Comments are an integral part of many WordPress blogs as an effective way to engage users and build community. The default WordPress commenting system is good but it is quite plain and basic. However, you can extend the this basic commenting system into a powerful user engagement platform for your website. In this article, we will show the best plugins to improve WordPress comments and take them to the next level.
1. De:comments
De:comments is an all in one plugin to totally transform your WordPress commenting system. It allows users to vote and downvote comments, share invidiual comments, login with existing social accounts, embed images, Gifs, videos, tweets, and more. Take a look at our detailed guide on how to improve WordPress comments with De:comments.
2. Yoast Comment Hacks
Yoast Comment Hacks is a suite of tools that helps make comment management easier. It allows you to email comment authors from WordPress, email all users who commented on a specific post, provide cleaner comment notification email, redirect first time commenter to a thank you page, assign comments to a specific thread, and more. Take a look at our guide on how to install and setup Yoast Comment Hacks for WordPress.
3. Basic Comment Quicktags
This plugin simply adds quicktag buttons in WordPress comment form’s textarea. This allows users to quickly add links, make text bold or emphasized, and add blockquotes by pressing the buttons. See out tutorial on how to add quicktags in WordPress comment form.
4. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
Comments are a powerful way to build communities. But how would people know if there is a new comment after they read your post? Subscribe to Comments Reloaded allows users to subscribe to comments and receive instant email notifications whenever there is a new comment on the article. Users can unsubscribe at any time and manage their own subscriptions on your site. We have detailed tutorial on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress with more details.
5. Simple Comment Editing
Sometimes when a user submits a comment, they immediately realize they have made a spelling mistake or some other error. Simple Comment Editing provides a users a flexible time during which they can edit their own comments on your site. For more details, take a look at our tutorial on how to allow users to edit comments in WordPress.
6. No Page Comment
By default, WordPress would show a comment box on your pages and even media attachments. You can edit a page and turn off comments. But if you have many pages, then it becomes a chore. No Page Comment plugin allows you to easily switch off comments for your pages and media attachments in WordPress. For more instructions, check out our tutorial on how to turn off or disable comments in WordPress pages.
7. oEmbed in Comments
WordPress allows you to easily embed videos, tweets, and much more by simply pasting the URL in the post editor. However, if a user posted a YouTube video URL, Flickr photo, or a tweet URL in the comments it would appear just as text. oEmbed in Comments plugin enabled the oEmbed functionality for WordPress comments as well. This allows your users to easily embed videos, gifs, photos, tweets, status updates, from a large variety of oEmbed supported providers. Take a look at our guide on how to add videos and more in WordPress comments with oEmbed.
8. Moderator Role
Comment moderation can become very time consuming for large and busy websites. Moderator Role plugin allows you to assign the moderator role to your community members, staff or loyal users. This will give them access to comment moderation area in WordPress and they will be able to approve comments on your site. Take a look at our guide on how to allow blog users to moderate comments in WordPress for more details.
9. Tako Movable Comments
Sometimes you may want to create a new version of an older post on your site. While you can easily copy paste content from old post to new, there is no easier way to move the comments. Tako Movable comments allows you to move comments from one post to another. See our tutorial on how to move comments between WordPress posts for more detailed instructions.
10. Comments Since Last Visit
This plugin is available from GitHub see our guide on how to install WordPress plugins from GitHub. Comments Since Last Visit simply adds a class to the new comments since a users last visit to the post. It sets a cookie when the user visits a post for the first time. On next visits it compares the dates and adds the CSS class to new comments. See our step by step tutorial on how to highlight new comments for returning visitors in WordPress.
11. Featured Comments
Not all comments on your website are equal. Some comments add value to the discussion and some derail the conversation. Featured Comments allow you to feature high quality comments and bury irrelevant comments. See our tutorial on how to feature/bury comments in WordPress for more details.
12. Comment Approved
Comment moderation is the most reliable way to deal with comment spam. However, when a user leaves comment, they don’t get notified when their comment is published. Comment Approved plugin sends email notification when you approve a new comment. We have more detailed instructions in our guide how to notify users when their comments is approved in WordPress.
13. DX Unanswered Comments
Comments are good for user engagement but you need to communicate with users by answering their comments. Unanswered Comments plugin allows you to easily filter unanswered comments. You can sort comments and then reply to all comments. See our article how to filter unanswered comments in WordPress for more details.
14. WordPress Comments Fields
By default, the comment area shows 4 fields (name, email, website address, and message). Comment Form Custom Fields allows you to add more fields to your WordPress comment form. The plugin will display the data submitted through custom fields as comment meta. See our step by step tutorial on how to add custom fields to comments form in WordPress.
15. Send email only on Reply to My Comment
This plugin allows users to subscribe to comments and receive notifications when someone replies to their comments. This is helpful for users who just want to receive notifications for just their own comments. See this tutorial on how to notify users only on replies to their WordPress comments.
16. Control Comment Length
By default WordPress comments have no limit. Users can leave very small comments which make no sense at all, or spammers can leave very long comments. Recently, it was discovered that some hackers tried to hide their malicious code in extremely lengthy comments which executed when the comments were viewed on the admin screen. Control Comment Length allows you to set minimum and maxium character limits for comments in WordPress. See our tutorial on how to limit comment length in WordPress for more details.
We hope this article helped you find the best plugins to improve WordPress comments. You may also want to take a look at our guide on 12 vital 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.
To leave a comment please visit 16 Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments on WPBeginner.
No comments:
Post a Comment