Do you want to replace the default comment system on your WordPress site and are shopping around for the right alternative to the default comment system on WordPress?
I’ve got a great suggestion worth considering – Disqus.
A lot has changed since the old good old days of WordPress.
Engagement wasn’t a big thing, there were very few challenges of spam or concerns about user experience back them.
The fast pace of technological advancement and the evolution of our target audiences puts a bit of pressure and demands on any website administrator.
A balance needs to be struck between the needs of our audience and the tools that make it a possibility.
Disqus offers a WordPress website more than just an alternative but a perfect upgrade to the native comment system.
A comment system that fosters discussion and engagement with your audience, at the same time providing admins with easy to use tools to manage comments and discussions in general.
What is Disqus and why is worth your attention?
Disqus is a widely used comment system, you can embed it to a website.
With millions of websites reported to be using it, it allows management of comments and interaction on a website.
Its a free WordPress plugin allows one to easily replace the default WordPress comment system, and provides a website administrator with powerful tools to manage comments on their website.
Why you could consider replacing the default WordPress comment system with Disqus?
When you consider the commenting needs and ideal features that a typical website needs, then Disqus meets the bill.
On top of the list is providing users with a seamless commenting system
Disqus’s great engagement features go beyond and above the default WordPress commenting system, rightly justifying why many developers and website administrators use it.
It comes with a simple, clean and friendly commenting form, with features like real-time comments, comment text formatting, sorting, and threaded display, among others.
In the world of increased social demands, we look for every opportunity to utilize existing social networks something Disqus provides. The ability of users to authenticate and comment on your website using the major social networks they are already in.
This obviously, has its own associated benefits to a website.
Increased engagement means visitors will love your brand, it also means your content is easily discoverable as user comments are not only shown on your website, but also on the commenter’s social media profiles.
Increased engagement has a great impact on your search engine rankings. Search engines love to rank high websites that have a lot of user activity.
Engagement definitely helps generate third party content, content that you can adapt and develop. Content that your beloved community resonates with.
I could go on, but, I hope you can see how the native WordPress commenting system cannot foster this kind of engagement.
Moving on; one of the concerns about allowing interaction on a website is spam.
Not everyone on the internet has the best intentions or stops to consider the purpose of why we add some functionality to our websites. You will have bots, marketers, trolls or just commenters who don’t respect the website, other users and the commenting facilities.
This is an overwhelmingly sufficient reason to replace the native WordPress comment system.
Disqus provides solid spam management and moderation features
With the default WordPress system, you have to rely on many third party tools, like we are considering Discus here, to manage spam and user interaction.
The first and probably most important moderation and spam management feature you get with Disqus is what we mentioned earlier, its integration with and user of social media profiles for authentication.
Only a committed spammer would go through the trouble of creating an account with facebook or google to come and post garbage on your website.
Even so, the Akismet integration provides an automatic anti-spam filter, plus a bunch of other great moderation controls like flagging users based on links or reputation and tools like user blocking and comment flagging.
And of course, you can always moderate your comments before they are visible on the website.
Concerns I have with Disqus
Disqus is a great tool, no doubt about that, but I have two major concerns with it and for some reason, it plays a big part in the decision making process.
One feature Disqus comes with is monetization options of your comments.
It sounds a great idea, I must admit back in the day this was one of the reasons I used Disqus – If you have a low traffic website, you probably will not generate any sensible revenue from this
As enticing as this may sound, like any program that monetizes your content, privacy concerns cannot miss.
The free plan of the plugin is laden with adverts and sometimes these are not related to your content.
If you’re not comfortable with the privacy handling and ads issues on Disqus, then wpDiscuz would be the best choice for you.
Two. Disqus adds drag to websites. We optimize WordPress website quite a bit, and the unfortunate fact is Disqus adds some performance pressure to a website.
A Google Page speeds test or a GTMetrix test will return a number of scripts that Disqus introduces to a website, this not only affects your page speeds but also the performance of a website.
Something that those who are concerned about performance would seriously consider.
In Conclusion
There is a definite need to replace the default WordPress comment system for any website owner who cares to bring action and engagement to their website.
Disqus with its simple deployment and seamless integration to WordPress and numerous features provides a website owner with the perfect system to replace the default WordPress comment system
However, if you have qualms with its privacy, ads and performance issues then you will need to learn how to work around its shortcomings or you could consider alternative commenting systems but this will be at the expense of the aesthetics and some features of Disqus. And we’ve also picked out some of the best free comment system plugins in case you might need it.
What is your experience with Disqus? Or what alternatives are you using? Share with us in the comments section below.