Over the last few weeks, I’ve received a number of messages from other bloggers who have been having problems leaving a comment on my blog. There seemed to be no pattern to it. Some bloggers comment and then others would see error messages or be unable to see what they were typing.
Then in a blogging community I’m part of, other bloggers were sharing that they were unable to comment on other blogs. Something just wasn’t quite right. I started to check my plugins, look at my theme. Making sure my version of WordPress was up to date but I still couldn’t put my finger on it.
Until I disabled Commentluv!!
Noooo
Please don’t let it be Commentluv!
I’ve been using Commentluv since about 2009 and have been an affiliate for Commentluv in all that time as well. It has been one of those plugins that I have always recommended. Other commenting platforms were never as good. Plus it formed part of a blog commenting strategy and always generated new traffic for my site.
Premium Commentluv also came with some really great extra features like the GASP – spam filter and the Replyme function, that sends an email to your commentators when ever you reply to their comments.
Unfortunately, the creator Andy Bailey who has always been open about his health, has been unable to maintain the needed updates to make it continue to function properly. As a result, the plugin has become unstable and as we are now starting to see, its causing various problems for blogs.
So as much as it breaks my blogging heart, I have decided to remove Commenluv and look for work-arounds that can do the same things.
This is by no means the end of my search and as I find great plugins I’ll update this page but if you have been having similar problems, here are some alternatives. But, I haven’t found anything that lets you leave a blog link in the comments section yet!
GASP Alternatives – Askimet
I have to say, I was dubious about reinstalling Askimet. This was the first spam filter I used back in 2009 and whilst it was stable in the beginning after about a year it wasn’t working as well and wasn’t capturing all my spam. However that was 8 years ago and it seems they’ve sorted things out.
I reinstalled Akismet about 2 weeks ago and so far it’s captured over 12k spam comments, which in their own words has saved me 4 days of work! Whether this is strictly true or not is another thing. But it has worked great so far. It’s only made 3 false positives and stopped a lot of spammers.
Reply me Alternatives – Comment Reply Email Notification
Not a very catchy name, but it does what it says. I was a bit unsure, because there was nothing to configure and there was nowhere to tell me that a reply email had actually been sent. But I sent a few test comments/emails to my fellow bloggers and they have all received the replies so far. I’d love to see a similar plugin with a better peace of mind but for now it’s working. If you reply to all your comments (which you should) you really need a plugin like this.
Reply Button Alternatives – Infinite Comment Reply
So this wasn’t really a feature, but once I had disabled Commentluv I noticed that the ability to reply to individual comments had disappeared. The infinite comment reply plugin, simply added in a nice looking reply button on my blog so that I could reply to individual comments, it also means other bloggers can reply to one another as well.
There are a few more features that Commentluv premium such as trackback validation, keyword name and twitter keywords that were all nice to haves but I never really used them heavily so for now I’m happy with my fixes. However, I’m always looking for the best plugins so if you find better alternatives please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading, if you’ve found this helpful, please share with your friends and followers.
February 1, 2017 at 10:37 am
Great tips man! Worth reading. To be honest at first sight I thought you’ll use the same old tips people used to write on their blogs, but here I learnt some new things in , something out of the box!
Thank you !
February 1, 2017 at 7:27 pm
Thanks for doing the homework, Beth! I’ve added this to my to-do list.
February 1, 2017 at 8:44 pm
Hello Beth! I have heard about Andy Bailey’s illness and have been wondering about what i will do if this quits working.. And now thanks to you. I have a solution! So do I need both of these plug-ins?
Great job here my friend
Thank You!
Chery :))
February 1, 2017 at 9:28 pm
I have installed all 3 mentioned. If you used GASP for your spam filter you’ll need an alternative and if you want to use the replyme function you’ll need an alternative plugin as well. I guess it depends what you used commentluv for. Unfortunately I haven’t found anything that looks as pretty and has the ability to leave a URL in your blog comment.
Beth
February 1, 2017 at 9:29 pm
Thanks Agnes, please let me know how you get on. I’ll be looking to update this post if I find some better alternatives.
Beth 🙂
February 1, 2017 at 9:30 pm
Thank Dhaval, I’m glad you found the post helpful. If you blog regularly you might want to be part of our free blogging community.
https://simplebloggingnetwork.com/join-the-community
February 3, 2017 at 6:53 pm
Good Tips, Beth.
The biggest benefit of commentluv is that it shows the latest link of the comment author. There are many alternatives of rest of the things as you said.
Nice post.
Have a great weekend ahead.
February 4, 2017 at 2:15 am
Hi Beth,
Thanks for this. I was thinking of adding comment luv. It’s good to know that it is no longer reliable. I use to use it for another blog I used.
So is it good to add all these three things on my blog? I have a place to leave comments at present but I would like what is best for the blog and for the comment areas.
Thank you for all the research you do and let us know what is happening out there.
Thanks heaps.
Lisa
February 6, 2017 at 2:18 am
Thanks for sharing this! I have also had issues in the past with CommentLuv – the same as you described – and the response I got from their support was it was an incompatibility, and I had to choose between using CommentLuv or keeping my theme as it was!
Now suddenly it’s working again, and I don’t know if there was an update with them or with my theme … or WordPress! I’ll have to check out the others you have mentioned.
February 7, 2017 at 9:53 pm
Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this Beth. While I haven’t personally experienced problems – yet – I have also heard others talking about the need to find a replacement.Personally, the thing I am really sad about is the fact that removing CommentLuv means all the previous comments will also disappear. I have nearly 7,000 comments on my blog and many of them are great conversations. But I guess it’s inevitable. Oh, by the way, a plugin I’ve been using that I really love is Anti-spam. There is a premium version but the free version works extremely well.
February 27, 2017 at 3:51 am
Thanks for the information. I rarely use commentluv. I will looking into your options.
March 12, 2017 at 11:13 pm
Hi Beth,
Yea, it was a surprise and sad. But what can you do, right?. Good suggestions, and I believe if you just click on the name of the person who leaves a post, you’ll go to their blog, but not as direct … poop…. hope all is well ..
March 13, 2017 at 12:10 am
Hi Beth
I first heard about the issue of comment luv from a friend and how it was causing so much Spam. It is great that thee are alternatives that can help to prevent issues in the comment section. Thanks for sharing. Take Care