How do you use comments?

How do you use comments? That’s my question. How do use comments on Technology Bloggers and other blogs, and are you getting the most out of your commenting experience?

In the past Kaushal has written about how to make the most out of blog commenting, and now I am going to do something similar, but in my soft of way.

So let’s focus on comments here first.

When you comment, do you ever take notice of others comments? Well if not you should! Comments often contain the most valuable content of the whole article (as I think I have said before) so it would be wise to read them.

Furthermore, making good use of the ‘Reply’ button is never a bad thing either. Not only does it show that you read others comments, but it also helps to spark conversation and ultimately relationships within the community.

The next thing to remember is that I don’t like to leave useless stuff lying around cluttering the place up. Hopefully this shows in the design of the blog, especially the comment field. This brings me onto my next point, make use of the information the blogger has given you.

Technology Bloggers Comment Form

Technology Bloggers comment form - found at the bottom of every article, and where you go to leave your contribution

Take a look at it, and you should see that it is busy, but not cluttered. Everything there is essential and telling you something.

The “we are a dofollow blog” bit tells you that you get ‘extra rewards’ for commenting here if you have a URL; the “check out the comment policy” bit lets you know that we have rules and values, and they are on show for all to see; each of the comment fields has its name and a brief description, to help you put the right thing in each box; below the post comment button is an anti-spam box, showing that we must care about your comments, and finally the CommentLuv box is there to help you squeeze the most out of your contribution.

Make use of this information, it is there to help you write the best possible comment!

What you can now do is apply this when you comment on other blogs. Okay, they may have slightly different systems and ways of doing things, but at the end of the day, they are all just helping you add your contribution.

Comment are very important, and that’s probably why I keep writing about them! Why not add a contribution now, either as a new comment or in reply so someone else’s below and demonstrate your knowledge of how to use comments?

Why you should use and update CommentLuv

Just to let you know this is my (Christopher Roberts’s) 50th post on Technology Bloggers!

CommentLuv is a fantastic plugin which helps commenters get more out of their commenting experience.

Technology Bloggers has the CommentLuv plugin installed and enabled. This means that when you comment here, you get to ‘show off’ one of your recent articles by ticking the CommentLuv box, and because we are a dofollow blog, that also gives you a dofollow link back to your article.

I believe that using CommentLuv makes your commenting system more fair, and therefore increases your commenters, good PR and subsequently traffic.


As a commenter, to use it all you need to do is input your URL in the normal URL field, and then tick the CommetLuv box. If you are a registered CommentLuv member then the plugin will go to your feed and bring up your latest posts. If you are not registered, it will spider your site for an RSS feed and then return the posts from that.

So CommentLuv is great for commenters and blogger. But what’s the customer service like? Well the reply to that is fantastic!

Earlier in the week there was a CommentLuv update (2.90.8) but all wasn’t good. On Wednesday I realised that all comments were showing the CommentLuv text, even if the CommentLuv box was not ticked, or a URL present.

I fiddled with the settings, but it didn’t seem to work. So I contacted the CommentLuv team for support. Now in the past I have contacted plugin owners and it has been weeks until I got a response. However it took Andy Bailey (the plugin author) just 11 minutes!

He left a comment and saw the problem.

Andy Bailey's comment showing the CommentLuv faultHe then quickly updated the plugin and sent me it via email, asking me to beta test it, to check the issue was resolved. His second comment (below) shows that it was 🙂

Andy Bailey's comment showing that CommentLuv was fixedNow unfortunately this means that you now need to update to CommentLuv 2.90.9. Okay, Technology Bloggers is to blame for the update, sorry folks, but hey, it works great here now 🙂

Going to comment? Give CommentLuv a try.
Got a blog? Why not install CommentLuv on it?
Already using CommentLuv? Please update to 2.90.9 🙂

What are your thoughts on CommentLuv?

Thank you Andy Bailey from all of us here at Technology Bloggers 🙂

A review of our progress four months in

Today Technology Blogger has been live for 4 months – or 17 weeks and 3 days if you want to look at it like that.

Now after the first two weeks of being on the net, I wrote an article about what we had achieved as a community. Today I am going to do the same, but 17 (and a bit) weeks in, just so you can get a sense of scale as to the amazing feats that we have achieved.

Technology Bloggers LogoAs of today, the 13th of August 2011:

  • Our 15 writers have posted 65 articles
  • Our 120 commenters have posted 788 comments
  • We have tweeted 68 tweets to our 24 Twitter followers
  • We have posted 45 status updates to the 11 people who like us on Facebook
  • Our homepage has been awarded a Google PageRank of 3
  • Our Alexa traffic rank is 165,351
  • A fantastic community blog, which everyone should be proud to be a part of!

Take a look at our Google Analytics, (below) to see the true scale of the growth our blog traffic has had!

Technology Bloggers Google Analytics Graph (13/04/11-13/08/11)

Technology Bloggers traffic stats from the 13th of April 2011 to the 13th of August 2011

How have we achieved all this?

I have written a series on how to be a successful blogger, telling you what I have done that has helped the blog be a success, but I couldn’t have done this on my own.

The real answer is you guys! If you have written for us, commented on our content or even just read some of our stuff, it’s thanks to you that we have achieved what we have.

The best bit!

Great, we have achieved all this, but so what? Well I feel like I have gained a lot from the blog in this short amount of time, so I hope you have to, but remember we are a dofollow blog with great content, so everyone benefits! Read | Contribute | Benefit – it’s there for a reason 🙂

Readers gain knowledge and know-how from our content and others comments comments. Readers who also choose to comment benefit from the fantastic community we have and dofollow links. Writers benefit so much too: experience; exposure to a massive audience; dofollow links to their site; highly valuable, quality comments on their work; potentially AdSense earnings, etc.

The future…

Well done to all, we should be very pleased with our achievements, but I see this as just the beginning.

We have grown at such a rate in such a short space of time, I can’t see any reason why in a year or two we could have the likes of TechCrunch, Engadget and Mashable quaking in their boots!

Keep up the great work everyone 🙂

Christopher.