Web Design and Development
Why We Removed CommentLuv From Our Blog
The CommentLuv WordPress plugin is popular with new or low-traffic blogs because it greatly increases traffic and interactivity with readers.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the plugin, CommentLuv rewards "your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment." The effect of this is that visitors to your blog are more likely to leave a comment. In turn, those visitors that do comment are able to get traffic on their own blogs.
When we first installed CommentLuv back in January 2009, we noticed an immediate spike in comments and concluded that CommentLuv was exactly what our blog had been missing. However, in the last 18 months, we’ve been having some doubts.
Our Top 4 Reasons For Removing CommentLuv
While there were several factors that we considered, here are our top 4 reasons for removing CommentLuv from our website.
1. Nofollow is not completely ignored anymore.
As any website owner knows, the Google search and ranking algorithms change on a daily basis. Consequently, search engine optimization (SEO) is always changing and what was good for SEO yesterday, might not be good today. One of these things is the nofollow relationship attribute for links.
In the past, any link that was designated as nofollow by the relationship attribute, truly was a nofollow link. What this meant what that Google would share any of your pagerank or "link juice"1 with the site to which you linked. However, this has now changed. Instead, linking to other websites via a nofollow link DOES dilute the value of the follow links on the page. As a result, this negatively impacts your own internal links and how much rank is passed within your website.
Given that Google alone accounts for 75% of our traffic, we’d like to keep it happy and maintain the overall rankings of our website’s pages in search engines.
2. Increased Spam and Junk Comments
The best thing about CommentLuv is that you get an almost immediate increase in comments on your blog. But that can also be a bad thing. After installing CommentLuv, we noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of Spam and Junk comments, which resulted in significantly more time spent moderating.
When you become a CommentLuv user, your site becomes a very desirable place for people to leave comments because CommentLuv blogs better enable visitors to market their own products or affiliate websites. What we noticed was an increase in irrelevant comments. Basically, people were leaving comments without having read the post to which they were replying, all to get a couple of links to their websites in return.
3. Larger Page Sizes
Last year, Google announced that it uses web page speed as a key metric in determining a page’s value.2 On short article with few comments, CommentLuv would not greatly contribute to the overall web page’s size. However, on those posts with many comments, CommentLuv does have an noticeable impact.
CommentLuv also increases page rendering time as its functions need to process each comment before display.
4. Bulkier Databases
The way CommentLuv works is that it adds additional code into the comment_content column in WordPress’ comments table. So blogs with a lot of CommentLuv comments have a bulkier table. For most blogs, this is not a problem. However, as comments increase, you might find that your tables are reaching the limits of your current hosting. For those of you on shared web hosting, this might be an issue if your host limits how large your databases are allowed to grow.
When we removed CommentLuv from our database, we noticed a ~18% decrease in the size of our comments table.
How We Removed CommentLuv Completely, Even From Older Posts
The first step to removing CommentLuv was to uninstall it and delete the files. After uninstalling CommentLuv, we noticed that existing posts still kept their CommentLuv links. In fact, the only effect that the uninstallation had on existing comments was to remove the CommentLuv heart icon that had appeared next to links.3 Obviously, another solution was necessary given our desire to remove unnecessary nofollow links.
Simple MySQL Query To Remove CommentLuv Links In Existing Comments
To remove the CommentLuv links from existing comments, we performed the following database query.
UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_content = replace(comment_content, comment_content, SUBSTRING_INDEX(comment_content, '.-=', 1));
If you take a look at how CommentLuv comments are stored in the database, you will notice that the text of the comment is followed by the CommentLuv link, and the CommentLuv link is enclosed by three symbols as shown in the sample comment below.
Great Development Blog. I loved reading it. .-= Shirley@Velvet Blues´s last blog .. <a href="http://www.velvetblues.com/web-development-blog/php- mysql-gui-lightweight-phpmyadmin-alternatives/" rel="nofollow"> PHP/MySQL GUIs: Lightweight phpMyAdmin Alternatives updated Fri Aug 5 2011 10-57 pm CST</a> =-.
The MySQL query above simply finds the CommentLuv portion of the comment, strips it out, and saves only the part that we want to keep.
In other older versions, a different delimiter was used. So your query might look something like the following.
UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_content = replace(comment_content, comment_content, SUBSTRING_INDEX(comment_content, '<abbr><em>', 1));
Now That CommentLuv is Gone, We Expect Only a Minimal Impact On Our Blog
Removing CommentLuv was not a decision that we took lightly. We looked at statistics, analyzed our databases, and assessed the quality of comments that we had received from visitors that took advantage of the plugin. What we noticed is that only about 35% of users took advantage of it. And of that 35%, about 40% of those appeared to be leaving comments for the sole reason of gaining a link to their own websites. So, while it is expected that we will receive fewer comments, this move should also help reduce comment spam.
Other Well-Known Blogs Are Removing CommentLuv Too. Some Blogs Have Removed Comments Altogether!
Many other blogs — mostly because of SEO concerns — have decided to remove CommentLuv and other similar plugins from their websites. Additionally, other big tech blogs such as TechCrunch have removed on-site comments altogether. While we don’t plan on making such a drastic move, it is understandable why such a decision would be made. By moving comments to another platform, such as Facebook or Disqus, you increase the potential to generate traffic from your comments by leveraging the power of social networks. Additionally, off-site comments can reduce the time and costs associated with moderating comments or handling large databases. And of course, off-site comments create even smaller, lightweight pages for Google and other search engines to index.
- Link Juice is a term that refers to how much search engine ranking a link passes along. [↩]
- See the article Using Site Speed In Web Search Ranking on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. [↩]
- Note: Our blog was not using the most recent versions of CommentLuv, so this may or may not be true if you decide to uninstall CommentLuv on your blog. [↩]
30 Responses to “Why We Removed CommentLuv From Our Blog”
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Hi!!!
Thanks for sharing about why you removed comment luv. Your points sound good. Since you removed comment luv, has your traffic decreased? If so, will this create a new problem?
Does Google look at traffic volume as a factor in determining site or page value?
Tim
So far, our traffic has not decreased, but it has has only been a few days. We will have to wait and see what happens.
As for Google, they don’t explicitly mention traffic volume as a ranking factor, but comments do have an impact as Google ‘thinks’ the page is being updated with new content. So, it is always good to have new and relevant comments.
commentluv is a great tool but i agree spam is a problem. i ended up with hundreds of irrelevant comments just to get links
I don’t understand why commentluv equals spam. While I agree that you will get more comments than normal why wouldn’t you just use GASP, Akismet or Mollum to take care of your spam?
Thanks for your comment. Those spam programs DO NOT get rid of spam from real individuals. Comment Luv attracts individuals who do not read posts and just comment for the sole purpose of getting a link. That is the main problem. And it takes more time to moderate comments because those have have to be manually deleted.
Ah, good point.
interesting…. i got an invite to try the new beta commentluv but never got around to doing it. Your post title got me curious so I did read the article. Not saying I’m for it or against it but i think it’s an interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Velvet Blues,
Thanks for answering my question. Looks like people have an opinion on this topic. Also, it looks like most of the comment luv blogs are around the internet marketing blogs. I have trouble finding them related to my non internet marketing blogs.
Tim
I have also removed the commentluv plugin. Like you noted above, I received a lot more spam in my comments. I began to do some research and found this post, it help me to decide to remove the commentluv from my blog.
It’s nice to see a dissenting opinion about this awful, bloated, and unnecessary plugin. It seems all the rest are cheerleading it and singing it’s praises, most likley because they are all affiliates for the premium version.
Why there would be no option built in to remove the plugin from existing comments seems pretty inconvenient. I would like to increase traffic to my graphic design blog, and am seeing mixed reviews on the subject. Your insight is helpful none the less.
Does anyone know of any similar plugins that allow for easier removal of existing comment nofollow? Thanks
I had to remove commentluv as well. I still find that my traffic has not taken a noticeable hit. Velvet Blues you guys rock. I also loved your post on the bounce rate. I never even gave it a thought as to weather it made a difference for SEO.
I found your reasons for removing the plugin to valid points. To a point. For smaller blogs in helps gain viability for them. I would agree that as the blog grows in readership, it could become a speed problem and an moderation problem. Although I have a new blog and the readership is very small so far. This article has show me the way to remove it when I deem it to be needed in the future.
Thanks for this article, I was researching commentluv for my website, I thought it was odd that it the sites that I found with it installed had so much spam in the comments section. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of articles that discuss this issue, they just seem to talk about the benefits of using it. Thanks for your honest review!
Thank u for informative blog, I have bookmarked and will visit often. Just kidding. I am noticing a large increase in spam as well, which I didn’t have in 2009, when I had another blog with comment luv. I delete comments like the above, but I notice many blogs that don’t. I think they are part of the problem. People will still spam if they think there is a chance you’ll keep the comment. Just my thoughts
Hey, stumbled across this post when I searched for ‘is comment luv bad for seo’. Thanks for posting your thoughts.
I only installed CommentLuv a few days ago and then started thinking about the SEO impact of it. Should have thought about it in the opposite order, lol.
Since many/most of us that allow comments let those that make comments have a link anyway, it just seemed like overkill to me.
CommentLuv essentially would double your outbound links, which is not a good thing for SEO.
I also had not thought about the extra room required in the db.
Well, it’s removed, and although it’s a cool little plugin, it just wasn’t right for me.
Hi not sure if you are still taking comments but anyway heres my two pence. I have just installed it on my website but have made it clear that I will be checking comments before accepting them. Not sure if this will make any difference but thanks for your article given me food for thought
Just wanted to say thanks for the sql query, I just couldnt find a way to remove the links!
I heard that commentluv has a good anti-spam mechanism. Isn’t it true? Im looking forward to get it installed on my blog so I can encourage visitors to leave more comments
Thanks for sharing this! I would get a lot of SPAM comments lately and its a time waster to try and delete everything. I had commentluv removed and installed DoFollow plugin instead to reward people who comment in my blog.
Hmmm, I was about to install commentluv until my Libra instinct urged me to see the other side, which this site has demonstrated well. I dunno, but I write not for traffic but to share experiences and I’d like to have genuine feedback from people and not some Indian spammer with pre-written topic of universal approach (one said he liked my blog so much he’s understood my points well and woouldn’t doubt any of my topic – can you believe it?)
Just stumbled on your blog and I see you have a lot of great content.
We ran into a similar dilemma with the commentLuv plugin and it is a tough call. In the end, I think you are better off without the extra ‘junk’ traffic that sometimes comes from CommentLuv.
Well done and I will be checking back soon! Cheers!
I’m glad i came upon this article when i was seriously considering the plugin (i currently use Disqus on all my blogs).
I can see that it has decreased the comments on your blog after that but did it have any effect on the traffic since its been a couple of months now?
Having read (your entire
article its clear what the downsides are, so thanks for sharing. I wonder if you totally regret having installed it in the first place, or whehter you also think there were some positive things. I mean, did you also get some positive links and connections from commentluv, or was 100% spam and crappy? If so, maybe a fair conclusion could be commentluv can be nice for sites that need growing, and once grown, its best to turn it off? Would love to hear your opinion 
Seems true although I have never been a user of commentluv I was doing research for posting about it on my blog after reading your perspective it seems like it’s better to stay away from it .
Good read. I was considering implementing CommentLuv – simply because it forms a big part of my strategy commenting on other blogs – but I think I’ll reconsider. I should just add, in case you were wondering, that I don’t spam on other blogs or seek them out because they have CommentLuv but the plugin does give me one more small incentive to visit the blogs I like just a bit more often.
Thanks for the sharing of the disadvantages commentluv.
After read it, i might reconsider to install the plugin.
It’s nice to see a dissenting opinion about this awful, bloated, and unnecessary plugin. It seems all the rest are cheerleading it and singing it’s praises, most likley because they are all affiliates for the premium version.
Hmmm.. I am still in the category of new and small, so maybe that is why no one bothers to spam comment:). I moderate all comments, and will delete those that are spammy.. so I’m not really sure if the points you mentioned apply to me?
With CommentLuv I got an immediate increase in comments and traffic to my blog. But I did also notice that most of the comments were not related to my posts, most of them were spam from guys wanting to build links to their sites.