Thrive Comments | The Blog Pros

April 30, 2024

How to Add a Simple User Ranking System for WordPress Comments

Do you want to add a simple user ranking system for WordPress comments on your website?

A ranking system can gamify your comments section and motivate more users to leave their thoughts and questions on your website. This can boost engagement and build a sense of community around your brand.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add a simple user ranking system for WordPress comments.

Why Add a Ranking System for WordPress Comments?

Comments help improve user engagement on your WordPress website. By adding a ranking system for these comments, you can motivate users to leave informative and well-written discussion points on your blog.

For example, you can feature the comments you like at the top of the comment section or award badges to the comments of your choice.

Similarly, you can add an upvote/downvote system for users to control comment popularity or bury spam comments at the bottom of the discussion. This can create a sense of community around your WordPress blog and also help you moderate comments.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily add a ranking system for WordPress comments. In this tutorial, we will look at two methods, and you can use the links below to jump to the method of your choice:

Method 1: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Comments
Method 2: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Forums
Bonus: Add a Points System in WordPress

Method 1: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Comments

If you want to add a simple user ranking system to your comments section, then you can easily do this with Thrive Comments.

It is the best WordPress comments plugin on the market that helps you create an interactive comments section by featuring/burying comments, adding thumbs up/thumbs down, awarding badges, and more.

For more information, see our complete Thrive Themes review.

First, you must visit the Thrive Themes website and sign up for an account. Once you do that, head over to your member dashboard.

From here, click on the ‘Download and install the Thrive Product Manager plugin’ link.

Next, open up your WordPress dashboard to install and activate Thrive Product Manager. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you must visit the Product Manager tab from the WordPress admin sidebar and click on the ‘Log into my account’ button.

Once you have provided your login credentials, you will see your Product Manager dashboard.

From here, select the Thrive Comments plugin and click the ‘Install selected products’ button.

Next, you can visit the Comments » Thrive Comments Moderation page in the WordPress dashboard, where you will see a list of all the comments on your blog.

From here, you can approve, unapprove, edit, or flag the comments as spam. You can also feature a comment by opening the ‘More’ dropdown menu and selecting that option.

Feature, edit, delete, or approve a comment from the Thrive moderation dashboard

Once you do that, all the featured comments will be displayed at the top of the discussion section. These comments will also have a badge in the top left corner, which will signify their importance.

For more detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to feature or bury comments in WordPress.

Afterward, you can visit the Thrive Dashboard » Thrive Comments page from the WordPress admin area and scroll down to the ‘Voting and Badges’ section.

From here, you can add like/dislike functionality to your comments to boost engagement. You can select the ‘Up and down’ option to add thumbs up/thumbs down icons with the comments.

You can also choose the ‘Up only’ option if you don’t want users to be able to dislike any comments on your website.

After that, you can toggle the ‘Users must be registered and logged in to vote’ switch to ‘On’ if you only want to provide this functionality to logged-in users.

Choose Up and down option to allow users to like or dislike comments in WordPress

For detailed instructions, you can see our tutorial on how to allow users to like/dislike comments in WordPress.

Next, you can scroll down and toggle the ‘Award Badges’ switch to ‘On.’ Once you do that, just click the ‘Add New Badge’ Button.

This will open a prompt on the screen, where you can start by adding a name for the badge. After that, you can choose when to award it from the dropdown menu.

For example, if you want to award a badge to a user when they have at least 5 featured comments on your website, then you can select the ‘Featured’ option from the dropdown menu.

Then, add 5 as the value next to the ‘reaches’ option.

After that, you can choose a badge image or upload one from your computer.

Once you are done, simply click the ‘Save Badge’ button to store your settings.

Choose an image for your badge and click Save Changes

You can then click the ‘Add New Badge’ button again to create a badge awarding system for your comments.

Your settings will be saved automatically.

Click Add New badge button to add more badges

Now, simply visit your WordPress site to view the badges in action.

In our example, you can see that the comment at the top is featured because it has an icon at the top left corner. You can also see the badge awarded to the users next to their names.

Method 2: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Forums

If you want to create a ranking system for the discussion forums on your website, then this method is for you.

First, you will need to install and activate the bbPress plugin. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the Forums » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar. Here, you can add the name, description, visibility, status, and moderators for the forum you will create.

Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button to store your settings. For detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to add a forum in WordPress with bbPress.

After that, you have to install and activate the bbp user ranking plugin. For details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin will show each forum member’s total rankings, the number of topics they started, and replies.

Upon activation, visit the Settings » bbp user ranking page from the WordPress dashboard and scroll down to the ‘Ranking Calculations’ section.

Here, you will see that the plugin uses the number of topics and replies a user has created to calculate rankings. You can simply check these options to add them as ranking factors.

Now, by default, the plugin offers two ranking levels for comments. However, if you want to add another ranking level, then simply enter the number of levels you want into the ‘Number of levels’ field and click the ‘Save Changes’ button to refresh the page.

Once you have done that, it’s time to configure settings for different levels.

To do this, scroll down to the ‘Level 1’ section and type a name for it into the ‘Rank Name’ field. This will be the name that will appear on the user’s profile.

After that, you must add the number of posts that members must make to graduate from this level and move to the next level under the ‘Up to number’ option.

For instance, you may create a New Member level with an ‘Up to number’ value of 5. This means that anyone who posts 1-5 comments will be a New Member.

You can then also add the URL for the image that will displayed next to the name of all level 1 users. You can get the image’s URL from your media library.

Adding a user badge to the simple rating system

After that, you can also configure the image size, font color, and font size from different settings.

You can then repeat the process to set up other levels on your website. Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

After that, switch to the ‘Badges’ tab from the top. Here, you can select if you want to show multiple badges earned by the users in a row or column.

Next, scroll down to add the number of badges you want to create for your forum next to the ‘Number of Badges’ option. After that, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to refresh your page.

Then, you can add a badge name, paste the URL for the badge image, and choose a font color.

You can then also configure the image size according to your liking. If you don’t want to display an image with your badge, then you can select the ‘Click to display name’ option from the top.

However, you must select the ‘Click to display name on top of image’ option to show both the name and image for your badge.

You can now repeat this process to create as many badges as you want. Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Next, switch to the ‘Display’ tab from the top. Here, you can configure how the user ranking information will look on your forum.

You can now choose if you want to display the topic count, reply count, level symbols, or rank names. Simply check the box next to the information that you want to showcase.

After that, you can add an optional label to help people understand what the different numbers mean.

Next, you can also check the boxes to display level images and badges next to the user’s names.

After that, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Choose to display images and badges and click the 'Save Changes' button to store your settings

You have now successfully added a user ranking system. You can visit your website to view the users’ profiles in your forum.

Here, you will be able to see their ranking levels and calculations.

You can also award different badges that you created to users on your website. However, keep in mind that you will have to do this manually by visiting the Users menu tab.

Once you are there, click the ‘Edit’ link under any user profile of your liking.

This will take you to a new screen where you must scroll down to the ‘Badges’ section.

Here, check the ‘Click to add this badge’ option for any badge that you want to award the user. Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Update User’ button to store your settings.

You can now repeat the process for other users as well.

Check the click to add this badge option to award a badge to a user

Bonus: Add a Points System in WordPress

Other than adding a ranking system for comments, you can also add a points system on your WordPress site to boost engagement.

For instance, you might reward your customers with points upon user registration, purchasing a product, or as part of a loyalty program. You can then award prizes or exclusive content to visitors with the most points.

If you have a membership site, then you can also offer a level upgrade to users with a certain number of points.

You can easily add a points system in WordPress with myCred. Upon activation, simply visit the Points » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to start choosing a label and image for your points.

For example, you can call the points earned by the audience coins, brownies, jewels, tokens, or anything else that works.

After that, you will have to create user levels, set hooks for the points system, and integrate the plugin with different tools like MemberPress or LearnDash according to your liking.

Once you are done, you can use the different blocks provided by myCred to add a points system leaderboard on your website.

For detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to add a points system in WordPress to ignite user engagement.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a simple user ranking system for WordPress comments. You may also want to see our beginner’s guide on how to allow users to report inappropriate comments in WordPress and our expert tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a Simple User Ranking System for WordPress Comments first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 23, 2024

How to Notify Users Only on Replies to Their WordPress Comments

Do you want to notify users only on replies to their WordPress comments?

By default, users won’t know that someone has replied to their comment unless they come back to the comment section and see the response. This makes it hard to generate in-depth discussions and debates on your website.

In this article, we will show you how to easily notify users every time someone replies to their WordPress comment.

Notify users only on replies on their own comments

Why Notify Users on Replies to Their WordPress Comments?

Comments are a great way to build user engagement, create a community, and increase your pageviews in WordPress. A long and interesting comment section can even keep people on your website longer, as they will want to read through all the comments.

However, by default, WordPress doesn’t notify people when their comment gets a reply. Instead, the commenter will need to revisit the WordPress post and check whether anyone has responded.

By notifying users when their comment gets a reply, you can often get them to come back to your site. It’s also a great way to get more comments on your WordPress posts and spark in-depth and interesting discussions.

With that being said, let’s see how you can notify users when someone replies to their comment in WordPress. We will share 2 methods, using a premium plugin like Thrive Comments and also a free plugin.

Simply click the links below to jump ahead to any section:

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using Thrive Comments
Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using a Free Plugin

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using Thrive Comments

The easiest way to notify users when someone replies to their comments in WordPress is by using Thrive Comments.

It is the best WordPress comments plugin and is part of the Thrive Themes plugin suite. With Thrive Comments, you get features to improve engagement with your comments. For instance, it lets you show comment badges, allow upvotes/downvotes, subscribe to comment threads, and more.

To learn more about the plugin suite’s features and benefits, please see our detailed Thrive Themes Suite review.

First, you will need to visit the Thrive Themes website and create a new account.

After signing up for an account, you can go to the account dashboard.

Next, you’ll need to click the ‘Download and install the Thrive Product Manager plugin’ link.

From here, you can install and activate the Thrive Product Manager plugin on your WordPress website. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head to the Product Manager page from your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Log into my account’ button.

Next, you will see the Thrive Product Manager dashboard after logging in.

From the dashboard, simply select the Thrive Comments plugin and click the ‘Install selected products’ button.

You should see a success message saying ‘Ready to use’ when the installation is complete.

After that, you can click the ‘Go to the Thrive Themes Dashboard’ button at the bottom.

In the Thrive Themes dashboard, you will see all your installed plugins in the suite.

Go ahead and click the ‘Thrive Comments’ button.

Next, you will see the Thrive Comments settings.

Simply navigate to the Notifications option and click to expand.

In order to send email notifications, you’ll need to connect to an email delivery service.

Go ahead and click the ‘+ Add new’ option.

On the next screen, you’ll need to select an email marketing service.

Thrive Comments supports some of the most popular services, like Drip, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, and more.

You can click the ‘+ Add new Connection’ option to continue.

After that, you will need to select an app to connect with Thrive Comments.

Simply click the dropdown menu and choose your email delivery service.

Next, Thrive Comments will require an API key or API token for your selected service.

You can find the API key in your email marketing tools account area or dashboard.

Do note that the steps for accessing the keys might be different for each tool, so we recommend going through the document or reaching out to their customer support for help.

Next, you can customize the comment notifications that users will receive when there is a reply to their comment.

There are 2 types of notifications you can set up in Thrive Comments. The Comment Notification is when users are notified via email when someone replies to their comments. Post Notification is when a user receives an email whenever a new comment or reply is added to that particular post.

Customize post and comment notifications

Let’s go ahead and customize these notifications.

To edit the Comment Notification, simply hover over it and click the pencil icon.

Next, you can edit the text of the email, change the email subject line, and more.

Thrive Comments also lets you use notification shortcodes to add more details to your email notifications. For example, you can add a site title, comment author, unsubscribe link, and more.

When you’re done, simply click the ‘Save’ button.

Similarly, you can also customize the Post Notifications emails. You can also use shortcodes to add more details to your email text.

Customize notification for new comments on thread

After editing the notification, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button.

Now, when a user posts a comment on a blog post and someone replies to it, they’ll automatically get an email notification.

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using a Free Plugin

Another way to notify users about replies to their WordPress comments is by using Subscribe to Comments Reloaded. It is a free plugin that allows users to sign up for email notifications every time someone responds to a comment.

You can also manage your subscribers and disable comment subscriptions for specific posts.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can configure the plugin’s settings by going to STCR » Comment Form.

Here, you’ll need to find the ‘Advanced subscription’ section and click on the toggle so it shows Yes.

Then, open the ‘Subscription type’ dropdown and choose the ‘Replies to this comment ‘ option.

By default, the plugin shows a few different messages to your users, which you can see in the ‘Messages for your visitors’ section.

You can change any of these messages by typing into the small text editors. However, we recommend keeping all the links, as they give visitors access to pages where they can manage their subscriptions.

Once you have done that, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.

Now, if you visit your WordPress website, then you will see a subscription option beneath the comment section.

By default, this is set to ‘Don’t subscribe,’ but visitors can change this to ‘Replies to my comments’ to get a notification every time someone responds.

Visitors can also subscribe without leaving a comment. In this way, they can follow interesting discussions or debates on your WordPress blog.

To do this, they simply need to click on the ‘Subscribe’ link.

This takes them to the ‘Manage Subscription’ page, where they can type in their email address and create their subscription.

For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress.

The Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin has more settings that you can use to customize your comment subscriptions. These include a few security options to help combat comment spam and enable reCAPTCHA.

Expert Tip: After setting up these comment notification emails, you will want to make sure they arrive safely in the user’s inbox and not in the spam folder. With that in mind, we also recommend using an SMTP service provider like WP Mail SMTP to improve your email deliverability rate.

We hope this article helped you learn how to notify users only on replies to their comments in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics and must-have WordPress plugins for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Notify Users Only on Replies to Their WordPress Comments first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 16, 2024

How to Limit Comment Length in WordPress (Easy Tutorial)

Do you want to limit comment length in WordPress?

WordPress comments encourage discussions around your blog post content. However, you may find that comments that are very brief or overly long are not very helpful.

In this article, we will show you how to easily limit comment length in WordPress.

Why Limit Comment Length in WordPress?

An active comment area is a great way to build a community around your WordPress blog. Visitors can give feedback, ask questions, and offer their own points of view on the topic.

However, not all comments are helpful.

We’ve been moderating WordPress comments for well over a decade. In our experience, we’ve found that the most helpful comments are above 60 characters and below 5000 characters in length.

One-word comments are usually not very helpful. In most cases, they are spam comments where the author just wants a backlink from your site.

On the other hand, long comments above 5,000 characters are often rants or complaints. Sometimes, they are not even relevant to the article.

Setting comment length limits in WordPress can improve the overall quality of your comments and discourage spam comments. However, there is no built-in way of doing this in WordPress.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to control comment length in WordPress by setting minimum and maximum limits.

How to Limit Comment Length in WordPress

You can limit comment length in WordPress by adding code to your functions.php file. However, keep in mind that the smallest error while entering the code can break your site and make it inaccessible.

That’s why we recommend always using WPCode to insert code snippets into your WordPress site. It is the best WordPress code snippets plugin on the market that makes it safe and easy to add custom code.

First, you need to install and activate the WPCode plugin. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: WPCode also has a free version that you can use for this tutorial. However, upgrading to the paid plan will give you access to more features like a larger code snippets library, conditional logic, and more.

Upon activation, visit the Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page from the WordPress admin sidebar.

Here, click the ‘Use Snippet’ button under the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option.

This will take you to the ‘Create Custom Snippet’ page, where you can start by adding a title for your code snippet. This name won’t be displayed on the website front end and can be anything you like.

Next, choose the ‘PHP Snippet’ option as the Code Type from the dropdown menu in the right corner of the screen.

Choose the PHP Snippet option for comment length limit

Once you have done that, simply copy and paste the following code snippet into the ‘Code Preview’ box:

add_filter( 'preprocess_comment', 'wpb_preprocess_comment' );
 
function wpb_preprocess_comment($comment) {
    if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) > 5000 ) {
        wp_die('Comment is too long. Please keep your comment under 5000 characters.');
    }
if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) < 60 ) {
        wp_die('Comment is too short. Please use at least 60 characters.');
    }
    return $comment;
}

This code snippet works by adding a filter hook to preprocess_comment. This filter is run before WordPress saves any comments to the database or performs any pre-processing on submitted comments.

It checks the comment length and displays an error message if it is too short or too long. By default, the comment limit is set to a minimum of 60 characters and a maximum of 5,000 characters in this snippet.

However, to set your own comment limit, just replace the number 5,000 in the code with your maximum limit number.

Similarly, you can replace the number 60 in the code to set a different minimum comment limit on your WordPress website.

You can also change the message that will be displayed on your website when a user exceeds or falls short of the comment limit. Simply type the sentence you want to display after the wp_die lines in the code.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section and choose the ‘Auto Insert’ mode.

The custom code will be automatically executed on your website upon activation.

If you only want to limit comment length on specific website pages, then you can also do that.

Simply scroll down to the ‘Conditional Logic’ section and toggle the ‘Enable Logic’ switch.

After that, choose the ‘Show’ option from the ‘Conditions’ dropdown menu and click the ‘+ Add new group’ button.

This will open a new tab where you must select the ‘Page URL’ option from the dropdown menu on the left.

Next, type the URL of the page where you want to limit the comment length in the field on the right.

Now, the code snippet will only be activated on the page with the URL you have just entered.

Scroll back to the top of the page and toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch to ‘Active’.

Finally, click the ‘Save Snippet’ button to store your settings.

Now, when a user types a comment that falls short of your minimum comment length, this message will be displayed on their screens.

Users won’t be able to post a comment until it is at least the minimum length you chose.

An Error Message Is Displayed if a Comment is Too Short or Too Long

Similarly, when a user types a comment that exceeds your maximum limit, this message will be show on their screens.

This will help reduce rants and spam comments on your website.

Bonus: Improve Comment Engagement on Your WordPress Site

Controlling comment length is just one way to increase engagement in your WordPress comments section. This is great for keeping visitors on your site for longer and can even benefit your site’s SEO when users’ comments contain relevant keywords and add context to your content.

You can also easily further improve the comments section on your website using Thrive Comments.

It is the best WordPress comments plugin that comes with a dedicated moderation board, lets you lazy load comments, allows users to leave comments with their social media profiles, and more.

Plus, the tool enables you to add an upvote/downvote functionality to reduce spam and encourage interesting comments on your website.

Thrive Comments even lets you feature encouraging comments at the top and bury offensive or irrelevant comments at the bottom of the discussion section.

This allows you to reward users who are adding the most value to the discussion while politely discouraging other users from leaving unhelpful comments.

For detailed instructions, you may want to see our tutorial on how to feature or bury comments in WordPress.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to limit comment length in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to increase your blog traffic or check out our list of the best WordPress plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Limit Comment Length in WordPress (Easy Tutorial) first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 12, 2024

How to Create a Recent Comments Page in WordPress

Do you want to add a recent comments page to your WordPress website?

Displaying all of your most recent comments on one page is a great way to highlight the discussion happening on your website. With WordPress, creating a page like this is easy, thanks to the Latest Comments block.

In this guide, we will show you how to create a recent comments page in WordPress.

Why Make a Recent Comments Page?

Comments play an important role in building a community around your WordPress website. They allow readers to participate in discussions and interact with you.

With a recent comments page, new and returning visitors can see the ongoing discussions and keep up with them across your site.

Comments are also a great engagement signal and social proof for new visitors. Through the recent comments page, users can see that you have an active and passionate community. This can encourage them to stay longer on your website and perhaps even join the conversation.

Many WordPress blogs choose to display their most recent comments in a widget area, like the sidebar. However, the recent comments widget can be a bit narrow and difficult to read.

That’s why we recommend creating a recent comments page. If you want, you can even link this page at the bottom of the recent comments widget on the sidebar. This way, visitors can read the comments in more detail.

In this step-by-step guide, we will show you how to create the recent comments page using two methods: WordPress’ built-in Latest Comments block and SeedProd, the best WordPress page builder on the market.

You can use the quick links below to navigate through this tutorial:

Method 1: Create a Simple Recent Comments Page With the Latest Comments Block (No Plugin Required)
Method 2: Create a Custom Recent Comments Page With SeedProd
Tips to Optimize Your Recent Comments Page in WordPress

Method 1: Create a Simple Recent Comments Page With the Latest Comments Block (No Plugin Required)

First, you need to open your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Pages » Add New Page.

Clicking Add New Page in WordPress admin area

Expert Tip: Looking to design beautiful, custom pages on your blog? Check out our guide on how to create a custom page in WordPress.

After that, you need to add a title to the page. You can use something like “See the latest discussion on our blog” or “Read our most recent comments.”

Once that’s done, just click the ‘+’ add block button below the title or in the top left corner and locate the Latest Comments block. You can drag and drop it wherever you want on your page.

Adding a Latest Comments block in WordPress block editor

By default, the block editor will display the comment author’s name, the comment excerpt, the comment date, the commenter’s gravatar, and a link to the post where the comment is.

Here’s what it looks like:

An example of what the Latest Comments block looks like

If you want to customize the block’s appearance, then you can click the ‘Align’ button in the block toolbar. This button lets you adjust the block’s alignment settings.

You can choose between using no alignment, wide width, full width, or aligning the block to the left, center, or right.

Clicking the Align button on the Latest Comments block toolbar

Additionally, you can click the ‘Settings’ button in the top right corner and switch to the ‘Block’ tab.

Here, you can choose to display or disable the gravatar, the comment date, and the comment excerpt. You can also select how many comments you’d like to display on your page.

Enabling the Block Settings sidebar for the Latest Comments block

If you open the block’s ‘Styles’ tab, you can edit the block’s Typography, which controls the fonts being used in the block. You can also modify the Dimensions, which control the block’s padding and margin.

Feel free to play around with these settings to make the comments more readable and attractive with your WordPress theme.

The Block Styles tab for the Latest Comments block

Once you are done, you can click the ‘Preview’ button in the top right corner to see what the page looks like on a desktop, mobile, or tablet device.

Then, click ‘Save draft’ to save the page without publishing it. Or you can click ‘Publish’ if you want to make the page publicly available right away.

Saving, previewing, or publishing a recent comments page in WordPress

And that’s it! You’ve successfully created a recent comments page in WordPress.

Method 2: Create a Custom Recent Comments Page With SeedProd

If you are looking to create a completely custom recent comments page in WordPress, then we recommend using a page builder plugin like SeedProd.

SeedProd comes with tons of customization options that the built-in block editor doesn’t have, like animated effects. That’s why we recommend this method if you want to make your recent comments page truly unique and stand out.

Note: For this tutorial, you can use the premium SeedProd version or the free SeedProd version if you are on a budget. We will use the first one because it comes with more templates and page blocks to customize the page.

First, go ahead and install the SeedProd plugin in WordPress. For more information, you can read our beginner’s guide on installing a WordPress plugin.

Next, you want to go to SeedProd » Landing Pages. After that, click the ‘+ Add New Landing Page’ button.

On the next screen, you can choose a landing page template for your recent comments page.

In this case, we will use the ‘Video Squeeze Page.’

Choosing the Video Squeeze Page template in SeedProd

Now, go ahead and give your new landing page a name and URL.

We have named our landing page ‘See Our Latest Comments’ and given it the URL ‘/latest-comments’ to keep it simple. Once you’ve completed this step, just click the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button.

You will now arrive at the page builder interface. Before you add the latest comments, you may want to customize how the page looks overall first.

For this, we recommend watching our WPBeginner video tutorial on getting started with SeedProd.

Here, we have deleted some of the elements from the original landing page template and adjusted the copy to suit the purpose of this guide.

Now, in the left-side block panel, look for the ‘Recent Comments’ widget and drag and drop it wherever is appropriate.

Finding the Recent Comments widget in SeedProd

After you drag and drop the widget to the page builder, go ahead and click on the widget itself. The left-hand panel will then show you some settings to modify how the widget looks.

In the ‘Content’ tab, you can change the title of the widget and how many comments to show. Once you are happy with it, click ‘Apply.’

Configuring Content settings of the Recent Comments widget in SeedProd

If you switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab, you’ll see more settings for the block’s typography, spacing, CSS attributes, device visibility, and animation effects.

At the top, we’ve adjusted the heading’s font size for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. This way, the text looks good no matter where it’s viewed.

Adjusting the Advanced Settings of the Recent Comments widget in SeedProd

Once you are happy with how the widget looks, you can add more blocks to the page. For example, you can add dynamic content to it, use an animated background, use a custom shape divider, and so on.

Then, when you are satisfied with the page’s design, just click the dropdown menu under the ‘Save’ button and click ‘Publish’ to make the page live.

Publishing the recent comments page made with SeedProd

Alternative: Thrive Architect is another great option for designing custom pages on your website. For more details, see our Thrive Architect review.

Tips to Optimize Your Recent Comments Page in WordPress

We’ve shown you how to display the latest comments from your WordPress posts on a separate page. Now, let’s discuss how to make your comments section even better.

One method to always moderate your comments. Remember that the Latest Comments block and the Recent Comments widget will automatically display any new comment that gets approved.

Let’s say you don’t moderate these comments, and the block unintentionally shows a harmful message sent by a user. That comment can negatively impact your brand and community.

The purpose of comment moderation is to make sure that no inappropriate or spammy comments are displayed. This way, your comment section can always be a safe space for users to share their thoughts with each other.

For step-by-step guidance, see our beginner’s guide on how to moderate comments in WordPress.

Another thing you can do is use a WordPress comment plugin. It can boost your comment engagement and make users explore more of your content.

For this, we recommend using Thrive Comments, which is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin that can improve your comment section. It comes with features to encourage quality comments and manage discussions, like comment upvotes/downvotes and likes/dislikes.

Additionally, Thrive Comments lets you add a post-comment action. After users leave a comment text, you can show them a related post, encourage them to share the blog post, or ask them to fill out a lead-generation form.

Here are some guides showing how you can use Thrive Comments in your comments section:

We hope this article has helped you learn how to create a recent comments page in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to display your top commenters in the WordPress sidebar and how to display the most accurate number of comments in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Recent Comments Page in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 9, 2024

How to Allow Your Users to Subscribe to Comments in WordPress

Do you want to allow your users to subscribe to comments in WordPress?

By subscribing to comments, users will get email alerts about any new replies. This can encourage discussion or even heated debates and get more engagement on your website.

In this article, we will show you how to allow users to subscribe to comments on your WordPress website.

Why Let Users Subscribe to Comments in WordPress?

Allowing people to comment on your WordPress blog is a great way to get more engagement. However, most of the time, users will visit your website, leave a comment, and never return.

By allowing users to subscribe to comments, they will get email alerts whenever someone comments on the same post. This will remind them about their comment and bring them back to your website.

Comment subscription also allows people to follow comment threads that generate a lot of discussions or heated debates.

Sadly, WordPress doesn’t allow visitors to subscribe to comments by default. However, you can easily add this missing feature using a WordPress plugin.

That said, let’s look at how to allow users to subscribe to comments on your WordPress website.

Allow Users to Subscribe to Comments Using Thrive Comments

The easiest way to offer a comment subscription feature is by using the Thrive Comments plugin.

It is the best WordPress comments plugin on the market. Thrive Comments is part of the Thrive Themes suite of plugins and lets users subscribe to comments with a click of a button. Plus, it includes plenty of features to improve comment interaction, including upvote/downvote, comment badges, and more.

For more details, you can see our detailed Thrive Comments review.

First, you will need to visit the Thrive Themes website and sign up for an account.

After creating an account, you can head to the account dashboard.

From here, simply click the ‘Download and install the Thrive Product Manager plugin’ link.

Next, you will need to install the Thrive Product Manager plugin on your WordPress site. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to the Product Manager option from your WordPress dashboard. Here, simply click the ‘Log into my account’ button.

Log into the Thrive Product Manager dashboard

After logging in to your account, you should see the Thrive Product Manager dashboard.

Simply navigate to the ‘Thrive Comments’ plugin, select it, and then click the ‘Install selected products’ button.

Once the plugin is installed, you will see a success message saying, ‘Ready to use’.

Next, you can click the ‘Go to the Thrive Themes Dashboard’ button.

After that, you will see all your Thrive Themes plugins installed on your site.

Simply click on the ‘Thrive Comments’ button.

Setting Up Comment Notifications in Thrive Comments

Next, you will see the Thrive Comments settings.

Go ahead and click on the ‘Notifications’ option.

After that, you will need to connect an email delivery service to send notifications to comment subscribers.

Simply click the ‘+ Add new’ button.

Next, you will need to select an email marketing service to connect with Thrive Comments.

Go ahead and click the ‘+ Add new Connection’ option.

From here, you should see a dropdown menu with different email tools.

Simply click the dropdown menu and select the email delivery service you’d like to connect.

Thrive Comments will then ask you to enter the API key or API Token for your chosen tool.

You can find the key in your email marketing tool’s dashboard or account area. Do note that the steps to retrieve the API key may be different for each service, so we recommend taking a look at their documentation.

Once you connect the email delivery tool, you will see it as an active connection.

Thrive Comments also lets you customize the comment notification and post notification.

This allows you to edit the default notification messages users will receive when they leave a comment and someone replies to their comment or when a new comment or reply is added to the specific post.

For instance, if you click the ‘Customize Comment Notification’ option, then you can edit the email subject line, content, and more.

There are also notification shortcodes that you can add to the email text, like the site title or comment author’s name.

Similarly, if you click the ‘Customize Post Notification’ option, then you can edit the email that users will get when someone leaves a comment on the thread.

Here, the plugin lets you change the text of the email and use different shortcodes to include more details in the content.

When you are done, simply save your settings by clicking on the ‘Save’ button.

Next, you can visit your WordPress website and scroll down to the comment section under any post or page. You will see the ‘Subscribe to comments’ option at the bottom.

After setting up the plugin, it’s a good idea to subscribe to a comment thread to check that WordPress is sending the emails correctly. If you don’t get any email notifications, then just check out our guide on how to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.

Bonus Tips for Managing Comments in WordPress

Now that you’ve set up a comment subscription option on your site, you can take things one step further and learn more tricks for managing comments.

For instance, you can add Google reCAPTCHA to the comment form and filter spam. Users will have to click the checkbox indicating they are not a robot or select a set of images to pass the test.

Besides that, you can also manage your comment email notifications. WordPress offers default settings to send you an email whenever someone posts a comment or a comment is held for moderation.

However, there are different WordPress plugins that allow you to send notifications to users as well. For example, you can send an email to a user when their comment is approved.

Here are some more helpful resources on WordPress comments:

We hope this article helped you allow your users to subscribe to comments in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress site and our expert picks for the best email marketing services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Allow Your Users to Subscribe to Comments in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

November 9, 2023

Beginner’s Guide on How to Moderate Comments in WordPress

Are you wondering how to moderate comments on your WordPress site?

WordPress’s built-in comment system allows your readers to engage with your content and interact with you directly. That said, some comments may contain elements that hurt your brand and your website.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to moderate comments in WordPress using the default WordPress features and some plugins.

Beginner's Guide on How to Moderate comments in WordPress

What Is Comment Moderation in WordPress?

In WordPress, comment moderation is a feature that lets users control and filter the comments submitted on their websites.

With comment moderation, you can approve, edit, remove, or mark comments as spam before they appear publicly on your site.

While comments can build your website engagement, they can also pose a significant risk to your WordPress security.

Harmful comments usually come from spambots. These bots can fill the comment section with irrelevant or repetitive messages. As a result, it may be hard for real visitors to find and interact with each other.

Additionally, spam comments may have malicious links that redirect users to phishing websites or spread viruses by encouraging users to download dangerous files onto their devices.

Without comment moderation, your website can provide a poor user experience for your readers. It can also negatively impact your WordPress SEO.

If your site is filled with spammy comments, it can affect your site’s credibility and trustworthiness, leading to lower search engine rankings.

Whenever you build a new WordPress site, the default WordPress comment system will be active. Your blog post will have a comment form displayed at the bottom. Note that it may look different or not appear depending on the WordPress theme you are using.

Generally, anyone with a valid name and email can leave a comment without verifying their identity. However, it doesn’t mean the comment will get approved automatically.

Instead, they will see a preview of it and a message that the comment awaits moderation. This means the website owner will decide whether to approve or delete the comment.

What a comment awaiting moderation looks like on a WordPress website

This basic setting is good enough to filter genuine comments from harmful ones. But there’s actually a lot more that you can do to keep your WordPress blog safe.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how you can moderate comments on your WordPress website. You can use these quick links to jump between the different sections:

Basics of Moderating WordPress Comments
How to Configure the WordPress Comment Settings
How to Moderate Comments Using Thrive Comments Plugin (Recommended)
How to Allow Specific Users to Moderate Comments in WordPress
How to Disable Comments for Specific Posts in WordPress
How to Filter Spam Comments With Akismet

Basics of Moderating WordPress Comments

You can see all comments on your WordPress website by clicking on the ‘Comments’ menu in the WordPress dashboard.

Opening the Comments menu on the WordPress admin panel

To learn more about the Comments page, you can check out our glossary entry on WordPress comments.

In this guide, we will talk more about what you should do when you receive a comment and what factors to look for when moderating it.

First, let’s cover some basics. When moderating comments, you should look for the following signs:

A bunch of links, keywords, and strange characters – This is the most obvious type of spam comment. Be careful of clicking any links here, as they could contain inappropriate content in the comment or even viruses.
Suspicious or generic names – If you see a comment left by a user named ‘Best Mortgage Rates’ or ‘Cheap Printer Ink,’ then it may be a marketer trying to spam your site for a backlink.
Generic messages – Often, spammers rely on generic comments to bypass your spam filter. Examples include Thank You, Really Nice Article, or a generic statement with your post title. It might also be something like, “I agree, beginner’s guide to comment moderation is essential.”
Offensive language – It’s important for WordPress bloggers to create a respectful space for their audience. Otherwise, you may risk making certain readers uncomfortable.

Now, let’s look at the different comment action links, which will appear when you hover your cursor over a comment. There is Approve, Reply, Quick Edit, Edit, History, Spam, and Trash.

To accept a comment, you can click on the ‘Approve’ button. This will make the comment publicly visible on your website.

If you want to let users know that their comment is live, read our guide on how to notify users when their comment is approved in WordPress.

To mark a comment as spam, you can click the ‘Spam’ button. It will move the comment to the Spam tab on the Comments page.

If a user complains that their comments are not appearing on your website, then this is the first place you should look. You can go to the ‘Spam’ tab and click the ‘Not Spam’ button below the comment.

Marking a comment as Not Spam on WordPress

You can also click on the ‘Empty Spam’ button to delete all spam comments at once. Even if you don’t, WordPress will automatically delete spam comments after 15 days.

If you find a comment in the All tab that is not necessarily spam but may be harmful to you and your readers, you can click the ‘Trash’ button. This will add the comment to the Trash tab.

Comments in the Trash will stay there for the next 30 days. After this time, WordPress will automatically delete them forever.

If you accidentally deleted a comment, then simply visit the ‘Trash’ tab and click on the ‘Restore’ link below the comment.

Restoring a WordPress comment from Trash

If you want to delete or mark multiple comments as spam, then you can use the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu at the top of the comment list.

Note that doing this may cause your website to slow down while it processes all the comments.

Marking multiple comments as spam using the Bulk action option in WordPress

For more information, you can check out our guide on how to batch-delete spam comments in WordPress.

You can respond to a comment by clicking on the ‘Reply’ link. Once you’ve inserted your response, just click ‘Approve and Reply.’

Note that replying to a comment automatically approves it as well.

Approving and replying to a WordPress comment

The Quick Edit and Edit buttons work similarly. You can use either setting if you want to make the comment’s language clearer for visitors.

The difference is that, with Edit, you will be redirected to the Edit Comment page. With Quick Edit, you can modify the comment right on the Comments page like this:

Selecting the Quick Edit option on a WordPress comment

If you click the ‘History’ button, then you will see all the actions that have been done to the comment.

This feature can be helpful if you work with a team. It can help you track changes and understand how other people moderate comments on your site.

Reviewing the history of a WordPress comment

How to Configure the WordPress Comment Settings

We’ve covered the basics of moderating WordPress comments. We will now discuss the built-in WordPress comment settings, which will help you filter and control what kind of comments will appear on your website.

The comments settings page is located at Settings » Discussion. There are different sections on the discussion settings page, and we will walk you through each option on the page.

Default post settings

The Default post settings offer three options to manage interactions and comments on your WordPress site:

The first option allows your blog to notify other blogs when you link to them in an article. The second option accepts notifications when they link to your articles.

These notifications are called pingbacks and trackbacks, and we recommend you uncheck both of these options. The first option can slow down your entire site, and the second option could bring you a lot of spam comments.

The third option on the article settings screen is ‘Allow people to post comments on new posts.’ It enables comments for all new articles you write on your WordPress blog.

Alternatively, you can turn comments on and off for individual articles, which we will show you later.

Other comment settings

In this section, you will notice the first option is ‘Comment author must fill out name and email.’ This option makes it mandatory for comment authors to provide a name and email address with their comments.

You need to check this option unless you want to allow anonymous commenting on your website.

There is also an option to require users to register on your site before leaving a comment. However, in our opinion, it’s not necessary for most sites as it may discourage new users from interacting with your post.

You will also see the option for closing comments on older articles. Some website owners use this to prevent spam, but it’s completely a personal preference.

Next is the ‘Show comments cookies opt-in checkbox, allowing comment author cookies to be set.’ Checking this box will let your website save the commenter’s name, email, and website details for when they want to comment on your post in the future.

Sometimes, WordPress comments can become a long thread that is difficult to keep track of. In this case, we recommend ticking the ‘Enable threaded (nested) comments’ option so that replies to specific comments appear directly beneath the original comment.

Having too many nested comments can negatively affect your page’s readability. The default setting of 5 levels is good enough for most WordPress websites.

If one of your articles becomes popular and gets too many comments, then the comment section will become too long. Users will have to scroll a lot to read the latest comments on the article.

To address this problem, you can check the option to break comments into pages. You can also use the dropdown menu to select whether to show the last or first comment page by default.

The last option is to display your most recent or oldest comments first. If you want to learn more about this, then you can read our guide on how to rearrange comments in WordPress.

‘Email me whenever’ and ‘Before a comment appears’

The next section allows you to receive email notifications whenever a user leaves a new comment on your site or a comment is held for moderation.

As you get more comments, these emails may become annoying, so we recommend turning the comment notifications off.

In the ‘Before a comment appears’ section, the first option is to approve each comment manually. Make sure this box is checked so that no comment can appear on your site without your approval.

Below this, you will see the ‘Comment author must have a previously approved comment’ option.

If this option is checked, then comments from authors with a previously approved comment will appear without explicit approval. Simply uncheck this option to make sure that all comments are manually approved.

Comment Moderation

As we’ve discussed before, a common trait among automated spam comments is that they contain a lot of links.

If you have already set your comments to be manually approved, then all your comments will go to the moderation queue regardless of how many links they have. If not, then you can specify to hold a comment in the queue if it contains a certain number of links.

You will also see a larger text area where you can enter words, IP addresses, email addresses, URLs, or browser information that you want to watch out for.

Any comment matching the things you enter here will be sent to the moderation queue.

Again, if you decide to have all comments manually approved, then you don’t need to do anything, as they are all going to the moderation queue anyway.

Disallowed Comment Keys

This setting used to be called the Comment Blocklist in WordPress 5.4. Here, you can set specific words that will automatically move the comment to Trash if used in a comment’s content, author name, URL, email, IP address, or browser information.

Make sure to use this feature carefully because real comments may get removed by mistake.

Avatars

The last section on the Comments Settings screen is Avatars. These are the images that appear next to the comment author’s name on your website.

WordPress uses Gravatar, which is a free service that allows users to use the same avatar on all the blogs they visit. For more details, please see our guide on what Gravatar is.

We recommend checking the ‘Show Avatars’ box to make it easy to identify the different commenters on your post. You can also select the maximum rating of Gravatar that can be displayed on your blog.

WordPress uses Mystery Person as the default Gravatar when a comment author doesn’t have an image associated with their email address. You can change this by selecting a default avatar from the list or even adding your own custom default gravatar in WordPress.

That’s it! You have configured your comment settings. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Clicking the 'Save Changes' button on the WordPress Discussion settings page

How to Moderate Comments Using Thrive Comments Plugin (Recommended)

The default WordPress comment system is good, but it can be pretty basic. For access to more comment management and engagement settings, you can install a WordPress comment plugin.

These plugins can not only improve comment moderation but also significantly boost your comment engagement. As a result, your visitors can enjoy a more engaging and safe commenting experience.

Thrive Comments is one of the best plugins to keep comments in check for a great user experience while encouraging user interaction.

For example, with the Comment Conversion feature, you can direct commenters to a custom thank-you page, social sharing buttons, or a related post so that they can discover more of your content.

To use Thrive Comments, you can purchase it as an individual plugin or get the complete Thrive Themes Suite. This comes with all Thrive products, including Thrive Ovation, which can turn your comments into testimonials for your web pages in one click.

Once you have completed your payment, you will get a plugin zip package to install on your WordPress site. For more information, read our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once installed, you will now see a ‘Thrive Comments Moderation’ menu under the Comments tab on the admin panel. Here’s what the page looks like:

Opening the Thrive Comments Moderation page on WordPress

The interface looks similar to the built-in Comments section. However, there are several differences.

This interface now includes the ‘Unreplied’ and ‘Pending my reply’ tabs.

The first tab collects all comments that have not been replied to. Meanwhile, the second tab has all the comments that have been assigned to you by the website admin so that you can respond to them.

The Thrive Comments Moderation tabs and search menu

Additionally, you can filter comments by page by entering the page name in the ‘View comments on’ field.

If you want to look for specific comments, then you can type in a term from the comment into the ‘Search in comments’ field.

You also get more comment action links. Besides approving, removing, editing, and marking comments as spam, you can click the ‘Delegate’ button to assign a comment to another user.

This feature is handy if you run a WordPress blog with multiple writers.

Clicking the 'Delegate' button on a comment using the Thrive Comments plugin

If you click the ‘More’ button, then you will see the ‘Feature’ option. Selecting it will pin a comment to the top of the comment list on a blog post.

This way, important or noteworthy comments stay visible and easily accessible to all readers. All pinned comments can be found in the ‘Featured’ tab.

Clicking the 'Feature' option in the Thrive Comments plugin

For more details, you can see our guide on how to feature or bury comments in WordPress.

If you want to look at your entire comment activity, then just click the ‘Reports’ button at the top of the page.

You will be redirected to the Comments graph, which is a handy tool for evaluating your user engagement.

Clicking the Reports button on the Thrive Comments Moderation page

Here, you can see a timeline overview of all the comments you’ve received, approved, replied to, featured, marked as spam, and removed.

This is what the graph looks like on our testing site:

You can also filter the comment activity using the options at the top. With ‘Show report,’ you can check out different types of reports. Or fill out the blog post title in the ‘View comments on’ field to see a comment graph from a specific post.

With the ‘Date interval’ option, you can change the time period of the graph. On the other hand, the ‘Graph interval’ setting lets you see the graph from a Daily, Weekly, or Monthly perspective.

The different filtering options in the Thrive Comments Reports page

How to Allow Specific Users to Moderate Comments in WordPress

Let’s say you work with a team to run your WordPress website, and you get a lot of comments every day. In this situation, you may want to grant comment moderation access to certain user roles only.

Doing this will let you assign comment moderation responsibilities to relevant team members best suited for the task, like a community manager.

This method not only helps you manage comments better but also keeps your WordPress site secure by allowing only the right users to access comments.

You can allow specific users to moderate WordPress comments in two ways: with the Thrive Comments plugin and the Comment Moderation Role plugin. Let’s take a look at each method.

Thrive Comments

To access the Thrive Comments’ moderation settings, go to Thrive Dashboard » Thrive Comments on your WordPress dashboard. Then, simply navigate to the ‘Comment Moderation’ tab.

At the top, you can check off which user roles can moderate comments.

Feel free to also turn on/off the ‘Exclude comments from moderators in the moderation dashboard’ setting as well.

Enabling it will make comments from moderators invisible on the Thrive Comments dashboard. This can help maintain a clear overview of user comments.

The rest of the settings in this tab are the same as the ones you will find on the Settings » Discussion page. If you make changes to these settings in this menu, then they will also be reflected in the default WordPress comment settings.

Comment Moderation Role

WordPress doesn’t offer a default user role that’s dedicated to moderating comments. For this, you can use the Comment Moderation Role plugin.

The plugin is created by our team at WPBeginner, and it allows you to give certain users the role of ‘WPB Comment Moderator.’ Then the assigned user will only see the comment moderation screen in WordPress.

You can assign the WPB Comment Moderator role to existing and new users. For more details, please see our guide on how to allow blog users to moderate comments in WordPress.

If you use Thrive Comments, then you will also see the WPB Comment Moderator role in the Comment Moderation tab, like so:

The WPB Comment Moderator role in Thrive Comments

How to Disable Comments for Specific Posts in WordPress

If you want to close comments on certain posts, then WordPress lets you disable them.

On your WordPress dashboard, simply go to Posts » All Posts. Then, click the ‘Quick Edit’ button for any blog post.

Clicking the 'Quick Edit' button on a WordPress post

After that, just uncheck the ‘Allow Comments’ option.

Then, click ‘Update.’ The comment section will no longer be visible on the blog post.

Disabling comments using the WordPress Quick Edit function

It’s also possible to disable comments on multiple posts simultaneously. All you need to do is check the blog posts and select ‘Edit’ in the ‘Bulk action’ dropdown menu.

Then, go ahead and click ‘Apply.’

Bulk selecting WordPress posts to be edited

From here, you can change the Comments option to ‘Do not allow.’

After that, simply click the ‘Update’ button.

Disabling comments in bulk using the WordPress post Edit function

Finally, you can close the comment section while editing a blog post in the WordPress Block Editor. Simply go to the ‘Discussion’ box from the ‘Post’ settings menu on the right panel.

If you have done that, you can uncheck the ‘Allow comments’ box.

Disabling the comment section on an individual WordPress post

If you want to remove the comment section for good, then just see our guide on how to completely disable comments in WordPress.

How to Filter Spam Comments With Akismet

To filter spam comments on your WordPress website, you can use Akismet. It’s a spam-filtering WordPress plugin developed by Automattic. This anti-spam plugin usually comes installed with your WordPress installation.

For more details, you can check out our guide on what Akismet is and why you should use it.

Once you mark a comment as spam, Akismet will learn to catch similar comments in the future.

If, for some reason, you have hundreds of spam comments in the ‘Pending’ tab, then simply click on the ‘Check for Spam’ button.

This will trigger a spam check on existing comments on your website, and Akismet will move the spam comments from Pending to Spam.

Clicking the 'Check for Spam' button on the WordPress Comments page

One way to combat spam comments further is by removing the URL field in the comment form. To do that, you can read our guide on how to remove the website URL field from the WordPress comment form.

We hope this article helped you learn how to moderate comments in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to make blog post comments searchable and our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins to grow your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Beginner’s Guide on How to Moderate Comments in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 23, 2023

How to Easily Lazy Load Comments in WordPress (No Code Method)

Do you want to lazy load WordPress comments to improve page speed?

Many popular blogs and news sites are using lazy loading to hide comments on their articles. This improves website performance because the comment section isn’t loaded until the user scrolls to the bottom of the article or clicks a button.

In this article, we will show you how to easily lazy load comments in WordPress.

Why Lazy Load WordPress Comments?

Comments are great for user engagement, and there are many ways to get more comments on your WordPress blog posts.

However, comments can also increase the page size. This can increase your page load time and hurt the user experience by making users wait longer to see content on your WordPress site.

Speed is an extremely important performance metric. It affects user experience and your site’s SEO performance as well. You can see our ultimate guide to boost WordPress speed and performance for more details.

By not loading comments right away, you can significantly improve page load times for your articles. Lazy loading also improves the user experience on slower internet connections and smaller screens, such as mobile devices.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily add lazy load for WordPress comments.

How to Lazy Load WordPress Comments

First, you need to install and activate the Lazy Load for Comments plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Settings » Discussion page to configure the plugin.

Select how you want to lazy load comments in WordPress

Simply scroll down to the ‘Lazy Load Comments’ section and select your lazy load method. The plugin offers two methods to lazy load comments on your WordPress website.

You can select the ‘On Click’ method, which adds a button at the end of your articles, allowing users to click and load comments.

You can also choose the ‘On Scroll’ method, which automatically loads comments as a user scrolls down to the end of a post.

Then, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Testing Lazy Load Comments on Your WordPress Website

You can now visit any post on your WordPress blog. The way that the comment section looks now will depend on the lazy load method you selected.

If you chose ‘On Scroll’, then scrolling to the bottom of the article will automatically load the WordPress comments section so you can leave a comment and view existing comments.

Animation of Lazy Load Comments on Scroll

However, if you picked ‘On Click’, then you will see a ‘Load Comments’ button instead.

Clicking on the button will load the existing comments and comment form.

Animation of Lazy Load Comments on Click

Bonus: Improve Comment Interaction With Thrive Comments

Lazy loading comments is just one way to provide a better user experience in your WordPress comments section. You can also use a comments plugin to further boost user engagement.

For example, you can take the comment experience on your website to the next level using Thrive Comments.

This plugin will enable your users to like or dislike comments. This allows visitors to engage with your site without needing to leave comments of their own.

Add the upvote/downvote feature to your comments using Thrive Comments

This is one way you can make your WordPress website more like Reddit. You can even award badges to your commenters automatically when they reach certain milestones.

This plugin makes managing comments easier for your team as well. You can use its comment moderation dashboard to quickly reply, delete, and even assign comments to other admins.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily lazy load comments in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress and our expert pick of the best social proof plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Easily Lazy Load Comments in WordPress (No Code Method) first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 21, 2022

How to Create a Reddit-Like Website with WordPress

Do you want to create a Reddit-like website with WordPress?

Reddit is one of the largest online communities on the internet with more than 52 million active users. Making your own site like Reddit can help you build your own successful online community.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a Reddit-like website with WordPress.

Here is an overview of the topics we’ll cover in this guide.

Why Make a Reddit Like Website with WordPress?
What You Need to Build a Reddit Like Website with WordPress
Choosing a Reddit-Style Theme for Your Website
Adding Upvotes and Downvotes like Reddit in WordPress
Allowing Users to Submit Posts on Your Website
Adding Post Ratings to WordPress Posts
Growing Your Reddit-Like Website to The Next Level

Ready? Let’s get started.

Why Make a Reddit Like Website with WordPress?

Reddit is the 9th most visited website in the world with a massive daily active userbase of more than 52 million users.

It is a popular news aggregation, content curation, and social networking platform. It is home to many user-managed communities called subreddits on almost every topic under the sun.

If you are building an online community, then Reddit can be used as an example of how to build user engagement and grow your WordPress website.

You can add user engagement features like upvoting and downvoting, discussions, content submission, social sharing and more to your WordPress website to create a Reddit like community.

Since Reddit is custom-coded by a team of professional developers, you may not be able to create an exact Reddit clone. However, you can copy all the features that make Reddit so engaging and apply them to your own website.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily build a Reddit like website with WordPress.

What You Need to Build a Reddit Like Website with WordPress

First, you need to make sure that you are using the right website builder platform to build your website.

There are two types of WordPress software. First there’s WordPress.org, which is also known as self-hosted WordPress. Then you have WordPress.com, which is a website hosting service.

You need WordPress.org because it gives you instant access to all the tools you’ll need to make a Reddit-like website. For more details, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com.

To get started, you’ll need the following items:

A web hosting account (this is where your website files will be stored)
A domain name (this will be your website’s address e.g. wpbeginner.com)
Community building addons for WordPress (discussions, post submissions, upvoting, badges, and more)

Normally, a web hosting account costs $7.99 per month (usually paid annually) and a domain name costs $14.99 per year.

Plus, you’ll need to buy premium plugins which may cost from $47 to $300 depending on which features you want to add to your website.

Now that’s a lot of money to start your Reddit-like website, particularly if you are just starting out on a limited budget.

Luckily, folks at Bluehost have agreed to offer WPBeginner users a generous discount on hosting with a free domain name. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

To sign up, simply visit the Bluehost website and click on the Get Started Now button.

Next, you will be asked to choose a hosting plan.

Many beginners start with Basic or Plus plan.

Click to select a plan and continue.

On the next screen, you’ll be asked to choose a domain name for your website.

Next, you will need to finalize the package by choosing how many months you’d like to purchase up front.

We typically recommend unchecking the extra addons since you can always add them later if needed.

After that, you can enter your payment information and finish the purchase.

You’ll then receive an email with a link to log in to your hosting account dashboard.

You’ll notice that Bluehost has automatically installed WordPress for you.

You can simply click on the ‘Log into WordPress’ button to enter your WordPress dashboard.

Choosing a Theme for Your Reddit-Style Website

The default WordPress theme does not look anything like Reddit.

However, there are several WordPress themes that you can use to create a WordPress blog that looks similar to Reddit.

It’s important to know that WordPress themes are responsible for how your website looks, but it’s not responsible for all the functionality. It is ok to use a theme that doesn’t have any of Reddit’s community engagement features because we’ll use plugins to add those features.

When you’re choosing a theme, it’s best to focus on the style and layout instead of any included features.

Now, there are a ton of premium and free WordPress themes to choose from. This abundance of choices can make it a bit overwhelming for a new user to pick one.

We recommend looking for a simple theme with lots of white space. This allows you to easily customize your theme.

Our top recommended theme is Astra because it’s fast-loading, customizable, and comes with dozens of starter templates you can use to customize your design.

Or, if you already have a specific layout in mind, you might want to consider creating a custom WordPress theme (no code method) using the drag & drop SeedProd builder.

It comes with 400+ pre-made layouts that you can use to get started, but it also has a custom theme builder that lets you build a fully custom website without any code.

Need more inspiration? Take a look at our staff picks for the best WordPress themes:

Need help picking up a theme? See our tutorial on how to choose the perfect theme for your website.

Adding Upvotes and Downvotes like Reddit in WordPress

WordPress comes with a built-in comment system. Similar to Reddit’s discussions, it allows users to easily leave comments on a post.

However, the default WordPress comment system is quite basic and doesn’t have any of Reddit’s user engagement features like upvotes or downvotes, social sharing, gamification with badges and rewards, and more.

Let’s change that by adding all the missing functionality with one plugin.

First, you need to install and activate the Thrive Comments plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon signing up, you’ll be able to download Thrive Downloads Manager plugin. It is a tool that will help you easily download and install Thrive Comments from your WordPress dashboard.

After installation, the plugin will automatically connect and validate your license.

Next, you need to visit the Thrive Dashboard » Thrive Comments page to configure your comment settings.

You’ll see comment options organized under different sections in the left column with a preview of comments in the right column.

You can start by clicking on the General Settings tab and enabling Thrive Comments across your website.

Next, you would want to enable comment voting and badges functionality. Click on the Voting and Badges tab to expand those sections.

First, you need to choose what kind of voting you would like to display. The plugin allows you to choose from up and down vote, up vote only, or no voting options.

Below that you can set up badges for active commenters. Similar to Reddit’s badges, these are rewards for your most active community members to encourage them to contribute.

Click on the Add New Badge button to select a badge.

The plugin comes with a built-in icon set that you can use for comment badges.

You can also upload your own icons if you prefer.

You can reward badges based on number of comments, comment replies, featured comments, or upvotes received.

Want to customize the comment box style and appearance? Simply switch to the Customize Style tab where you can choose your own colors, default blank avatar, and date and time settings.

Thrive comments is a powerful plugin. You can review all the different options under the plugin settings and configure them however you like.

Once you are finished, you can go to any post or page on your website to see the new comments in action.

Now in order to run a successful online community, you would want to actively moderate comments.

Thrive Comments come with a comment moderation dashboard too.

Unlike default WordPress comment moderation tools, this interface helps you quickly answer comments, assign them to team members for follow-ups, feature a comment, and more.

Need help getting more comments on your Reddit like website? See our tutorial on how to get more comments to your blog posts in WordPress with tested and practical tips.

Allowing Users to Post Content on Your Website

Another important functionality of Reddit that you can easily add to your WordPress website is allowing users to submit content.

Luckily, WordPress has some excellent tools that make it super easy for you to manage user-submitted posts.

We’ll be using WPForms here, which is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market used by over 5 million websites. It comes with user-submitted posts add-on that makes it super easy to accept user-generated content on your website.

Plus, it has login and user registration forms addon which allow users to login from the front-end of your website.

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You’ll need at least their Pro plan to unlock the user-submitted posts feature.

Upon activation, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your plugin license key. You can find this information under your account on the WPForms website.

Next, head over to the WPForms » Addons page and look for the Post Submissions addon.

You can use the search or scroll down to the addon and then click on the Install Addon button next to it.

WPForms will now install and activate the Post Submission Addon for you.

After that, go to WPForms » Add New to create your content submission form. First, you need to provide a title for your form and then choose the Blog Post Submission Form template.

WPForms will now load the form builder interface with all the required fields to create a blog post submission form.

You will see your form preview in the right column. From here, you can simply click on any field to edit it or add new fields from the left column.

Once you are satisfied with the post submission form, you can switch to the Settings tab.

From here, you can map form fields to the blog post fields. You can also set up notifications for yourself and users informing them about the next steps.

Once you are satisfied with the settings, click on the Save button to save your form and exit the form builder.

You can now create new post or page where you want to add the form. You can also edit an existing post or page.

On the edit screen, simply add the WPForms block to the content area and select the form you created earlier in the drop down menu.

After that, you can continue editing the page. For instance, you can add tips and guidelines for users about what kind of content they can submit.

Once you are finished, don’t forget to publish or update to save your changes. You can now preview this post or page to see your submission form in action.

You can now add a link or button to your WordPress navigation menu so that users can easily submit articles and stories to your website.

Allow Users to Vote and Rate Posts

Reddit allows users to upvote a story, link, or item. Then it shows the top-rated content in more prominent locations.

This enables Redditors to participate without creating content, while also curating different content areas based on what’s trending.

You can bring some of that functionality to your WordPress website as well by adding a post rating feature.

First, you need to install and activate the Rate My Post plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Rate My Post » Settings page to configure the plugin settings.

To automatically add post ratings to your posts, turn on the ‘Add rating widget to all posts’ and ‘Add result widget to all posts’ option.

After that, you can review other plugin options. The default settings would work for most websites.

Don’t forget to click on the Save Settings button to store your changes.

You can now visit your website and the plugin will show post rating stars next to each article.

You can also manually manipulate post ratings to build the initial momentum before your website gets very active.

Simply edit a post and scroll down below the post editor. In the ‘Rate my Post Ratings’ box, you can enter your own rating to start with.

The plugin also comes with a Top Rated Posts widget.

You can add it to a sidebar or any widget-ready area.

You can choose number of posts, minimum rating and votes in widget settings. Don’t forget to Update and save your widget settings.

Here is how it looked on our test website.

Once your site has active members, you might also want to display your most commented posts or show recent comments in your widget areas.

Growing Your Reddit-Like Website to the Next Level

The best thing about WordPress is that there are a ton of free and paid plugins that you can use to add more Reddit-like features to your website.

Here we’ll mention additional tools and plugins that you can use to grow and take your Reddit like website to the next level.

1. Create Members-Only Content and Sell Subscriptions

Just like Reddit Premium, you can also create a premium subscription plan on your WordPress website by using MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin and allows you to easily sell online subscriptions.

With powerful access control, you can limit certain areas of your website to members only.

2. Add a Forum to Your Reddit Clone

You can use bbPress to add a lightweight forum to your online community. See our article on how to create a forum in WordPress.

3. Track User Activity Across your Website

Want to see where your users are coming from and what they do on your website? MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market.

It allows you to easily view your top content and track conversions and user engagement on your website.

4. Improve Your Website SEO from Day One

SEO (search engine optimization) plays a key role in the success of websites with tons of user generated content. You need to start optimizing your website for SEO from day one if you want to get the most traffic possible and grow your userbase.

For this, you’ll need All in One SEO for WordPress. It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and helps you easily optimize your website like a pro.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily create a Reddit like website with WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on bringing more traffic to your new site, or see our pick of the essential WordPress plugins to grow your business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Reddit-Like Website with WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 21, 2022October 30, 2023

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts (Easy Method)

Are you looking for an easy way to move comments between WordPress posts?

You might be writing a new version of a post and plan to redirect it from the original post. Redirects are great for avoiding broken links and preserving your WordPress SEO, but the original comments won’t be moved to the new post.

In this article, we will show you how to easily move comments between WordPress posts.

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts

Why Move Comments Between WordPress Posts?

By default, any comments you get on your WordPress site are attached to a specific post or page and can’t be moved.

However, sometimes, you might need to move comments to another post or page.

For example, you might decide to combine several posts together into a new post and then delete the individual ones. Or you may decide that a post would work better recreated as a page or vice versa.

Redirecting those deleted posts is good for your website’s search engine optimization, but it won’t save the comments.

In these scenarios, it would be helpful to move comments from one post or page to a new one instead of losing them or having to recreate them all manually.

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts

You can easily move comments between WordPress posts using the free Copy or Move Comments plugin.

Note: We recommend making a backup of your site before moving the comments since it can’t be reversed. See our expert pick of the best backup plugins for WordPress to get started.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Copy or Move Comments plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, click on Copy/Move Comments in the WordPress sidebar.

This WordPress plugin lets you choose between moving or copying comments.

If you choose ‘Copy,’ then it will duplicate all of the original comments and then add them to the new page or post.

When you copy the comments, the original comments won’t be deleted. This means you will end up with duplicate comments on your WordPress blog.

If you choose ‘Move’, then the plugin will delete the original ‘source’ comments and then add them to the new ‘target’ page or post. This helps you avoid duplicate content.

Once you have made your decision, open the Action dropdown. You can now select either ‘Copy’ or ‘Move’.

Choosing whether to copy or move comments between WordPress posts

Your next task is choosing the Source. This is the location from where you want to copy your comments.

To get started, click on the ‘Source’ dropdown.

You can now choose the post type. For example, if you wanted to copy comments from a specific WordPress post, then you would choose ‘post’.

Next, click on the ‘Select Post’ dropdown. Depending on your selection, this will show all of your pages or all of your posts.

You can now simply click to select the page or post that you want to use as your source.

Selecting a source WordPress page or post

The next step is opening the ‘Select Comment Type’ dropdown.

You can choose whether you want to see comments that have replies or ‘Single’ comments. These are comments that have no replies.

The plugin will show all of the comments that fit your criteria.

Now, you can simply click to select every comment that you want to move or copy. If you want to move all of the comments, then you can click on the checkbox at the top of the column to select them all at once.

Your next task is to tell the plugin where it should move these comments to.

To do this, scroll down to the Target section at the bottom. After that, open the ‘Select Post Type’ dropdown and choose the destination’s post type.

Next, click on the ‘Select Post’ dropdown.

Here, you can choose your target, which is the post or page where you want to move these comments to.

After choosing your target, just click on the ‘Perform Action’ button.

The plugin will now move or copy all of the selected comments to this page.

If you check out the target page or post, you will see that all of your comments have been added to this page.

It’s also worth checking the source page or post. If you chose ‘Copy’, then you should still see all of your original comments. However, if you chose ‘Move’, then all of the original comments should have vanished from this page or post.

After moving your comments, you may want to change the order in which WordPress displays these comments. By showing newer comments first, you can keep the conversation fresh and get more comments on your WordPress blog.

You can learn how to do this in our step-by-step guide on how to display the most recent comments first in WordPress.

Bonus: Improve WordPress Comments Using Thrive Comments

Now that you know how to move comments to a different post, you might be wondering how to improve your comments section in other ways. The best way to do that is with Thrive Comments, which is a powerful and easy-to-use WordPress comments plugin.

It can save your team time with its flexible comment moderation features. Besides being able to approve comments or mark them as spam, you can also feature positive comments and even mark them as testimonials that can be displayed somewhere else on your website.

You can show appreciation to your commenters by displaying a message or redirecting them to a Thank You page. You can also award your commenters badges when they reach certain milestones.

Another benefit of this plugin is that you let your users upvote comments by clicking Like and Dislike buttons. This can create a sense of community and increase user engagement without users needing to leave a comment of their own.

We hope this article helped you learn how to move comments between WordPress posts. You may also want to see our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress website or our expert pick of the best WordPress comments plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts (Easy Method) first appeared on WPBeginner.

August 6, 2021February 5, 2024

16 Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments (2024)

Are you looking for the best plugins to improve WordPress comments?

Comments can help boost user engagement and build a community. The default WordPress commenting system is good, but it’s quite basic. Luckily, there are tons of plugins that can help you create a more engaging comment section.

In this article, we will show you some of the best WordPress comment plugins to improve the default comment section and get more interaction on your site.

Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments

Why Should You Use WordPress Comment Plugins?

On its own, the native WordPress comment system includes some basic functions for users to leave blog comments and reply to other people’s comments.

While this is helpful, there’s room for improvement. If you are a WordPress blogger looking to build an audience, then you will need additional tools to make commenting on your blog more fun, exciting, and user-friendly.

You may need tools to keep spam comments at bay and prevent malicious links from endangering your users. Or, you may want to redirect the commenter to a relevant page to keep them on your website for longer.

We tested these plugins: When choosing the plugins for this showcase, we installed each tool on our test site to explore its pros, cons, and features. This allowed us to recommend only the very best WordPress comment plugins.

With that in mind, let’s look at the best plugins to improve your WordPress comments and optimize the user experience.

1. Thrive Comments

Out of all the comment plugins we’ve tried, Thrive Comments by Thrive Themes is the best. It has everything you need to improve your comments, from an easy moderation feature to post-comment actions that can turn commenters into leads or customers.

Thrive Comments comes with a built-in, keyboard-controlled comment moderation dashboard. With this, you can quickly reply, delete, and even assign comments to other admins, a feature unavailable in the native WordPress commenting system.

When users leave a comment, you can redirect them to a specific URL, show them a related post, or display an email opt-in form using Thrive Leads. It’s a great way to improve your user engagement metrics.

Pros of Thrive Comments:

Keyboard-controlled moderation feature for you to quickly manage comments and even assign them to other admins.
Post-comment actions to make users stay on your website for longer.
Comment engagement features like upvotes/downvotes, likes/dislikes, and reward badges.
Allows users to subscribe to a post’s comments in case they get replies.

Cons of Thrive Comments:

No free version available.

Why we chose Thrive Comments: If you are looking for the best, overall WordPress comment plugin, then look no further than Thrive Comments. It has all the features needed to build an engaged and interactive community on your WordPress site.

2. Comment Moderation Role by WPBeginner

Comment Moderation Role by WPBeginner plugin banner

Do you work in a team and want to let a specific user moderate comments in WordPress? Then check out Comment Moderation Role by WPBeginner. It’s a simple plugin that creates a new ‘WPB Comment Moderator’ user role in WordPress.

Any user with this role can log in to your WordPress website and moderate comments without accessing other areas of your admin.

This is perfect if you have a support team or staff members who are responsible for moderating comments, but these people don’t need unrestricted access to your entire WordPress admin area.

WPB Comment Moderator role in WordPress admin

Pros of Comment Moderation Role:

Completely free plugin.
No complex setup is needed. Just install the WordPress plugin and the role will be added for you.
Grants access to the WordPress Comments page only and nowhere else to keep your site secure.

Cons of Comment Moderation Role:

This plugin has a very specific function, so it’s not suitable if you are looking for a comment plugin with lots of different features.

Why we chose Comment Moderation Role: If you want a no-frills plugin to add a specific user role for moderating comments, then this plugin is your best solution. Once installed, you can immediately change a user’s role to WPB Comment Moderator.

3. SearchWP

If your blog posts get tons of comment threads, then that’s great for your user engagement. But at times, users may want to look through these long comments to find the information they need.

Meet SearchWP, a WordPress search engine plugin that can make navigating your website much easier. Besides creating a search function to discover pages or posts, SearchWP can also make blog comments searchable.

How to make your WordPress blog comments searchable

SearchWP offers several ways to add a search form through the Modular Search Form add-on: your navigation menu, a Gutenberg block, or a shortcode. You can use the last two to add a search function right above the comment section in your single post template.

Pros of SearchWP:

Multiple ways to add the search engine: using a menu, Gutenberg block, or shortcode.
Multiple search engine support so that you can make one search engine for your entire website and another specifically for your blog post comments.
The applicable attribute relevance feature ensures accurate search results when visitors use the search engine.
Search analytics allows you to see which terms users look for the most when they use your search engine.

Cons of SearchWP:

While the Modular Search Form plugin is free, the SearchWP plugin itself is not.

Why we chose SearchWP: If you want to improve your comment section with a search feature, then SearchWP makes this super easy to do. As you get more blog comments, you may need to make them searchable so that users can easily find the right information.

4. Uncanny Automator

You will find many plugins on this list that let you optimize your built-in comment section, but what happens after users leave comments? That’s what Uncanny Automator is for.

Maybe besides sending an email notification, you also want to send an SMS notification to users with their comment replies. Or maybe you want to send them a coupon to thank them for leaving comments.

With Uncanny Automator, you can easily create automated workflows for those scenarios on your WordPress site. These workflows can save you time and give the people who visit your website a better experience.

An example of creating a post-comment action with Uncanny Automator

Pros of Uncanny Automator:

Beginner-friendly drag-and-drop workflow builder, making it easy to design your automation.
Hundreds of customization options to tweak your workflow, with 620+ triggers, 430+ actions, and 60+ conditions.
150+ plugin and app integrations so that you can create comment-related workflows for any purpose.
A free plugin is available.

Cons of Uncanny Automator:

If you use a paid Uncanny Automator plan, the cost increases after the first year, which could disadvantage long-term users.

Why we chose Uncanny Automator: We know how important it is to keep commenters coming back and engaging with your website. Uncanny Automator lets you set up automatic post-comment actions, turning occasional visitors into regular ones.

5. Better Notifications for WP

The homepage of Better Notifications for WordPress plugin

Do you want to send email notifications to your commenters about new replies? If so, then check out Better Notifications for WP.

By default, WordPress only sends comment notifications to site administrators and the article’s author. But with this plugin, you can change which type of notifications are sent out and who gets these comment notification emails.

For example, you can create a new notification for replies. As a result, users can come back and react to the latest responses to their comments, boosting engagement.

Pros of Better Notifications for WordPress:

Easy-to-use interface for setting up notifications and creating email content.
Customizable rules for who receives certain emails, which is great for site admins who want to avoid getting too many notifications.

Cons of Better Notifications for WordPress:

As with other WordPress email features, you may experience email deliverability issues.

Why we chose Better Notifications for WordPress: Notifying users of new replies is a great way to boost user engagement and get more comments, which is why we recommend this plugin. That said, you may also need an SMTP plugin to make sure your emails are received, which brings us to the next plugin.

6. WP Mail SMTP

The WordPress not sending emails issue is one of the most common problems WordPress users face. That’s why we don’t recommend using WordPress to send your email newsletter.

That said, there may be cases where you still use WordPress to send emails, like notifications about users’ comments. In this case, you will want to use WP Mail SMTP.

WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin that allows you to easily send WordPress emails using secure mail transfer protocol or SMTP. This helps ensure all your WordPress emails are delivered successfully, including comment notifications.

Pros of WP Mail SMTP:

The free version is enough to improve email deliverability.
Integrations with top mail service providers like SendLayer, Brevo, Gmail SMTP, and more.
One-click setup for Gmail SMTP, so you won’t need manual configuration, unlike other SMTP plugins.
Premium features to manage emails much more easily, like email resends, email failure alerts, and reports about opens and clicks.

Cons of WP Mail SMTP:

If you are completely new to SMTP, then the setup may seem complex. To help you out, we have a full guide on how to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.

Why we chose WP Mail SMTP: This plugin can ensure that all comment-related emails actually get received and, in turn, your commenters can come back to engage more with your blog posts.

7. Akismet

Trusted by 100+ million websites, Akismet is a popular WordPress anti-spam plugin.

The free plugin includes basic spam filtering and spam protection features. It can spot spammy comments off the bat so that they won’t show up in your comment section. You will also get detailed stats to see how much spam Akismet has blocked.

However, the free plugin includes limited API calls, so if you get many comments, then Akismet cannot check them all. We recommend upgrading to the premium version to get more API calls per month.

Pros of Akismet:

Easy to use plugin. Once activated, it will immediately work to mitigate spam.
Automatic spam deletion if you don’t review comments in 15 days, so you won’t have to manually remove them.
Handy analytics to see how much spam has been blocked and how accurately Akismet has spotted it.

Cons of Akismet:

At times, the plugin can mistake genuine comments as spam.

Why we chose Akismet: Spam comments are a common problem in WordPress, and sometimes, WordPress’ moderation feature isn’t enough. Akismet is one of the best comment plugins for easily combatting spam and maintaining a positive user experience.

You can read more about Akismet in our opinion piece on why you should use Akismet.

8. Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools

Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools plugin banner

Anti-spam tools like Akismet are great for filtering out comments left by automated spam bots. However, you can protect your site further by preventing users from inserting spammy or malicious links into their comments.

Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools can help prevent exactly that. It can remove the ‘Website URL’ field from the comment form, as well as the author’s website hyperlink.

This plugin also automatically removes hyperlinks from the existing comments on your WordPress website. So, the URLs will still be displayed in your comments, but they won’t be hyperlinked. This way, visitors can still benefit from any genuine and helpful links.

Pros of Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools:

Easy to use without any complex setup.
Options to delete pending, spam, and/or all comments in one click.
The premium version includes features to upload files, AI auto-comment replies, comment upvotes/downvotes, and more.

Cons of Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools:

If your WordPress theme modifies the standard core comment functions, then the plugin may not be able to remove the Website URL field.

Why we chose Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools: If you are looking to remove the Website URL field and all existing links from your comments without any code, then this plugin can easily get the job done.

9. Comment Edit Core

Comment Edit Core's landing page for the free version of the plugin

Sometimes a user may submit a comment, only to immediately realize they have made a spelling mistake or some other grammatical error. This isn’t your website’s fault, but it is still a bad experience for your visitors.

Comment Edit Core solves this problem by letting users edit their own comments on your website.

You can use this plugin to specify how long visitors can edit or even delete a comment after posting it. This time limit is important, as it protects your website from spammers who might go back and try to add links to comments that you’ve already approved.

Pros of Comment Edit Core:

The timer can be in a Compact format (like 5:00) or a Words format (like 5 minutes). Feel free to choose the one that suits your website best.
Choose between Regular, Light, or Dark comment editor themes.
Pro features include a comment character limit, Cloudflare Turnstile, and the ability for commenters to choose a custom avatar.

Cons of Comment Edit Core:

Some users have reported poor forum support for the free plugin, but the premium version includes email and Slack support.

Why we chose Comment Edit Core: This plugin is simple to use and adds important functionality to improve your commenting experience. For more details on this plugin, check out our guide on how to allow users to edit comments in WordPress.

10. Comments Extra Fields

The landing page for the WordPress Comment Fields plugin

Depending on your website, you may want to add some extra custom fields to your comment form. For example, you might add an extra checkbox for commenters to sign up for your email newsletter.

Comments Extra Fields makes it easy to add custom fields to the standard WordPress comment form.

You can make the information entered in these fields invisible or visible to everyone. Furthermore, you can set rules for when these fields should appear in the comment section, which is great if your blog covers different topics.

Pros of Comment Extra Fields:

Beginner-friendly interface to add the custom fields and configure how they look and behave.
Multiple field options: single-line text, text area, checkbox, color picker, number, radio buttons, URL, file input, and so on.
10-day money-back guarantee for the premium version.

Cons of Comment Extra Fields:

The free version’s field options are limited compared to the premium one.

Why we chose Comment Extra Fields: This plugin offers so many ways to customize your comment section, make it more exciting, and even turn commenters into leads. This can be beneficial if you want to make the most out of your comments.

11. wpDiscuz

wpDiscuz is an AJAX-powered WordPress comment plugin.

It has a unique inline commenting feature. With this, you can add a handy button within your blog content to encourage discussion. Visitors can simply click on it to express their thoughts on that post’s particular section.

wpDiscuz also comes with live comment bubble notifications. It works like a real-time social proof notification on your website, letting visitors know about new comments as they are being posted and inviting them to join the conversation.

Pros of wpDiscuz:

Unique engagement features like real-time comment bubble notifications and inline commenting.
Built-in performance optimization features like Gravatar caching and lazy loading.
Various add-ons to install on top of the core plugin, like comment report and flagging and widgets to display top commenters.

Cons of wpDiscuz:

The live update feature, which automatically displays new comments when visitors are on the blog post, can slow your site down if you are on shared hosting.

Why we chose wpDiscuz: For a free WordPress comment plugin, wpDiscuz is pretty powerful and can be a good option for people looking for a free solution. Just make sure to monitor your site performance if you enable Ajax-powered features like live updates.

12. WP Reactions

At times, users might want to react to your blog post but they hesitate to write a comment. Maybe they are not sure what exactly to say or they are just shy.

Ever since social media existed, users have become familiar with giving reactions to posts using emojis. That’s what WP Reactions is for: adding a reaction feature between your blog post content and your comment section.

This plugin offers over 200 emoji reactions to choose from and add to your comment section. As a result, users who are not used to commenting can easily engage with your blog content without typing a long message.

Pros of WP Reactions:

Easy drag-and-drop editor to arrange the emojis.

Animated emojis are available so the reaction buttons look more interactive than just regular icon images.
User-friendly dashboard analytics to collect user feedback based on their reactions.

Cons of WP Reactions:

The free version only comes with 14 emojis.

Why we chose WP Reactions: This WordPress plugin provides an easy way for users to engage with your blog post with just one simple click. If you want to learn more about using it, check out our article on how to engage readers with post reactions in WordPress.

13. Super Socializer

Do you want to enable social login options in your WordPress comments section? If so, then check out Super Socializer. This feature is a great way to make posting comments faster and easier for users.

With this, users won’t need to manually insert their name and email to leave comments. They just need to click a few buttons and they are logged in to their social network. It also prevents users from using fake names in comments.

Other than that, the plugin includes a social commenting feature. This lets you add extra comment sections like Facebook comments. For Facebook users, this lets them skip the login step entirely and just leave a comment right away.

Pros of Super Socializer:

Multiple social features, like social logins, social commenting, and social sharing allow users to share blog posts on their accounts.
Plenty of social login options, from Facebook and X/Twitter to LinkedIn and Discord.
Customizable social network icons to suit your website design.

Cons of Super Socializer:

Some users reported that the plugin has made their websites slow, so be sure to use it with caution.

Why we chose Super Socializer: This plugin provides an easy way to enable social logins and make people less hesitant to leave comments. Our article on how to style the WordPress comment form can give you step-by-step instructions on how to use it.

14. YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews

YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews plugin page

If you are running an eCommerce website using WooCommerce, then your product pages’ comment sections will be changed to review/testimonial sections.

That said, the built-in review feature is basic. For example, customers can’t add photos to their reviews. Because of this, we recommend installing a WooCommerce review add-on like YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews.

With this WooCommerce plugin, customers can upload photos to their reviews to describe their experience with your product. Potential customers can also mark reviews as helpful to help fellow users make their purchase decisions.

Pros of YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews:

Review upvotes and downvotes to mark which reviews are most helpful.
Separate ‘Most Helpful Reviews’ tab to make it easier for users to find the most relevant testimonials.
Customizable review section, with settings to change the number of displayed reviews and the layout’s colors to suit your WooCommerce WordPress theme.

Cons of YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews:

It is dependent on other YITH plugins. For example, if you want to enable social logins, then you need to purchase a YITH plugin for that purpose, which can be costly.
No free version available, although there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Why we chose YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews: While this plugin comes at a cost, it offers all the essentials needed to optimize your product review section. You can think of it as an investment to gain more social proof and build your reputation.

15. Lazy Load for Comments

Have you been getting so many comments that your page load time has slowed way down? If so, then check out Lazy Load for Comments.

This simple plugin adds a lazy loading feature inside your WordPress Discussion Settings page (above the Avatars section). You can choose whether to load the comments upon scrolling or when the user clicks on it.

Lazy loading improves performance by only loading necessary elements when they’re needed, reducing the initial page load time.

Pros of Lazy Load for Comments:

Free and simple to use.
Supports popular WordPress themes like Genesis and Divi.
Translation ready.

Cons of Lazy Load for Comments:

Installing this plugin just for its lazy loading feature might feel excessive, especially since there are other comment plugins like Thrive Comments that offer this feature along with other benefits.

Why we chose Lazy Load for Comments: If you just want a simple plugin to lazy load your comments, then this plugin does a great job. However, if you want an all-in-one comment plugin with a lazy loading feature, then consider Thrive Comments instead.

16. Comment Hacks

Moderating comments in WordPress can be a bit challenging, especially when there are many comment threads to review. If your readers are aware of and adhere to the commenting rules, then the process can become much simpler.

Comment Hacks is a WordPress comment plugin that lets you enable a comment policy for your website.

Users will have to go to the comment policy page and confirm they’ve read it before they can leave a comment. As a result, you can get more genuine and positive comments on your website.

Pros of Comment Hacks:

Comment policy feature to maintain a positive comment section.
The ability to set a minimum and maximum comment length, which can be great to prevent short, spammy comments.
Redirection feature that leads first-time commenters to a specific page, like a thank you page.

Cons of Comment Hacks:

The plugin only warns that the comment is too long after the user clicks ‘Post,’ not while they are typing. This could lead to unnecessary time spent editing long comments.

Why we chose Comment Hacks: This WordPress comment plugin is really helpful if you get lots of comments, want to keep things positive, and don’t want any spam. It makes your job easier by stopping bad comments before they show up.

What Is the Best WordPress Comment Plugin?

Out of all the plugins we’ve tested, the best WordPress comment plugin is Thrive Comments.

This plugin is a complete package, offering features to moderate your comment section, make it more interactive, and even convert commenters into leads or customers. While it’s a paid plugin, it’s a worthwhile investment for bloggers looking to build an engaged audience.

That said, many plugins on this list serve various purposes, so we encourage you to give them all a try and see which one is best for your needs.

Best Comment Plugins for WordPress: Frequently Asked Questions

Now that we’ve listed all of the best WordPress comment plugins, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.

Are comments important for SEO?

Yes, comments are important for SEO. They can function as signals telling search engines that people like your brand and engage with it. Other than that, the “free” content that comes from the commenters can add additional value to your articles.

Is it ok to disable your comment section?

If you run a blog and your goal is to build a following, then you should enable your comment section. Allowing comments is also good for increasing your user engagement metrics, which can be good for SEO.

Is the Disqus comment system good for SEO?

Any comment system is technically good for SEO, regardless of the platform.

However, in our experience, Disqus inserted affiliate links and sponsored comments without our permission. This can hurt your site’s SEO, as search engines don’t like it when websites don’t disclose their paid content.

For this reason, we did not include Disqus in our list. You can read more about our experience of why we switched away from Disqus.

Why Add a Ranking System for WordPress Comments?

Method 1: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Comments

Method 2: Add a User Ranking System in WordPress Forums

Bonus: Add a Points System in WordPress

Why Notify Users on Replies to Their WordPress Comments?

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using Thrive Comments

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments Using a Free Plugin

Why Limit Comment Length in WordPress?

How to Limit Comment Length in WordPress

Bonus: Improve Comment Engagement on Your WordPress Site

Why Make a Recent Comments Page?

Method 1: Create a Simple Recent Comments Page With the Latest Comments Block (No Plugin Required)

Method 2: Create a Custom Recent Comments Page With SeedProd

Tips to Optimize Your Recent Comments Page in WordPress

Why Let Users Subscribe to Comments in WordPress?

Allow Users to Subscribe to Comments Using Thrive Comments

Setting Up Comment Notifications in Thrive Comments

Bonus Tips for Managing Comments in WordPress

What Is Comment Moderation in WordPress?

Basics of Moderating WordPress Comments

How to Configure the WordPress Comment Settings

How to Moderate Comments Using Thrive Comments Plugin (Recommended)

How to Allow Specific Users to Moderate Comments in WordPress

How to Disable Comments for Specific Posts in WordPress

How to Filter Spam Comments With Akismet

Why Lazy Load WordPress Comments?

How to Lazy Load WordPress Comments

Bonus: Improve Comment Interaction With Thrive Comments

Why Make a Reddit Like Website with WordPress?

What You Need to Build a Reddit Like Website with WordPress

Choosing a Theme for Your Reddit-Style Website

Adding Upvotes and Downvotes like Reddit in WordPress

Allowing Users to Post Content on Your Website

Allow Users to Vote and Rate Posts

Growing Your Reddit-Like Website to the Next Level

Why Move Comments Between WordPress Posts?

How to Move Comments Between WordPress Posts

Bonus: Improve WordPress Comments Using Thrive Comments

Why Should You Use WordPress Comment Plugins?

1. Thrive Comments

2. Comment Moderation Role by WPBeginner

3. SearchWP

4. Uncanny Automator

5. Better Notifications for WP

6. WP Mail SMTP

7. Akismet

8. Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools

9. Comment Edit Core

10. Comments Extra Fields

11. wpDiscuz

12. WP Reactions

13. Super Socializer

14. YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews

15. Lazy Load for Comments

16. Comment Hacks

What Is the Best WordPress Comment Plugin?

Best Comment Plugins for WordPress: Frequently Asked Questions

Read More Guides to Improve Your WordPress Comments