In an era where social networks are booming, how to make your website’s comments more social and drive more traffic is a question worth pondering. So today Zhouliang would like to recommend some third-party social commenting plugins for WordPress that can enhance interaction between users and your website, as well as between users themselves, making your site more vibrant and social, ultimately bringing more return visits and traffic.
1. Youyan (友言)
URL: http://uyan.cc
Youyan supports login via popular Chinese social networking accounts, including Sina Weibo, QQ Weibo, Renren, and Kaixin001. This plugin is decent for now, and sites with high comment volumes may want to give it a try. Some suggestions for Youyan:
- I hope they focus on performance issues — Uyan frequently causes slowdowns.
- Remove the “Powered by Youyan” branding. I’m never stingy about giving backlinks — regular readers here know that. But this sort of thing might actually drive users away. They could learn from Disqus’s approach.
2. Pinglun.la (评论啦)
URL: http://pinglun.la
It’s hard to say which came first, this or Youyan. The features are similar, and the interface somewhat imitates Disqus’s layout — which is reasonably well-designed. It supports adding images and videos, which is a nice touch! I haven’t personally used it, so here’s the official description:
Pinglun.la connects the currently fragmented and isolated commenting systems across the internet into a social network. Through the social features provided by Pinglun.la, website owners can effectively increase user engagement and return visits. Users can store and manage their comment history across the internet.
PS: To my knowledge, well-known blogs like Moonlight Blog and “Hulianwang de Na Dian Shi” all use Pinglun.la as their commenting system.
3. Baye.me (贝米)
URL: http://baye.me/
The features are somewhat limited, and the official website has very little documentation. Only someone who has actually used it could give a proper review. Feel free to try it if you’re interested. Based on the official website’s state and user experience, I’m personally not very optimistic about it.
Now that we’ve covered three Chinese commenting systems, let’s take a look at some international alternatives.
1. Disqus
URL: http://disqus.com/
This is currently the most widely used commenting plugin, with over 1 million websites using Disqus to replace their native commenting systems.
Disqus works across multiple platforms, including mainstream systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and more. You can also develop custom commenting plugins for your own system through their API. With Disqus, website owners can effectively boost user engagement and traffic. Users no longer need to register separately on each website — just one Disqus account lets you comment on any site with the Disqus plugin installed. Additionally, Disqus’s social login feature lets you easily comment using your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts, creating genuine social interaction between content creators and visitors.
2. IntenseDebate
URL: http://www.intensedebate.com/
Another widely-used multi-comment social plugin that offers extensive customization options for managing all your site’s comments.
An important note: IntenseDebate has been acquired by Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, so it integrates perfectly with WP as a replacement for the native commenting system. Like Disqus, IntenseDebate supports WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, and other blog systems as well as popular open-source CMS platforms. It also supports social account and OpenID login, which greatly simplifies the commenting experience. Its social capabilities were the main reason behind Automattic’s acquisition. Its unique Voting system (upvote/downvote) helps administrators manage comment quality and external links, providing more effective spam prevention on top of Akismet.
3. Livefyre
Livefyre is a rising star among third-party commenting plugins, featuring a Twitter-like [@username] mention function.
Currently, Livefyre is primarily used on large news and media sites. It supports social account and OpenID login, and also has a Voting feature that lets users filter out the most useful comments. You can also use Livefyre’s Follow feature to subscribe to comments on a particular topic. A unified comment management dashboard lets both site owners and commenters effectively manage their comments.
4. Facebook Comments
URL: http://we8u.com/facebook-comments
As the name suggests, this is a Facebook commenting plugin. While its features are streamlined, they’re by no means simple. It completely replaces the native commenting system with Facebook’s commenting functionality. Commenters can log in anonymously using their Facebook accounts and choose whether to publish their comments to their Facebook status. Since Facebook covers virtually the entire web (with certain exceptions), this plugin offers even higher social engagement — lightweight code but heavyweight functionality.
5. CommentLuv
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a complete commenting system, but rather an add-on to the existing one. CommentLuv’s purpose is to encourage user comments. If a user has their own blog, when they comment on a site with CommentLuv installed, the plugin will display their latest blog post as a reward for engaging. From another perspective, it’s an excellent backlink tool — provided your comments don’t get blacklisted.
The five plugins above are primarily aimed at English-language sites. I recommend Chinese users try Pinglun.la, Youyan, or other emerging domestic social commenting systems. The driving force of social interaction is getting more people involved — that’s how everyone benefits.
All the Chinese third-party social commenting systems mentioned above have developed WordPress plugins. Simply follow the instructions on their websites to upload the plugin, activate it, and import your existing comments. It’s very straightforward, so I won’t go into the installation steps here.
PS: Adding a third-party social commenting system is meant to increase your site’s traffic — think carefully before deciding whether you need one! My own blog doesn’t use a third-party system because it would clash with the site’s theme design.