13 Dynamite Wordpress Comment Plugins

Comments are the gateway into your reader’s minds. They allow a blog to become community driven, unique, and always evolving. Oftentimes I’m asked by others what plugins I recommend to enrich the commenting capabilities of a Wordpress blog. The following are just a few that you might find helpful.

1. Get Recent Comments - This handy plugin allows you to display the latest comments on your blog in areas such as the sidebar. An excellent way to increase disucussion and post exposure.

2. IntenseDebate Comments - This plugin offers unique tools for promoting comment discussion and participation for blogs. Includes Twitter tools, comment-by-email – and much more.

3. Subscribe to Comments - The ability to subscribe to a post is crucial, in my opinion, for a blog’s comment success. It’s a useful feature – and is a perfect way to increase your readership. This plugin is simple, yet gets the job done.

4. Comment Notifier - Much like Subscribe to Comments, but even simpler.

5. Akismet - On the order of protection against comment spam, I’d recommend Akismet – hand down. This plugin is incredibly powerful, as it uses Akismet’s superb infastructure and spam rules. Try it out – and you’ll see why it’s loved by so many.

6. Edit Comments - This plugin is very useful, as it allows non-members to edit comments they’ve submitted. Very handy if you’d like to increase the options you offer to guests and visitors.

7. Cap Comments - If you’re running a comment capped competition, or any other instance where comment capping is needed – try this plugin.

8. DoFollow - For many, removing the nofollow attribute on comment links is beneficial. This plugin offers excellent features to customize and edit your follow attributes.

9. CommentLuv - To increase comment participation, CommentLuv is an excellent tool. This plugin provides a link to the commenter’s latest blog post, and includes it on their comment.

10. Top Commentators Widget – This plugin provides a handy widget showing the top contributors of comments on your blog.

11. Comment Sorter - The Comment Sorter plugin allows blog users to sort post comments by date, and even by normal vs trackback comments.

12. Easy Gravatars - If you’re familar with Gravatar, it’s a service that provides a globally recognized avatar across the internet. Allow Gravatars on blog comments by using this excellent plugin.

13. Custom Smilies - Allows guests to add graphic smilies to their comments on your blog.

As mentioned previously – comment capabiltiies on a blog are priceless. Comments are a simple, useful way for visitors to discuss your content – and add extra value to your posts. Take a look at the above plugins, and find the perfect blend of comment usability and features.

Good luck!