For many years now Facebook has had a very popular login feature and also offered the ability to easily integrate blog comments using your Facebook account. These options have proven to be very popular with all types of webmasters as they provide several convenient features and also help to discourage spammy or anonymous comments.

It always surprised me that Google wasn’t in this game, but the introduction of Google+ seems to offer Google the ability to offer these features to webmasters and be the ones collecting this information.  According to reports, apps that support Google’s login are now getting favorable search treatment and Google is starting to really push this feature.  Then last month, Google announced that Google+ comment integration is now available for Blogger users. So, what about WordPress users?

Not long after the Blogger integration was announced, the necessary code was discovered to do this manually using the following code:

HTML:

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
</script>
<g:comments
    href="[URL]"
    width="642"
    first_party_property="BLOGGER"
    view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
</g:comments>

Valid HTML5 version:

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
</script>
<div
    data-href="[URL]"
    data-width="642"
    data-first_party_property="BLOGGER"
    data-view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
</div>

Comments counter HTML (replaces < g:comments >):

<g:commentcount href="[URL]"></g:commentcount>

Valid HTML5 version (replaces < div >):

<div data-href="[URL]"></div>

Replace ’[URL]‘ with the URL of your web page and fit the ’width’.

Link your web page to your Google+ profile to verify authorship.

Dynamic Google+ Comments HTML:

<div id="comments"></div>
<script>
gapi.comments.render('comments', {
    href: window.location,
    width: '624',
    first_party_property: 'BLOGGER',
    view_type: 'FILTERED_POSTMOD'
});
</script>

Google+ Comments Counter:

<div id="commentscounter"></div>
<script>
gapi.commentcount.render('commentscounter', {
    href: window.location
});
</script>

Google+ Comments for WordPress Plugin

Fortunately, the WordPress community has already come through with an easier solution, the Google+ Comments for WordPress plugin. This plugin makes the comment section tabbed by seamlessly adding tabs for Google+ Comments, Facebook, Disqus, WordPress Comments, and Trackbacks. Early reviews are promising and I manage this plugin will continue to evolve over time.

If you decide to give this plugin on your website leave us a comment and let us know how the setup went.

Blogs are built around comments. It’s always fun and rewarding to see your blog have a lot of comments on it. Trouble is, comments attract spam and it’s not always easy to distinguish between legitimate comments and spam.

Here’s a scenario: your post gets popular on Delicious. You get a ton of comments from “SEO BLOG TIPS”  saying “thanks for great post”. Comments like that add no value whatsoever to your blog post. Heck, they devalue it. So here’s the question: do you allow the comment or delete it?

Personally, I consider comments like that spam, but on the other hand, it does get the comment count up. So there it is. A short post, but there’s a reason for it; it’s meant to spark debate, so go on. What would you do?

(poll embedded)

WordPress’s default comment system isn’t exactly the greatest, and whilst you can improve the comment system manually, not everyone has the time or skill to do so. Thankfully, one of Automattic’s recent acquisitions, IntenseDebate can help.

Before we dive into installing IntenseDebate (which is really easy!), here is why you should use it, according to the IntenseDebate website:

So IntenseDebate is pretty much everything you could want from a comment system, so next we’re going to walk through the installation.

First thing is to go to www.intensedebate.com and signup. Next you’ll be asked to enter the URL of the site you want to install IntenseDebate on. Do so and click next. Assuming you’re running WordPress, you’ll be told you need to install the plugin:

Before you intsall the plugin, make sure you backup your database.

Once you’re backed up, follow the instructions above to step four. Once you’re at the tab, login with the account you just created, and then on the next screen click the big ‘Import Comments’ button. Sit back whilst your comments import themselves. When it is done, this screen will appear:

You’ll find a whole load of options to fiddle around with, so fiddle away, and then you’re done. Told you it way easy!

There are all sorts of WordPress hacks people can easily do to customize and improve both the look and functionality of their WordPress blog, but I’ve always felt that the comments section is one of the best ways to truly customize your WordPress theme.   After all, blogging is all about author interaction, and the comments go a long way towards conversations happening.

If you are looking to improve the comments field of your blog’s theme, Instant Shift recently took the time to feature a number of comment hacks, which can be viewed here.   Looks like they’ve already got 30 hacks included, including a few we’ve featured here in the past.

One of the lesser talked about features introduced in WordPress 2.7 is the new feature that breaks comments into multiple pages to create faster load times.   By default, this feature is activated and set to allow 50 comments before the break.    The problem is, with this new feature activated, your WordPress blog is creating duplicate content.

Here is what I found while checking my Google Webmaster Tools account for this website:

Duplicate Title Tags

Duplicate Descriptions

Is this a huge deal?  Probably not, but you may want to consider unchecking this box in your Dashboard > Settings > Discussion tab.   Hopefully in a future version of WordPress this will NOT be checked by default and instead be an option.