Recent Comments on blogs becoming null and void
There was a time when it was very important to have a list of recent comments on your blog, almost like a place people could see interaction, but as the Internet and Social Media has progressed, I now feel that showing Recent Comments is no longer important.
Several reasons why I have removed mine:
- Most people who read blogs know you can leave comments.
- People arriving at a blog usually arrive on the single.php page, which shows the comment form.
- Plugins like subscribe to comments lock people into those pages.
- Real estate space – recent comments take up a lot of space, this could be better used for something else and reduce clutter.
- Bigger blogs use caching systems, so recent comments aren’t always up to date anyway.
- Display how many comments have been made on a post, is enough of a hint that conversation is happening.
Those are just a few reasons that came to mind very quickly.
What is your opinion?
About the author:
Christopher is the founder of iMod - Most of his time is spent building websites and pushing the limits with Search Engine Optimization. You can follow him on Twitter @ChristopherM
Chris M has written: 4148 posts.
Nov 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Never thought about it in that way! Just shows how we sometimes can get caught in doing things and that is that. On other hand, if you have nothing to put there, “recent comments” are Ok to fill the space until you find something more suitable. ;)
As you said people will read the post and see the comments, no need to tell them!
Nov 4th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
So true!
I just realized now after reading this that it’s pretty pointless. I don’t think anyone ever clicks on the recent comments bar. Well I’ve never clicked on it on someones blog anyway.
Nov 4th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I must say that although we don’t have “Recent Comments” on any of our sites, I do find myself looking at the recent comment list on your site from time to time – I guess it’s intriguing because you can only see the first few words of a person’s comment and then you want to know the rest of what they said. Well that’s the case for me anyway! :)
Nov 4th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Comments are not necessarily the measurement for great articles. While my traffic is nowhere close to yours, I find that your posts generate a lot of comments (and many of them mine :P ).
However, on the flip side, I find that I write a lot of my articles very differently to your writing style and while the articles receive a lot of traffic, it does not get many comments, due to the nature of the article style.
Nov 4th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
@Rustig – Ye, we get caught in a pattern and often don’t step back to review or think outside the box. Trust me, there’s always something else to put there :P What do you think though? Remove?
@Sean – Ye, and to tell you a little more – I put click tracking on during my testing as well and the results were very poor.
@Louise – Thank you so much for sharing that, that’s exactly the sort of thing I want to hear from readers! Perhaps there’s a better way of displaying them to use up less real estate space, but still offering enough to entice the reader. I have to say, it is useful to see which topics are currently being discussed a lot, allows for engagement, discussion and agruing, etc. I would go with a top posts thing, showing the most commented posts, but then you could get some from years ago, which isn’t ideal. Tough call.
@DChetty – I agree, comments doesn’t measure the quality of a post. Yup, that’s very common, there’s a certain way to write to encourage comments, it’s taken years to come even close to mastering it, I wouldn’t even know where to start in terms of explaining it! (”Oh, and asking people to comment doesn’t encourage it, necessarily.”, says he who has “please comment” under his posts, lol) That said, thank you for your comment :D
Nov 4th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I would suggest we remove it! Now to find a replacement for the hole in my sidebar. What would you suggest, a 300×250 iMod Banner or a weather widget? ;)
I read some very good blogs where people hardly ever comment.
Nov 4th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
@Rustig – I like the sound of an iMod banner, haha! After taking a look at your sidebar, why not go leave things as is, it fits perfectly in terms of height between the 3 columns..
Agreed, there are plenty blogs with no comments, but brilliant articles. Perhaps my articles are so terrible, that they always need external input :P~
Nov 4th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
You have the banner I will slap it on somewhere. In the header where everyone can see! Promise!
Nothing wrong here. There is something for everyone here. From the nerd who dwells in the basement right up to the space cadet. I like your wine additions, nice touch and very informative. Gives me an idea what to drink next time when I am in SA.
Now you go and create that banner for the header!
Nov 5th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Ye mate, niche blogs are cool, but multi topical ones are my favourite, because you really get to know the author :) Glad you’re enjoying the wine reviews, so am I!!!
Banner.. hehe, it’s not necessary my friend :)
Nov 5th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Pleasure. I think it’s a “nice to have” if you don’t have anything else to put there but if it were replaced by a banner ad or some other feature it wouldn’t be the end of the world. People can still read and view the number of comments quite easily – as mentioned in your list.
Nov 5th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Ye, I’m going to monitor things for a while and see what happens and then I’ll revert with some feedback should anything strange happen. So far so good though!
Nov 5th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I will be honest, I always look at the recent comments as it shows me whats being spoken about at the time… therefore can find out which are the important topics on the site without having to go look. I think im just lazy but I enjoy the recent comments!
I can understand fully why you would want to do this but I still enjoy it, and MISS IT!! hahahaha
Nov 5th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Thanks Craig! So, what if I just put a list of topics that are currently being discussed? Just the article names? Tell me what your ideal requirement would be :)
Nov 5th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Yeah, that sounds great, just keep me updated on the most current topics that are being discussed, always interesting to see what people have to say about a “talked about” topic.
Look bro, its your site, you must do as you please ;) No matter what you do I will still come get my daily fix mate:)
Nov 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
For sure mate, but this is really useful feedback, so naturally I take it into account. I like the idea of a currently-being-discussed-list :)
Nov 5th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Cool cool, I will be following the progress of this ;) haha
Nov 5th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I added some code to the right of the site, as you’ll see, but it needs some tweaking, I can’t use DISTINCT for the way the query works, so it’s fetching the most recent 5 comments and displaying their titles, naturally that results in duplicates..