While some of my online buddies are giving IntenseDebate a second chance, I am completely new to IntenseDebate.
In the past I have been using Disqus on many of my blogs. In recent weeks though, I have noticed an increased number of spam comments getting through. It is a testimony to the fact that Disqus is growing in popularity, therefore gets targeted more by spammers.
Having used the IntenseDebate just for a few hours, I think they have plenty of features to impress some very advanced bloggers.
They offer an option to sync your WordPress data (mostly comments) on a few levels, while also offer an option to let Akismet to take care of spam. I am not sure I am too thrilled about Akismet option as it caught legitimate comments in the past on my blogs. I still use Spam Karma, but Akismet underwent some big updates in recent months so maybe, I should give it a second chance.
My beef so far is that IntenseDebate plugin does not separate trackbacks from comments, but I am sure Scott is already working on a solution.
Thanks for introducing me to this Vlad – I don't use any particular comment management on my blog (other than what WP offers), but I do tend to actually READ the comments on blogs that use Disqus (and now, probably, that use intensedebate). The reason is that the comments on blogs that use these and other "dofollow" plugins *always* seem to have the most thought-provoking comments. It's odd – you would expect that "dofollow" would draw spammers like flies to…well, you know…but instead, it seems like people that comment are actually saying something. At any rate, I'm ashamed as a former SEO that I'd never heard of the concept of "dofollow" or the movement to use this on blogs – guess I've got to get my head out of the sand!
Thanks for stopping by Micheal (or Matthew),
I think those of us that allow “dofollow” on our blogs are also very
diligent when moderating spam. While I understand the need of
“nofollow” but as far as protecting your blog from spam it is a very
lazy and ineffective way to do it. Many spam boots wen taking liking
of a particular blog often include “nofollow” attribute that makes me
believe that they care less about the possible page rank increase- but
they do care about number of eyeballs that will be looking at those
links.
Thanks for stopping by, you might enjoy my other blog as well –
http://www.go-beyond-mls.com/
Hi Vlad (Matt here)! I've actually been to Go Beyond MLS and re-visited on multiple occasions. I think many people just comment on blogs a lot to become part of the discussion (or comment because they want to and end up being part of the discussion either way). Then, while not necessarily being a "thought leader," they're at least in the same ballpark, so to speak. Either way, it's a breath of fresh air to see blogs that have REAL conversations and thoughts beyond just stuff like "nice site – liked it a lot!" (I hate those).
P.S. – just a note (and FYI) – your links actually are "nofollow" on this blog. Doesn't matter to me, of course. I'm an indiscriminate commenter :-). But I do have "nofollow" links highlighted by my browser as well. Here's the link to your IntenseDebate profile: Vlad Zablotskyy. Note the "external nofollow" part. ~Matt
Matt, are you sure? Just looked at the code over at IntenseDebate- all external are followed. Tried it while logging off as well. All external links are followed. As far as this blog goes I have to check my plugins- just recently upgraded to "Coltrane" so maybe the dofollow plugin needs to be reactivated.
Vlad – I was only poking around in the code for this page. Looks like the HTML code I posted to show the rel='external nofollow' was actually turned into a link to your profile in my comment! But yes, the code on this page does have nofollow on it. Probably the result of needing to reactivate a plugin or something, as you've noted.
Yep! That was it the plugin. Thanks for pointing it out to me- otherwise I would have forgotten to reactivate the dofollow plugin.
Odd thing about Intense Debate at the moment is that it shows different numbers of comments depending on whether javascript is on or off … Try it on this page!
I hadn’t heard anything yet about intensedebate–there are so many products/plugins..and so little time to go through them all lol..
I am still a disqus fan, specially after automattic guys acquired the company, I hope the functionality to be integrated right within wordpress. Intense debate is good and some good blogs also have sozhu that makes commenting cool.
I love intensedebate coz it loads superbly fast and its so smooth but i have one doubt whether the comment links are dofollow one’s or not ?