actually, I think I was saying that CommentLuv increases the incidence of spam on blogs. Obviously, having a blog with comments does mean you’ll get some spam irregardless…
Thank you. Glad you liked it. What did you find so insightful about it?
Hi Gail,
I agree with you, however I’m wondering then — what’s the point of CommentLuv? You can just go and post on other blogs and leave your own comments as do follow.
For finding Do Follow blogs, I agree — it’s helpful. Although I do have an article in the archives on how to do it using Traffic Travis.
Always happy to help out. Like I said, CommentLuv has its uses, but they are somewhat limited.
I’m growing to despise Disqus. It allows way too much spam and troll comments to get posted onto sites I actually used to like. And yet it’s still popular, so go figure…
Interesting point. It never occurred to me to track where commenters arrived from.
Exactly — it can be helpful, but it can also be a royal pain.
I think commentluv is love. I dont mind the spam as long as people are reading my blogs. I can just delete the spam.
I found your site while doing a search for seo sites that included Keyword Luv. If I didn’t search for Keyword Luv web sites I would have never found your site.
I am thinking about adding KL to my site and I am watching to see how it goes here on your site…
Ken
Ironically, this site doesn’t use CommentLuv. I run a different website which does use it, but we get better quality comments here than I get on the site which does use that service…go figure.
The thing is that the spammers aren’t reading your blog. They just use automated tools to send it out without ever seeing what you wrote. That’s why these comments always seem to say things like “I was looking for this exact information.” Because that’s generic and fits everything. A real commenter will mention what they likes about it.
I also have seen some very funny spam comments. Infact most of them have nothing at all to do with the post.
I like that you added the list of keywords people are using to find you, is that a plugin? I can’t imagine you did that by copy and paste from analytics.
Yes, it is indeed a plugin. Just look for it on the WordPress plugins list.
I agree with you, there are always those who don’t bother to read the post.
Spammers always post generics comments and it’s easily detected. Continue using CommentLuv is a good choice.
Actually one of the best ways I found to make CommentLuv useful was to simply use a captcha combined with it. 99% of the spammers disappeared overnight and it’s a very minor annoyance for real people.
CommentLuv is a good plugin. All blogs do have spam like you said. The plugin gives other blog owners a reason to post. Maybe they can pick up a reader doing so. This does help them, so any real site is not going to leave a spam comment. It just opens the door to having someone leave a comment that otherwise might not. It takes time to give a good comment, CommentLuv gives them something in return for doing so. Just my .02
As I’ve noted elsewhere, I found that CommentLuv tends to be a spam magnet because they know they can get a backlink. However, when you simply add in a captcha, which is a very minor annoyance to human beings, you cut down on the number of spam comments tremendously.
i get about double the amount of comments with commentluv but i also get more spam
Yup. This is very true. However, I found that a simple captcha does cut down on the spam by around 98%. Then again, I do wonder if some real people are being affected as well. Sadly, everything is a trade off.
I just searched on Google wondering if I should get commentluv an I came to this post…
Glad we could be of some help to you. I found for myself that Commentluv is most effective with some kind of spam filter or captcha to keep out the junk comments.
I was about to comment on someone eleses post when I saw commentluv, when I read some of comments they seemed a little spamish, so I decided to stay away and do some research, thanks!
Well as I said elsewhere, I did find that you could cut down significantly on the spam with a captcha. This solves many of the problems. However, you also have to remember that there are some webmasters who encourage the spammers. They feel that any comments, even junk ones make a site look busy.
I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion.
I’m glad you found it useful. Could you be more specific though about what it was that you liked so much? This helps me to know what to do in the future.
I see you don’t use CommentLuv any more and didn’t realize that to really benefit from it you have to go out commenting in other CommentLuv blogs. That is how other bloggers and their readers know about YOUR blog.
Doing that can more than double your traffic and build a community of readers and commenters and related bloggers who support your efforts, read and comment, and share your posts across Social Networks.
If you don’t actively comment the only people who will know you have CommentLuv are the spammers looking for links and possibly the established bloggers seeking out new blogs in their own niche.
Established bloggers are already busy and have active communities so it makes more sense for new users to seek them out than hope they just happen to search during some short trial period.
If a blogger just wants what benefits them most and doesn’t care about anyone else then CommentLuv won’t be for them. If, on the other hand, they want to create a better world CommentLuv is the best way. I linked this comment to a post that explains why.
There ARE ways to combat spambots which are continually being improved – especially the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin and some other specific methods we use. Andy has incorporated those into CommentLuv Premium.
I encourage any blogger who is interested in community and creating a better world to look me up to find out how our already existing community can benefit you.
Sorry, it gets a little confusing because this is not my own blog even though I write 95% of the content here. I’m Eric and I work for Yasir, writing the blog for him. However, he actually owns the blog and decides which plugins he’d like to use. Still, I do happen to like CommentLuv and I agree — you need to go out and use it in order to make it work properly for you.
Well, I noticed right now leaving a comment that you no longer have CommentLUV. I did read and appreciate your article since I am thinking about trying CommentLuv out on one of my own blogs. You’ve given me some reason for pause.
I do have commentluv on the blogs I own. This one isn’t mine. Yasir chooses what he does with it. However, I did find that when you add in a captcha, commentluv can be more useful.
CommntLuv is very important for seo.Comment Luv save our time.I like and use it regularly.
Very true. The problem of course is that it also tends to attract lots of spam. However, I found that CommentLuv combined with a captcha solves that problem.
Well we are currently using commentluv and it’s really helpful not only for a new starting blog’s but also for the user’s trying to share something beautiful, the best part of the plugin it works with you’r wp default plugin structure, that means using akimist you already track down the Spam comment’s and removed, blocked them, so ofcourse by using commentluv i don’t think so you are going to get some spam comment’s and links.
Yeah, the one thing I don’t like about akismet is the cost of paying for the service. It’s also far from perfect, giving plenty of false positives and plenty of false negatives.
comment love can be a great tool but seeing the search term for this post shows the spam searched. I still like it though.
Not sure I follow. Spam searched?
there are lot of spammers on the internet, and it will never end. best thing is use a captcha, erichammer is correct.
for me, I am reading blogpost and leave a comment if I feel it. But if the post is not that interesting, then why write a comment right? This article takes me less than 5minutes to read and I think commentluv is great, just use it properly and just add captcha to prevent spam comments.
Unfortunately, the captcha does annoy some legit people, but I have yet to find a way around that problem…
Thanks for sharing this. I noticed the same problem with my blog when I had it. I thought if I opened up CommentLuv and even made the comment links do follow that I would get more participation and visitors. Turns out I just got way more spam, no new readers. Then I got rid of comments altogether. Since, my readership has increased steadily. Perhaps the two are not so closely related, but I believe they are.
Well I think CommentLuv can help, but you need to use it wisely…
I love this plugin. Not meant for useful comments though, just promoters.
Not necessarily. I mean, you have to remember that most people also require manual approval of blog comments with CommentLuv which means that they won’t approve just the promoter comments.
Very easy at the same time as very very good guide
Thank you. Could you be more specific though? What was easy? What did you like about it?
CommentLuv is a great tool that allow bloggers to help each other and interact more. As long as commentors are responsible enough to leave quality comments, it should be a win-win situation for both parties. Amazing plugin.
Yes and no. I like CommentLuv, but it is also a magnet for the spammers who make everyone’s life difficult.
Well I think it’s a good plugin, not just for link building but also for communicating or establishing relations with other bloggers.
I’ve just started a new blog and installed commentluv. You mention that you become part of the commentluv network on installation but does such as thing really exist? There is no centralised directory of commnetluv enabled sites & if you google for them you just come across sites trying to sell you rubbish products or commentluv premium itself.
It would be much better if the plugin or at least the premium plugin on posting a new blog post gave you a list of commentluv enabled blogs which may be realted to the blog post subject.
I think they may have changed things. I know they used to offer such a service.