How to add comments policy to a WordPress blog
Posted October 18, 2010 – 11:37 am
I’ve just figured out how to add a comments policy to a WordPress blog. It was a little more difficult than I expected.
How to Add Comments Policy
Basically, I just wanted to add a short statement to my comment form saying “spammy comments will be deleted…”.
Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology to search (‘comments policy’, ‘how to add comments policy’, etc.) or maybe there aren’t that many people who are trying to add such a policy. Who knows.
I finally found a simple plug-in from AlexKing.org called Comment License which is posted on WordPress.org.
Perhaps ‘comment license’ is the more proper term for it vs. ‘comment policy’. But actually, based on his default text, I think he had something a bit different in mind. His text is, in fact, more like a ‘license’ whereas I am looking to add something more policy oriented about what type of comments will be approved.
His text:
“By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution.”
I wanted my text to be a bit different, partly because I intend to change the default comment links setting from ‘nofollow’ to ‘dofollow’ while retaining an option to selectively mark some links ‘nofollow’ and/or to delete them. In other words, I want people to know that I support dofollow links, except when the link points to a ‘bad neighborhood’.
So my text looks something like this:
“Unconstructive or spammy comments will be deleted. Comment links are ‘dofollow’ by default, but spammy links will be converted to ‘nofollow’ or deleted.”
Probably I should have Alex’s concept in there, too, but we’ll leave it out for now.
I would have preferred for the policy to be positioned above the comment body field, so people see it before they start typing as opposed to when they are clicking submit.
But no big deal. The plug-in installs quickly and works perfectly, so I’m happy.
Also, I did add a tiny bit of CSS to my main stylesheet to make the comments policy stand out a bit more:
.comment_license {
font-weight: bold;
color: maroon;
}Thanks, Alex!
29 Comments
Very interesting article, I did not know how to do it, but now I dod, thank you. I have a lot of spammy comments on my website, I do not like it because my site is based on comments about restaurants, hotels, etc. So spammy comments are just a pain it the ass for me and the persons who would like to leave and read comments. Your blog is very good, keep it up.
I’ve been wondering on how to include a comments policy on my personal blog on WordPress. Thanks for this clear tutorial.
I don’t even bother mentioning my spam policy. It should always be implied that spam comments won’t be accepted.
It`s not easy to fight spam if you have a dofollow blog. It becomes a target for manual or automated spammy comments submission. This tool really helps to prevent at least the first type of it.
I’ve seen a lot of comment warnings like yours; it’s a great idea, and it usually works to scare away spammers, as they won’t waste their time posting if they know it’s going to be deleted. A lot of times it’s also ignored, though, because a lot of them don’t speak English!
There is another type of widget which is getting very popular these days.Its related to comment policy,where the comment policy of your blog will be shown in a pop up type box,when a new reader visits your site.I do not exactly remember the name of that widget but it looked very impressive to me.
Thanks so much for this interesting tips to add comments to some wordpress blog. So pleased to read over this post.
Indeed! having a do follow blog requires a strong filter for spammy comments and hopefully this one is the answer to our common problems about spammers.
In my own opinion, as long as the comments are related to the topic even though they use keywords in commenting I consider it.. Pornographic and gambling sites of course in big NO.
Good! Congratulations! Thanks.
what is the difference between the normal blog or a worldpress blog?
your post is very helpful. thanks a lot for sharing !
Um, well, a WordPress blog is a blog implemented in WordPress. If you have a blog not implemented in WordPress, this post does not apply.
I used the plug in from AlexKing.I must admit that its very impressive.
It’s so tough to encounter right information on the blog. I really loved reading this post. It has strengthen my faith more. You all do such a great job at such Concepts… can’t tell you how much I,I want to thank you for this informative read, I really appreciate sharing your post
Indeed! having a do follow blog requires a strong filter for spammy comments and hopefully this one is the answer to our common problems about spammers.
Very much informative post. I like it. Thanks for sharing in the web.
thanks a lot for your valuable sharing ,right from the beginning till end it was really very informative .i can witness the experience and steps you have taken to accomplish this wonderful work.
Good post.. I myself have a really hard time filtering out the good comments from the ones that are not so illuminating. But maintaining a dofollow blog is very useful, especially when it comes to diverting some good traffic to the site or blog.
very informative post, thank you so much for sharing with us
I wonder how enabling dofollow links affects search rankings.
This was very helpful! Thank you! Do you have any others that you can refer me to?
-Kaden
Hey thanks a lot for the info. I’m new to this and I don’t really know how to add comments policy to a WordPress blog but I’m definitely gonna try them out thanks to you!
His text is, in fact, more like a ‘license’ whereas I am looking to add something more policy oriented about what type of comments will be approved.
I too have been searching for a way to add this. WordPress official info is not very helpful. I want to make one of my blogs dofollow, but want to warn about excessive links. I’m also looking into a user friendly captcha to help ward off bots. Thanks for the info.
I always mention comment policy and personally approve comments. It is prerequisite to have spam filter in your blog.
The information will certainly help WordPress Bloggers. I also do honour to comment policy. I am very much happy to see visitors are making meaningful comments instead of single words like “thanks”.
Thank you, it really helps in preventing spammers. I did it to most of my sites.
There are many spam protection Add-ons available. A spam filter will enable quality comments to appear for other visitors. Thus, It stream lines the discuss chain without spammy hurdle.