The Stallion version of the SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin is built directly into the Stallion Responsive Theme and the Stallion WordPress SEO theme (doesn’t need installing like a WordPress Plugin) and is a highly modified version of the Comments WordPress SEO Plugin which is an updated version of the Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin (phew, that was a lot of plugin explanations). It’s easily activated under the “Stallion Theme” >> “Advanced SEO Options” page. No other WordPress theme has the set of WordPress SEO features described below. Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress SEO Plugin The original Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress SEO Plugin (no feature updates for years) turns all WordPress comments into WordPress post like pages (they […]
Continue Reading Stallion SEO Super Comments
WordPress Forum Plugin
The super comment plugin you have does seem to help in many ways, my traffic has increased from user-generated content. I can see the traffic on long-tail searches.
Maybe it is a Panda Slayer :) Why? eHow seemed to be hit on high searched keyword titles. That is they find a keyword phrase highly searched and make the title of their post this exact phrase.
However, your super comments plugin creates a lot of very usual pages and titles, which makes things seem more natural and balance out of over zealous keyword targeters. Maybe Post Panda Google likes this natural writing more than exact keyword titles.
It would be great to get people commenting all the time on a website. This is the dream to start a website and have others generate the content with you and your value added is you manage it and build it.
I am now playing with the new bbPress Plugin for WordPress. I know you are not a forum guy but it is worth checking out. It is radically different from bbPress in the past as least in terms of code. I did have one minor issue with making Stallion work as a child of bbPress but I am looking into this.
I have seen some very high traffic forums out there, enough to maybe consider this again, but maybe super comments achieves this objective.
Off the subject maybe a site map on this page might help as I sometimes am looking for a page on a Stallion topic and can not find it with search.
WordPress Forum Plugin
WordPress Comments Spelling Plugin
Is there any way to encourage users to leave comments with better spelling and grammar?
I am not one to talk. However, I get so many comments that are in chat style. I have to go back and fix them.
Spell Check WordPress Plugins
Not used them myself, but have seen the odd WordPress site with the ability for commenter’s to check their spelling.
I don’t worry about it, it’s user generated content and it’s going to be ‘messy’. Sometimes a commenter will cover spellings that you wouldn’t have used that can generate traffic, misspelling traffic from Google isn’t what it used to be since they now show the most likely spelling.
David
Spell Check WordPress Plugins
Build a WebSite Community
More brainstorming ideas for Stallion or SEM and online money in general: These might be worth nothing but I thought I would put them out there is any might be practical. They are ideas.
Problem: Many people sell products online yet Paypal looks basic:
Solution: A snappy online merchant tool
1)Develop a simple online merchant feature (maybe a simple shopping cart feature, something that will enhance sales like expander does for marketing).
I personally use Paypal for my products, however, is there any value in creating SEO or cool stylistic cart . For example – like little shopping cart icons and arrows to enhance sales – perhaps tested with Google google optimizer tool A/B test. It could even be sold as a separate plugin. The A/B testing part would be a time investment on your part. For example, with graphical design colors and styles for the cart or arrows leads to greater sales after a series of trials and progressive A/B tests.
I would buy an SEOed and SEMed merchant tool. As per our conversation monetization over diverse streams of income is not a bad idea, i.e. not just Adsense but also Clickbank or your own shop. I think there are a lot of people who sell their own services and products and this feature might have some demand.
Problem: Time on site and repeat visits is important for Google:
Solution: Continue to develop the great super comments plugin
2)Expand on the idea of community with the Super comments plugin to include things like comment cloud or other things that entice people to comment or feel at home like a community. I have had lackluster experiences with bbPress and BuddyPress in terms of set up and functionality compared to your super comments. So continue the development of super comments in various ways. Ways that would get people coming back and feeling at home.
Other less practical ideas:
3) I am not a grammarian, however, I have to clean up a lot of my commentors comments. I use ‘After the Deadline’ for my own comment checks, is there a way to make the commentors see their mistakes? Maybe all this would make the code too heavy?
4)User interaction things: The ability for users to upload things to an area on your site like art or stories submitted. – Classified ad (some people charge for a job board etc but I image you need a huge following) or dating site plugin or These are way off in left field but also consideration for plugin ideas. All these might not be worth it in terms of cost/benefit of development.
5) I actually like the site map feature on your Stallion theme. Anything that helps navigation or let people break up their site into areas maybe with different styles. WP menu does do a good job with navigation but I think navigation is a huge part of getting people to stay on the site. So I do not know what else could help this beyond that is in current functionality.
I think you have the – Magazine style homepage option somewhere o a long-term time frame – But I think this will be a great addition to Stallion.
As your online business expands maybe, hire a programmer that you guide to develop things like plugins and enhancements that you could sell.
If you ever need a beta tester for things let me know. I have a few low traffic sites I can test and give feedback on.
These are the current ideas I have. Maybe one is of value.
Build a WebSite Community
WordPress WebSite Development
There are WordPress plugins that turn WordPress into an ecommerce store, some as simple as what I’m using to sell Stallion (basically a PayPal/Clickbank button and a bit of database info) and others that are fully fledged web stores. I looked at one that created a store a couple of years ago as a possible way to make a thin affiliate store appear like a real ecommerce store, but decided against it, too much hassle for affiliate content, but looked interesting though.
If I ever get back into selling products (used to about 9 years ago) I’d create an SEO’d version of one of the current WordPress shopping cart plugins, no need to reinvent the wheel :-)
With regards the Stallion SEO Super Comments plugin would be good to add the ability for visitors to comment directly from the SEO Super Comments pages. I’d like to incorporate Facebook connect and similar, BUT from what I’ve seen when you add Facebook like features the content is on Facebook not our sites, which is not good SEO wise.
Did you take a look at any of the comment plugins that add spell checkers etc..? I hate to make a comment without spell checking first and use the Google built in browser spell checker, I think you’ll find few commenter’s worry too much about grammar/spelling and if you tried to make an issue of it you could put some off commenting. The harder it is for someone to make a one off comment less likely they’ll comment in my opinion. You can’t get much simpler with WordPress than a fake name, fake email address and the comment text to make a comment :-)
Appreciate the ideas and feedback.
Have been looking at social networking buttons etc… this one looks interesting https://wordpress.org/plugins/sexybookmarks/ Has a lot of social network buttons and might not damage SEO. Most of the social network plugins don’t take SEO into account, they’ll use text links with nofollow to some of the social network buttons. Sexybookmarks plugin uses text links, but the code is custom using str_href instead of href, which MAY mean they aren’t counted as links (I’m not sure). Not looked in detail yet, but think they are using javascript to change the custom link code to normal link code using javascript (like I use with Stallion Cloak Affiliate Links).
As I’m not sure if a href format str_href will be treated as a text link (it shouldn’t be, but maybe the remain link code will count as a broken link), when I get the time going to look at the code and see if I can easily remove the a part like I’ve used with the Stallion cloaking script so it will definitely have no SEO impact.
Ignoring SEO the Sexybookmarks plugin is the sort of social networking feature I’ve been looking for, if it causes no SEO damage I’ll be using it probably :-)
I’ve added Google +1 button to Stallion 6.1 and will be able to have the links at the top or bottom of the content rather than just the bottom. Would rather use a standalone plugin like Sexybookmarks as there’s more features, but it has to be SEO friendly (neutral).
David
WordPress WebSite Development
WordPress Comments Enhancements?
Great discussion of new ideas for Stallion. I like how Mark hit on the comments enhancements. I think the super comments feature is awesome. I have gotten a good bit of search traffic from that alone (have about 10,000 comments on my site). Great long tail feature.
On the topic of spell checker I definitely agree with SEO Dave on this:
“I think you’ll find few commenter’s worry too much about grammar/spelling and if you tried to make an issue of it you could put some off commenting. The harder it is for someone to make a one off comment less likely they’ll comment in my opinion.”
Hear, hear. I’ll take a misspelled comment over no comment at all.
I think the philosophy here of promoting comments is key to developing a community-type atmosphere which encourages people to come back.
With people taking hits from Google updates I think the community-building and repeat visitors is key to diversifying your traffic (not to mention a community is a lot of fun and it’s pretty cool to engage with people through your site–I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my site regulars, lot of good people).
To that end, I had a few ideas to maybe enhance the comments and community experience.
1) Ability to rank/like comments?
2) Ability to use your own customized default gravatar?
3) Numbered comments for easier reference?
4) Commenter profile page feature?
5) “Top commenter” badges?
6) ???
I think all these ideas could help personalize the experience, promote interaction, and encourage people to be invested in the site and thus return. I think the comments aspect is great as it is on Stallion but could be leveraged a lot more, maybe by using some of these ideas.
And I think this could potentially have more impact than even social media additions and enhancements. I’d rather build a community on my own site than on another (though I have found Facebook a good way to give users access to my content and of course these tools can help feed traffic to your site, so good to have).
Thanks for all the work and for making the effort to get ideas from your users. Just my two cents here, I have an Amish site so maybe I just naturally think “community” ;)
WordPress Comments Enhancements?
Advanced SEO Super Comments Plugin
I was working on the SEO Super Comments code yesterday, added a “Reply to Comment” link so when visitors find their way to a Stallion SEO Super Comments page they can click the “Reply to Comment” link and it will take them to the comment form on the relevant post and when they write the comment it will thread below the comment (on the relevant post) they found.
I’ve added the code to this site, if you plan to respond to this comment go to the SEO Super Comments pages from the link below and you’ll see the “Reply to Comment” link, click it and you’ll come back here ready to add a response.
Rating Comments: there are plugins that can rate comments, I use one on sites like http://www.conspiracy-theories-hoax.com/john-f-kennedy-assassination-conspiracy.html, the plugins called “Comment Rating”
Note: the author has added a semi-hidden backlink to their site (I removed it from the plugin I use and reported the plugin to WordPress: hiding links not allowed). There’s the ability to semi-hide comments (you have to click a link to open the comment fully) if enough visitors mark it down. When a comment is marked down enough to be semi-hidden the plugin adds a link back to the authors site saying where you can get the plugin from (bit cheeky to say the least!).
Two ways to get by this, remove it from the code or set comments are semi-hidden only when there’s say 1,000 negative vote (will never happen) or you could turn off negative votes.
To edit, load the file comment-rating.php in a text editor and replace (found around line 400):
$content .= ' <a href="http://wealthynetizen.com/wordpress-plugin-comment-rating/" title="' .__('Rated by other readers', 'ckrating').'">' .__('comment rating','ckrating').'</a>.';with
$content .= ' ' .__('', 'ckrating').' ' .__('comment rating','ckrating').'.';You can then have the hidden links feature without adding a backlink to the authors site! The defaults for semi-hidden etc… are really low, I set them much higher (you don’t want a comment semi-hidden because of only 5 negative votes). I also don’t like the semi-hidden feature, I want the comments to be easily seen/read, this adds another layer for visitors to read them.
The default gravatar issue with Stallion is on the list of things to fix.
It is possible to have numbered comments, would be a nice feature to add, will look into it.
I think you’d have to have all commenter’s register to have a profile page for commenter’s? I’d avoid this sort of thing as it’s going to open your site up to abuse if you allow website links to show (like you get with most forum like profiles). I have a few forums and you get thousands of profile link spammers just signing up for the backlinks from their profile pages!
I’ll bet there are plugins for top commenter’s sort of features. Vaguely recall seeing something like that as a widget.
Like you I’d like to integrate more with Facebook and probably Google +1 when it goes fully live, BUT it means you loose your commenter’s content (not on our sites) which means potentially less traffic from search engines as you loose the SEO Super Comments content.
I enjoy answering comments on my SEO sites, but until I added the SEO Super Comments plugin I was always torn between writing a response as a comment and creating a new post and referring to it. With a comment it’s less formal, you can waffle on about all sorts of stuff, but with a post ideally you’d be more formal and more concise (comments are easier to write). Since adding the Stallion SEO Super Comments plugin with the Hikari Comment title plugin (also built into Stallion) combination it’s rare that I’ll write a new post to answer a comment because I know it’s going to be full indexed by Google etc… and have most of the SEO features Stallion offers to a full post. Encourages me to write more comments because I know they’ll generate more traffic in their own right (biggest problem is thinking up relevant and unique comment titles :-)).
David
Advanced SEO Super Comments Plugin
How to Build a Community WebSite with WordPress
As long as we are still on the topic of super comments, forums and community, which I think there is a lot of buzz post Panda, I guess I have another two pence to add.
OK here goes, I saw your http://www.animal-forum.co.uk/ – besides being a nice website I got an idea.
One idea for people who want to create a forum without the hassles of forum including the disincentive of registration is your super comments. This we all know as we have talked about this.
However, here is the new idea: would there be any value in creating a CSS option template page/post that would have a forum look. That is you could take your above Animal forum and simply default it to a wide forum look? Or do something to help people who land on comment pages stay and explore the site.
The idea is when people land on the website it looks like a real forum and they think of it more like a community and forum which they return back to.
I think almost anything can be done with CSS and post/page templates in WP. I mean it could almost look like a forum yet still be a blog with highly SEOed pages and comments. People could not know and Google does not care, they just care if people keep coming back to your site.
You could almost set up only a score of well thought out post and if you have people (like me) keep coming back and commenting the website will develop a life of its own with twenty or so pages.
On one of my sites which runs your theme has over 10,000 comments (Like Erik above). People actually refer to it as a forum, not a blog. I am getting a very sizable amount of traffic from the long-tails generated from people’s comments. I think your Stallion theme with Super comments partially saved me post Panda. When Panda hit I plugged in super comments and I subsequently was my long tail search increase because of the comment pages.
An issue is some comment landing pages have a low bounce rate some of the comments a high bounce rate. To make the bounce rate lower on comment landing pages, maybe this is as much a design navigation issue as a much as a content of the comment issue. That is even if the comment is not the best, people might explore the site more if the comment looked like a forum layout or lead them to another central part of the website easier?
Maybe the wide forum look is a bad idea. Maybe there is a look no one has thought of that would increase time on site and click though? Maybe it is more about navigation. Having an ‘Ask me a question’ button to encourage people to post comments?
I saw one guy have an ‘ask me a question’ button and it seemed to look pretty good. Once you press it leads to a post a comment area.
Maybe try instead of ‘comment title’ something like ‘what will your comment be about’ – I do not know.
So this again is another vote to continue to tinker with the community aspect of Stallion. It never hurts when people keep returning to your site and hanging out there.
A little history, I have tried bbPress and BuddyPress for about a year now on a couple of my domains, and always run into some problem. Whether it be spam (this is a huge problem) or some quirk.
I set up every spam filters but somehow robots understood these to be social networks and forums and moderation is an issue.
Nothing against bbPress and BuddyPress as they are developing. Many people run websites on them successfully, but alas, I have to yield to your point you have made about forums, it is a huge time investment to develop websites based on these plugins. And I mean not just set them up, but to get people to sign up and use them and fight spam or borderline spam comments.
My perspective on this is:
WordPress’ forte are blogs and websites. I do not know if it is forums’ and social communities. Just like Microsoft does well (arguably) with OS but not search engines. Google does well with Search but not social networking etc. It is hard to be all things to all people.
Therefore, maybe the best way use WordPress as a blog and make enhancements like super comments and other ideas as mentioned above, within the context and framework of their blogging model but with alterations in style and function, rather than giving it a new role.
Flowing from that trend of thought, I like your approach of leveraging ideas. WP has a huge repository of extensions. Some are good ideas, but almost all are not built with SEO in mind. Ex nihilo nihil fit – or nothing comes from nothing – A good way to brainstorm is to examine ideas which are already tried or partially developed and if they make sense extend or develop them further.
Taking inspiration from other ideas (as well as just thinking originally alone of course or brainstorming) makes sense. I have said the only reason I do not have a million dollars in the bank in cash is simple ignorance. If I had perfect information I could make a million in a few months. :)
How to Build a Community WebSite with WordPress
WordPress Comments as Landing Pages
I guess the above stream of consciousness boils down to this –
Regardless of the CSS design and lets factor out writing quality and content as this is a variable:
What gets someone to land on a comment page from super comments and not bounce off, but rather explore or comment and come back. What navigation or deign will lead them by the hand to explore more.
I have read a lot of books like ‘Don’t make me think’ about leading people by the hand to a well-organized navigation structure.
Your SEO super comments is brilliant. What can improve this?
What feature, design or idea could improve this? No one has to have an answer right now, rather, this is an open question.
What would encourage someone who is dis-oriented from landing on a comment page to hang around and explore one’s website?
This will be manifest on Google analytics.
WordPress Comments as Landing Pages
How to Turn WordPress Comments into a Forum
I’ve worked with a few forum scripts like PHPBB and understand what you mean by a wide forum look.
In Stallion 6.1 (still working on the update) I’ve added a no sidebar version that looks more forum like than the other Stallion layouts.
This is a test site #### running unfinished Stallion 6.1 and the WPRobot autoblog plugin for quick content.
Changed it to the no sidebars layout. Still has sidebars, but they are all at the bottom. The layout of the site took no code changes, so all built into Stallion 6.1.
All the content is automated, but a post like ##### gives a forum like look.
From a forum perspective the standard WordPress comment threading works well, the SEO Super Comments pages works very well with search engines as long as the Comment titles are SEO’d (which the site owner can edit at anytime).
What’s lacking is the ability for a visitor to start their own forum topics, the comment content is limited to what the posts the site owner has made is about. A partial fix to this would be to create starter posts that are general, so a post called “WordPress Forum” for example with a small amount of content explaining it’s a ‘forum’ about WordPress could be used for all comments related to WordPress. Like all forums there’s only so many posts that are at the top of a particular forum, so no difference there. So if you built a site with say 20 starter posts (equivalent to 20 forum sections) it could be grown like a forum.
What might pull it together is on the SEO Super Comments pages comments made in response to that comment is shown on the SEO Super Comments page. Example is this forum post SEO Consultant Tips has one response and it’s shown on that page below it. This SEO Super Comment ##### has one response, but it’s not show on that page.
If I can get the Stallion SEO Super Comments pages to show the response comments (I can get the entire comments for the original post to show) with the reply to link to each of the comments shown that would be a lot more like a forum without the need for registrations etc… From an SEO perspective that would be better than most forum scripts since most forums don’t show the individual comments (forum posts) on separate pages, forums like PHPBB have the forum topic page like the SEO Consultant Tips page and all replies are on that page: there’s not a lot of SEO value in having forum topics on one page with no replies compared to one page with 20 replies since it’s still only one page indexed (even a topic with enough replies to create page 2+ has little extra SEO value since they have the same title).
David
Update: test site no longer live, see this website for how the above works and where I went with the SEO super comments features to create min-forums within a WordPress blog.
How to Turn WordPress Comments into a Forum
How to Use Comments for SEO
Instead of creating posts everyday on my blogs which can lead to burn out, create fewer more compelling posts. Compelling is the key word here.
I know that with SEO super comments, interactions will become a posts that are indexed. The writing in comment replies tend to be more natural than some of my posts which I tend to be a little heavy handed with keywords.
I do cheat and sometimes make sure my comments are over 400 words, even this one. And use www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/countwords.shtml to check it.
It has changed my role as a blogger to more, set up the information in a way that gets people to come and add to the conversation. It is easier than being a mini ehow.com that just cranks out content that is vanilla and generic.
Written interaction with people will generate all kinds of natural iterations in the language that search engines will see as authentic. It is interesting as people are varied and interesting.
In the words of Mozart from the movie Amadeus, ‘who does not want to hear gossip from their hairdresser over the thoughts of some ancient Greek gods’. People make a website come alive.
That being said, I applaud am thankful you are developing or at least thinking about developing super comments. As a problogger, which I am, it makes my life easier.
For example: ‘If I can get the Stallion SEO Super Comments pages to show the response comments’- good idea.
I have seen attempts from video comments to the mingle plugin which seem OK, but not as good and forum scipts are not SEOed.
I hope others here will keep brainstorming ideas on the idea of how to build community here. I did switch to threaded comments. Therefore, life is easier for me and others including you.
If I could just envision one or two things more that would make super comments rock. Something that would get people to comment more, read more. I do not have the answers. Maybe like the sexy bookmark plugin an arrow to the comment area that takes people by the hand and encourages them to read.
If anyone else has ideas to improve this super comments, it would be interesting.
I do not know. Maybe it is more about navigation than gimmicks or crazy ideas :)
One more thing, I saw a plugin like this. https://wordpress.org/plugins/stumble-for-wordpress/ It has a big fat stumble a random article button. I wonder if this is of any value or if you have played with it.
How to Use Comments for SEO
Enhanced WordPress Comments
Great thread here, Dave I like the “Reply to Comment” addition on the Super Comments pages. Another open door for visitors to walk through.
Thanks for the rating comments idea. See, I’m always wary of adding a new plug-in, just for the reason you describe–a cheeky hidden add-on, which I probably wouldn’t be able to detect Or, I’m not sure what effects a given plug-in will have on SEO. Your examples of some of the so-called SEO enhancing plugins out there actually doing the opposite are what I mean. Appreciate you screening these bad boys for us.
Also thanks for looking into the other ones as well. I do see sites out there that use Facebook to handle comments. I guess for reasons of preventing/limiting trolls and spam. The trade-off as you say is that you are giving all that away to FB. I agree, not a great idea.
Enhanced WordPress Comments
Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin Canonical URL Fix
For users of the original Prelovac SEO Super Comments Plugin (version 0.7.1) you will find your super comments pages will NOT be indexed by Google (this is not an issue for the Stallion SEO Super Comments version packaged with the Stallion WordPress SEO Theme or Stallion Responsive). This is because a canonical URL is added to the head of the super comments which tells Google to redirect any benefit and indexing to the original post (only the original post is indexed).
Here’s a fix for non-Stallion WordPress SEO theme users (do not do this with Stallion, it’s already built in).
Make a copy of header.php and call it header2.php
Make a copy of single.php and call it single2.php
Add
function get_header2(){include (get_template_directory() . "/header2.php");}To your function.php file.
Edit single2.php and change
to
Edit header2.php and ABOVE (must be above) the line
Add
<?php remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');?>Go to the Prelovac SEO Super Comments options page and change the “Template file in use” to single2.php
If everything works as it should when you view source of a super comments page it will NOT include a canonical URL.
For example the original post (Stallion SEO Super Comments Plugin) for this super comment (if you are on the super comments page) would have the canonical URL code:
If you view source of a super comment and see code in the head that looks like the above something went wrong.
Some of the WordPress SEO plugins that write their own canonical URL code are not going to work with the Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin.
This is a small thanks to Vladimir Prelovac the author of the original Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin for creating such a useful plugin, a derivative of which I use on all my WordPress sites and thousands of Stallion SEO theme users use on theirs.
David
Update: not a Stallion theme user, I’ve made a stand alone updated version of the SEO super comments plugin.
Prelovac SEO Super Comments WordPress Plugin Canonical URL Fix
WordPress SEO Super Comments?
Hi David,
I loved reading what you did with SEO Super Comments plugin of Vladimir Prelovac…
However, since I’m not a Stallion user (and can’t be as I’m using a theme that was developed especially for us) – I can’t enjoy the great features you developed.
I would love to buy from you a stand alone plugin or an adaptation to my theme…
Is that a possibility?
Looking forward to hear from you, Neta
WordPress SEO Super Comments?
Stallion SEO Super Comments Plugin
The SEO Super Comments Plugin code built into Stallion has been changed so much it wouldn’t work outside Stallion without significant code changes, for example there’s half a dozen plus Stallion Theme options that the Stallion SEO Super Comments plugin uses and it uses other built in plugins and code.
Would be a pain to make it stand alone with all the Stallion features.
I don’t do custom work, I charge too much per hour.
Curious why Stallion wouldn’t work for your site?
David
Update: not a Stallion theme user, I’ve made a stand alone updated version of the SEO super comments plugin.
Stallion SEO Super Comments Plugin