Most Wordpress installs divide your comments into pages of 50, by default. There are some obvious pros to this – page loading time is increased, page length is more reasonable, and the comment form is easier to get to (assuming it’s at the bottom). But there are also some disadvantages I’ve recently noticed, which have provoked me to turn the feature off on this blog, for now.
Comments Are An Extension of Your Content
Your content is more than your article. It includes the conversation that follows, so I want the conversation visibly attached to the content which it surrounds.
The Article Permalink Changes on Every Page of Comments
I first noticed this when I would submit a comment on my own blog in response to someone esle. My bookmarking buttons with counts on them (at the top, next to the title) all went to zero. Why? The permalink changed from .com/whatever to .com/whatever/comment-page1/. So the permalink used in those bookmarking buttons changes from the actual permalink I’d like people to share.
If you’re like me, I comment first, then share so that people see how I’ve contributed to the conversation when they arrive at the link.
It’s a Usability Issue
In two ways. One, I don’t want people to have to click to page two to see more comments even though it would raise my pageviews and lower my “bounce rate.” Two, nobody clicks them anyway!
I Rarely Get More Than Fifty Comments
This last reason is important because it’s the one where I contradict all that I’ve said previously. I would paginate comments if I were, oh say, a pro blogger or something. If a good article got 75 or more comments, I’d want to start paginating because of the benefits stated above.
You might consider thinking over these things and checking out your default settings on your own blog.
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All these reasons are true. If you get 300 comments which all state ‘thx’ or ‘great work’, I wouldn’t want to show them all. However, if you get 75 comments all being part of a discussion, cutting it off would be less than unproductive.
Eugen R.´s last blog ..Durarara, from a ‘meh’ to a ‘wow’
Very right!
I totally agree with this post! Either way, I’ve never gotten enough comments to merit paginating them anyway.
Sadly, I must agree on the last part!
I turned this feature off as well. For now I do not get that many posts. Right now, the most I ever received is about 20. To me I see the comments as content. Of course search engine see this as well. If you have a post that goes viral and its constantly getting comments on it even months later this will also tell the search engines that the page is still active. This will help in rankings.
If I ever get to the point where I get that many comments, I would seriously think about paginating but that would only be if I had a lot of junk / comment spam on them.
You’re right to see it that way. Comments are content.
Totally agree with you there. Helpful on-topic comments also add to the on-page natural usage of keywords and keyword variations.
Recently, I’ve seen an interesting plugin that, in addition to listing your comments, it will dynamically create a new page (and add it to your sitemap) for the comment, which will also display each of the commentator’s prior comments. I thought that was pretty cool.
Yes, that’s a very cool feature that I hadn’t noticed either.
Really good points Brandon! My best post has only received 21 comments so I have a while to go, but then again, I don’t think problogger has page comments does he?
Thanks Tom, and I’m not sure about whether Darren paginates them or not, but I’ve realized its’ the default with the WP install, so you have to set it.
I also noticed that after I comment the retweet was a problem, just didn’t know why this was happening. Thanks Brandon, just changed mine. I haven’t had 50 comments yet but have a few in the 40’s.
Yeah, it’s all part of some whacked out conspiracy or something!! ;)
Funny I never thought about paginating comments, but I do wonder would that affect the SEO aspect of the page? If a comment is buried in page X, would that comment be more difficult for the search engines to find?
DarrinW´s last blog ..Blog commenting – Following a guideline
If you glance at your sitemap, it will separate the url’s and you can see that the content is separated into multiple pages, so it does have an effect.
I wonder whether use of the “rel=canonical” tag, linking the additional comments pages back to the original post would take care of that issue. I think wordpress 2.9 automatically adds this tag to comment links, as they’re parametrized version of the blog post that use the “?cid” URL parameter.
Will´s last blog ..Hairy Celebrity Slip-Up: Guess Who Bared Hairy Legs on the Golden Globes Red Carpet
the comment-page-1 is a major seo issue, i never break comments into pages and have made a post on it some time back, good to see other bloggers covering this major seo problem… i just hope wordpress finish up this breaking into comments option completely…
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I’m sure they’re on top of it – they’ve addressed about every other major issue.
I’m with you on this. I just expect comments to be on the same pag and generally won’t ever see them if they are elsewhere.
Alison Moore Smith´s last blog ..Best Basic Cookbook
I’d like to know if those “more comments” links ever get clicked at all.