Goodbye CommentLuv

21 Replies Christopher Roberts

“…blogging has changed, and the blog itself is no-longer where many people read and interact. Read in the feed and comment on social media. Blogging is still there, but I think comments are slowly dying…

A feed and social profile were luxuries years ago, however now it seems they are part of blogging itself – if you don’t have them do you have a blog at all?”

That is a quote from a comment I left in June this year.

Digital media explorer Ari Herzog has noted how blog comments are evolving, and he now offers his readers the ability to leave a comment via the standard (vanilla) WordPress commenting system, as well as via Facebook and Google Plus.

Blogging is still very much alive, however as my opening quote suggests, the way authors go about publishing content and how readers then go abut digesting and debating this, has changed significantly in recent times.

CommentLuv

Just over two years ago I wrote a post detailing why you should use the CommentLuv plugin. Today very few 0f the reasons I state still hold true.

I have now deactivated CommentLuv on Technology Bloggers for these simple reasons:

Two comments with CommentLuv links

Two great comments with irrelevant CommentLuv links.

  • CommentLuv looks messy – take a look at the two comments to the right. They are both great comments, but they are followed by an untidy, irrelevant link. If someone is interesting in your site, they will check it out anyway.
  • CommentLuv promotes spam – having looked through our comments, very few of our genuine visitors actually take advantage of CommentLuv, yet almost all the spam comments we get include a CommentLuv link.
  • CommentLuv increases load time – you know how obsessed I am with speed, so much so, any plugin which significantly impacts load time is now under scrutiny. CommentLuv is quite a heavy plugin which I have found has a big impact on page load time, and that extra lag isn’t justifiable for what it offers.
  • CommentLuv is bad for SEO – one of the key things Google has been clamping down on of late is irrelevant links. If you run a site about lawnmowers, and you have a large number of links coming from a technology website, it probably doesn’t do you any favours. Similarly, if I have written an article on something tech related, comments with random links introducing irrelevant keywords, dilute the content and probably don’t do my article any favours.
Google SEO chart

CommentLuv is arguable bad for SEO.

CommentLuv was once a great plugin, but its time has passed. The web is changing, blogging more so than ever, so it is time to say goodbye to CommentLuv.

Categories: Blogging Updates
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Written by Christopher Roberts
Founder and editor of Technology Bloggers, Christopher is passionate about sustainable technology and environmental initiatives. He wants to popularise critical thinking, promote responsible innovation, and excite you about the world around us.

21 thoughts on “Goodbye CommentLuv”

  1. Lillie Ammann

    Christopher,

    You are so right about this. Ironically, I have a post scheduled in the next couple of weeks entitled “Where have all the commenters gone?” Comments on my blog have decreased dramatically, and I’m being asked by webmasters to delete comments with do-follow links to their sites that have been penalized by Google for having irrelevant links. Those comments were originally left specifically for SEO, and now they’re hurting it. At the rate comments are decreasing and requests to remove comments are increasing, soon my comment count will going down instead of up. 🙂

    Reply
    • Christopher Roberts

      “soon my comment count will going down instead of up” – funny but sad.

      Why not just remove their link as the comment itself doesn’t harm anyone?

      Reply
    • Peter

      The thing is Lillie, it’s hurting their site and not yours. I’m getting these emails too and I’m asking that they pay $10 for me to remove them. Am making a fair bit out of it too.

      I’ve used CommentLuv for years and will continue to do so. I’ve also left thousands of comments on unrelated blogs and have yet to get any notification from Google that I am being penalised for them. I believe this is because I leave those comments and have not paid someone else to do so.

      It’s my opinion that all those people being penalised have use paid people to comment for them. Google has somehow worked this out and is now making them pay for it.

      Reply
      • Christopher Roberts

        A very interesting approach you take Peter. The internet is such a tricky business, as they could pay you to take it down and then you could put it up again and nobody could stop you. For what it is worth, I doubt anyone will be looking to sue you for linking to them, but it is possible.

        I would argue that if you have irrelevant keyword rich links on your site, that is harming you as well. It doesn’t look healthy to have out of place links hanging around. Also, how do you know your rankings are not affected? Sure you may not have completely dropped out of the SERPs but there may be some effect – or maybe your competition have been hit the same so there is no change.

        With regard to leaving comments/links on unrelated blogs I am not a fan. Don’t set out to grab a link, that is a very short-term view. Taking a real interest and reading stuff that matters to you – and only commenting when you have something to say will help you build up powerful long-term relationships.

        From your comment I was interested to follow up and check out your site, but it is currently down :-/

        Anyhow thanks for the comment and welcome to Technology Blogger 🙂
        Christopher – Editor

        Reply
        • Peter

          Nope, not offline, just me misspelling the url, my bad.

          Also, they can’t sue me for linking to them when the links are in the comment. That’s the problem. People pay others to leave comments for SEO and then complain that Google is now penalising them. If they too the time to do their own comments they probably wouldn’t have a problem.

          Whenever I leave a comment I always make sure to read the post to ensure the comment is related to the actual content of the post.

          Also, when you say Commentluv is bad for SEO, do you mean for the site who has Commentluv or for those leaving a comment because it has Commentluv?

          Reply
          • Christopher Roberts

            PETER “Also, when you say Commentluv is bad for SEO, do you mean for the site who has Commentluv or for those leaving a comment because it has Commentluv?”

            ARTICLE – CHRISTOPHER “If you run a site about lawnmowers, and you have a large number of links coming from a technology website, it probably doesn’t do you any favours. Similarly, if I have written an article on something tech related, comments with random links introducing irrelevant keywords, dilute the content and probably don’t do my article any favours.” – it was in the article…

            PETER “Whenever I leave a comment I always make sure to read the post” – I’ll let you off this once, you probably just forgot 😉

            Reply
            • Peter

              Actually, I did read it and I still say it doesn’t make sense. I have Commentluv, anyone leaving a comment on my blog get’s a link to their blog and not the other way around.

              The way you’ve written it’s the commenters who leave comments on unrelated blogs thereby getting unrelated links to their site who getting the bad SEO.

              Seems to me that’s not CommentLuvs fault but theirs for commenting on the wrong posts.

              Reply
              • Christopher Roberts

                I understand your point. I am not blaming CommentLuv, but it does facilitate the irrelevant links in the first place. As the image shows the two CommentLuv links are completely irrelevant to the post titles – and the blog. These are diluting our content by adding random keywords to the article, and won’t reflect well on the authors sites, as they have more incoming links from sites which are nothing to do with their niche.

                From my understanding if you are a technology blog, Google would see 500 links from other technology blogs as more natural than 500 links from furniture shop websites.

                Reply
  2. Neil@Responsive Website Designer

    Hi Christopher, I agree on your CommentLuv views. The main reason for commentLuv was SEO and these days it probably does more harm than good. While the old pre-penguin regime encouraged spam it also encouraged a lot of interaction on blogs. I think that by trying to reduce link spam Google has changed the way people approach blog commenting.

    I guess the next one to look at is Keywordluv, I am extremely wary with it these days and use it sparingly.

    Reply
    • Christopher Roberts

      Hi Neil,

      I would agree that KeywordLuv is also a concern, however having reviewed it, it isn’t nearly as spammy as CommentLuv. You are Neil and you are a ‘Responsive Website Designer’ which is fair enough. You only get dofollow comments here if you have more than 10 comments, so it is only really those who can be trusted that can make use if it anyway.

      CommentLuv just added too much padding and loads of completely irrelevant keywords/links to the comments section – hence it is gone.

      Thanks as always for the comment, it is great to know some people still like to voice their views via WordPress comments!

      Christopher

      Reply
  3. Neil

    Hi Christopher,

    I guess my point on KeywordLuv is more related to the SEO benefit for the person making the comment. I have seen a number of our clients severely penalised lately for link building with anchor text. My guess is that keywordluv will go the way of commentluv in the next few months.

    Reply
  4. Jon Sansom@JAWBONE BLUETOOTH NOISEASSASSIN

    Hey Christopher,

    I personally think too that CommentLuv is loosing its control and people are making it spammy just for their own greeds. You are right that sometimes its messy to have it as it takes time. But what if people throw links in there comments on sites without having CommentLuv plugin. It will be more difficult to remove spamming then. If its not CommentLuv then it will be something else. People will find ways for sure.

    Reply
    • Christopher Roberts

      Hi Jon,

      CommentLuv was really just a catalysis for spam.

      I still don’t understand why we are receiving around 150 spam comments a day though. We no longer use CommentLuv and links only dofollow after 10 approved comments. We use Akismet and GASP to prevent spam, and we have a report button to let users flag approve comments as spammy, so it’s not as though spammy comments are just going to sail on through.

      Thanks for the comment Jon, welcome to Technology Bloggers community 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

      Reply
    • Christopher Roberts

      Hi Ann,

      The plugin is called Link Love wordpress.org/plugins/link-love 🙂

      Thanks for the comment.
      Christopher – Admin Team

      Reply
  6. Roger Bamber

    I still use CommentLuv and think it’s great value. I believe the relevancy thing is a bit of a Google myth. What is relevant? These days lawnmower can use a lot of technology so a link from a Tech Blog to a lawnmower site is not beyond the range of what’s reasonable.

    As to the formatting problems, those can be fixed using some custom css.

    Reply
  7. Taushin Hanif

    I’m using CommentLuv, and I think it’s really interesting. I assume that a little Google’s uncertainty is the matter of relevance. And what might be important? The raspberry can now use a great deal of technology, so there isn’t a link to a Tech Blog lawnmower.

    With respect to formatting, these can be overcome by using some modified css.

    Reply
  8. saif shah

    Actually, I did read it and I still say it doesn’t make sense. I have Commentluv, anyone leaving a comment on my blog get’s a link to their blog and not the other way around.

    The way you’ve written it’s the commenters who leave comments on unrelated blogs thereby getting unrelated links to their site who getting the bad SEO.

    Seems to me that’s not CommentLuvs fault but theirs for commenting on the wrong posts.

    Reply
    • Christopher Roberts

      Thanks for the comment Saif.
      In terms of unrelated links, it might not be helping the person being linked to, but it is also diluting the content of that article.

      Using this page as an example, it focuses on comments, blogging and WordPress plugins.
      These are all related and therefore among the top keywords for the page.
      If someone comments about lawnmowers and leaves 3 comments, that adds more words in, diluting the actual content with other recurring themes.

      Hopefully it works well for you – maybe search engines are getting better at understand it anyway 🙂

      Reply
  9. John Adams

    I totally agree with you on the irrelevant links, people just to comment for the sake of backlinking. They don’t offer something valuable in their comments which creates a negative impact on user experience. The links look messy too.

    Reply

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