It has been a month since I shifted to disqus as my comment system. It was actually a friend's suggestion to change the default blogger comment system. Changing my comment system does more changes on my blog from then on.








Choosing Your Comment System

Prior on using Disqus, I was choosing between the said system and IntenseDebate. Using blogger as my blog host, I actually found Disqus more hasle-free than installing IntenseDebate. Correct me if I'm wrong with this one, but installing Disqus is as easy as adding a one line widget to your blog as compared to IntenseDebate that gives me a headache.

On the other hand, I couldn't make IntenseDebate work on my blogs, I must be lazy enough and tired of codes to dig in further on resolving the installation process.


Experience Using Disqus

Here are some of the most wonderful things Disqus has offered me since I used it:
  • Disqus gives me the chance to export all my past blogger comments to disqus with just a click of a button. Yes, that means, you don't lose any of your old comments.
  • You can sync your disqus comments to your blogger comments so if you just decided that you don't like to use the said service, all your comments are still in the blogger's server.
  • Disqus also provides a "reply-to-post" approach which makes your comments organize and more pleasing to the eyes. This turns your comments to a community like conversation
  • It also provides one-time-login to all Disqus operated sites. That means you don't have to login everytime and, sometimes, you won't even need to enter the captcha as blogger does.
  • Disqus' dashboard also provides easy moderation on your comments as well as an easy way of remembering the comments you have done in the past even on other blogs and site that you visited.
  • Most of all, I love their customer support! I do technical and client support sometimes so I know how to feel irritated when a client asks like I did (hehe). I appreciate their quick and informative response to me everytime I send my complaints to them.


The Bad Side

Well yes, lately, I have been experiencing some troubles with disqus. As I have said above, I've been sending my complaints to them regarding this, and here are some that I found out.

a. Issues with "comment synchonization"

It has been a long time that I tried clicking the sync button on their dashboard. After a few minutes, I would receive an email stating that it failed. I tried it multiple times already until last week, I hit their help button and ask Disqus about it and here is their response:

Hi ajibanda,

This message indicates that Disqus was unable to access the Blogger API. If you continue to receive this error, we would recommend contacting Blogger with the details of what you're experiencing via their support forum here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger

Unfortunately, they're the only ones who can fix this. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Thanks for using Disqus,

Talton
http://docs.disqus.com
http://www.twitter.com/disqus

Tired of all this issue, I logged in to my blogger and tried some configuration instead of talking to blogger's customer support. I found out that the cause of this was because I disabled my comments after installing Disqus. Based on my tests, disabling your comments would cause your synchronization process to fail. You have to make sure that your comments is shown. To do so:

From blogger's dashboard, Click: Settings > Comments (see figure below)




b. Issue with blogger's mobile template

I just enabled my blog's mobile template last week and tested it on my miniOpera ( You can actually test your blog's appearance on the PC's browser too by adding a parameter m=1 on your URL, example: http://ajibanda.blogspot.com?m=1 ). The problem with this, as far as I have seen on forums, is that the said template doesn't support widgets. In that case, disqus would not appear on your blog.

The issue occurs now when a visitor suddenly add a comment on your blog. The comment would be added to your comments on blogger and not on disqus. When you view your blog on the net, the said comment won't be visible on the web version. Unfortunately, the sync feature is one-way syncing only that sends disqus comments to blogger but do not import blogger comments to disqus.

I have reported this to Disqus and this is their final response (I actually receive this email while I'm doing this post, and I would like to thank Tyler for answering all my questions):

Hi Aaron,

We've seen a couple other cases similar to this reported today and, based on what we've learned from these cases, it looks like Blogger is currently enabling and disabling Disqus (or all widgets in general) in mobile views back-and-forth right now. Regarding this, we'd recommend contacting Blogger directly as unfortunately in the meantime there's no way to automatically import comments to Disqus since the Disqus widget assumes that it is the only comment system once it is installed.

Kind regards,

Tyler
http://docs.disqus.com
http://status.disqus.com

To resolve the said issue, I would have to import again the comments manually so that comments created via mobile would still appear on my blog. Do not worry, since this would not create duplicate comments ( I thought it would.. :p ).

c. Problem with post with no title

This is a weird behavior that I see not only on disqus but also on blogger. When you have a post that has literally no title then viewing it via the index (aka home) or archive page, there would be no way for you to view the "post's page" unless you click the "[NUMBER-OF-COMMENTS] comments" link on each post (see RPG Quote).

Now if you attach disqus on such posts, the "[NUMBER-OF-COMMENTS] comments" link would be replaced and would malfunction. It would be replaced by an anchor-link instead that goes to nowhere on your blog.

This issue might be too odd, but generally, this gives Disquss a limitation on it's service. I actually haven't reported it since I don't think most people would do what I did to the said blog. :p



Summary

Upon seeing the capabilities and it's limitations, I would still stick with Disqus for now, since it is giving me more fun and advantages on using this as compared to the default blogger's comment system.

How about you, what can you say? Are you using Disqus, IntenseDebate or still sticking with the old Blogger style? Share your thoughts, I would be happy to hear them! :)


96 comments :

  1. I am using disqus, but I am not on blogger. But all in all, disqus is good. Specially in socializing comments.

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  2. Hi Kris! I agree with that, I really enjoy disqus ever since I changed my comment system. But still, we cannot deny the facts, that this service has lot of limitations.

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  3. It sucks to have not it working on the mobile version of our blogs. :/

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  4. Yeah, I agree with you.. so it's either you do the manual solution or you disable the mobile version. 

    On the other hand, disabling the template makes disqus comments on my phone a little dirty (I'm not yet sure if it was because of my CSS settings for discuss).

    and oh.. to add on this issue, disqus' connection to twitter seems to have problems on my side right now.

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  5. oh. by the way, thanks to you I was able to see the issue with the mobile template.. it was your comment from my last post that made me see the problem :p

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  6.  There's no perfect software. Who knows? Mobile compatibility, maybe, would be on their next upgrade.

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  7. I strongly agree with that! no software is bugless :)

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  8. Actually, hindi naging mdali para sa akin ang pagkabit ng Disqus sa blog ko, dahil sa di- gumagana pag-i-lagay sa widget, I think this is due to my Beta template.I am using the universal code and it works but I encounter another problem about it's appearance. It was just a month ago when I have fix up everything and it runs smoothly now.

    My other problem with disqus is that di ko sya na-sync sa blogger comment ko agad. So, probably my mga comments sa disqus na di kona ma-sync sa blogger pa.

    Even though, I encounter those issues, I still love to try disqus para maiba naman.About mobile issue darating din siguro ang time na maka-cope up din ang Disqus para jan...:)

    Kudos AJ!

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  9. thanks for the input Ben! I never knew that disqus is template dependent. Mine actually is a customized template from blogger. Nakakatamad kasi maghanap or gumawa ng sarili eh.. :p

    Yung issue sa syncing, according to Tyler, it was an issue with regards to Blogger's API. So most probably, may issue somewhere in between the two (disqus reading blogger's API response), yun eh opinion ko lang ah.

    Sa mobile issue, based from what I have searched. Hindi sila makagawa ng auto-syncing for importing, kasi daw pabagu-bago ang blogger's API, so that means balik na naman sa blogger ang issue...

    Anyway, Disqus pa rin ako kasi mas masaya magcomment gamit ang disqus! :)

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  10. Great! Thanks for bringing this up Aj Banda. First off, I'd like to thank you for mentioning me in this post. I am honored. 

    I agree with you with regards to hassle free disqus installation than intensedebate. I also used disqus previously and yeah it really worked well to my site untill it loaded slower when I installed other widget in my blog. So, I was forced to switch to intensedebate as what Ileane of BBT suggested to me. 

    I missed out about 400 important comments on disqus and so, hopefully, what I did was looking forward to get more comments with intensedebate as it is dofollow. 

    I haven't encountered the errors you have presented here in your post. Mine was just a loading problem where I've got a couple of email from my contact form telling me if have a commenting system on my blog. lol disqus was down in my blog that time. But anyway, I had so much goodness and benefits from disqus. Oh did I say popular blogs used disqus? Yeah 

    Many thanks!

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  11. Thanks for dropping by Kira, and oh, it is the truth that you are the one who suggested about this comment system so your name is worth mentioning cause honestly, my blog has been more active because of Disqus. :)

    I do notice disqus slow loading time too, but as of now, I don't think it is slow enough to irritate me, so I'm sticking with it for a while.

    And yes, I notice that most of the most popular blog are actually using disqus, which makes it easy for me to comment on their post without the hassle log-in forms. :)

    Thanks again!

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  12. SEO-wise, I would still go for Disqus. Why? Because I don't have much time in moderating the comments of my blog. Plus, Disqus loads faster than any other comment systems out there. And though it may have some flaws, I still would use it because of its user-friendly features. 

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  13. I'm using Disqus! ^^

    Thank you for recommending this one..

    I find it really "organized" since I can comment on COMMENTS. [[:

    and I also find it NICE to look at. XD

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  14. back when i was still using the blogger platform, i used to install disqus due to blogger's lack of threaded comment system capability. and like you, i have had lots of issues using both the blogging platform and the threaded comment system. which is why i switched to wordpress altogether.

    no worries, no hassles, no problem. wordpress ang sagot sa kahirapan! XD

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  15. nicely said aya! :)

    btw, thanks for mentioning me on your post about the comment system.. :)

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  16. Exactly, I agree with that and welcome to my tree Kent.

    SEO-wise, Disqus works well. I gain more traffic because of this. Well, I'm not sure about the comparison with other comment system such as IntenseDebate, as I have said, I never tried it since I find it hard to install on blogger. But obviously, disqus is better than the default blogger comment system.

    Btw, thanks for dropping by! :)

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  17. Welcome to my tree Lio! :)

    Well, I never used wordpress. But I agree that when it comes to comment system, wordpress plugins are better. This is based on experience from someone who usually do blogwalking.. :p

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  18. Thanks JR, I actually thought your comment was not saved to disqus.. I received an email notification but didn't saw your comment here, it was then that I look at my comment list and saw that it was marked as spam.. :p

    First thing, do you mean Ben of Bennixville? I think you got the wrong link.. :p

    Yes, I agree that sometimes all you need is to do is do some tweaking on the code, good thing I know how to read and understand such things.. :)

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  19. im exporting my 165,000 comments from wordpress to disqus. And its pain the butt. It takes soooo long, its been few days, and still not completed. Im dong it manual because automatic won't work. 

    My site is very busy with comments being added every minutes by visitors non stop , i found out that disqus is loading very slow, but my visitors like it. And also, in term of SEO, Disqus is not good as the default comments system of any other platform. 

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  20. hi ipunkbali! Thanks for sharing your experience :)

    I think you mean importing comments from WP to disqus, and 165K comments is really a lot. I agree that disqus takes a very long time during the process, my 100+ comments took a day to be completed. Thought I'm not sure with your definition of manual and automatic.

    SEO wise, in my opinion, disqus works better than my default blogger comment system. As you said, users as well as me likes it. Though, i'm not sure with IntenseDebate or WP's default comment system since I never tried both.

    Again, thank you for visiting my blog. :)

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  21. oh Aj, sorry I couldn't comment on your blog lately, since it's blocked in China by default I had to access it with a proxy which is a very annoying thing and school has just started for me :)

    As for the commenting system, I like to keep it simple and fine with the original. Oh and I heard that migrating to Disqus when importing comments, it takes a day for you for 100+ comments, does that mean you have to have your computer on the whole time or just let it load itself on the web?

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  22. was it my blog or disqus? wow... so what I've heard about China blocking some sites are true...

    Actually, the comment sync happens on the server of disqus so you don't have to leave your PC open the whole time.. Though I'm not sure what will happen if someone comments during the sync :p

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  23. Hello, I say automatic because wordpress has 1 click installation plugin for disqus, and i can just click and finish. But thats not happening with my site.

    Also, in SEO, When I use wordpress comment, i find that all comments are being indexed on google. When I copy a chunk of comment, it will appear on google.

    BUt.. with Disqus, I find something weird. Look at this page.. gagadaily.com/2011/07/you-and-i-amp/ no single comment is indexed by google, only the content. (thats not my site).

    Now compare with my page justinbieberzone.com/about-justin-quick-facts/ , i have over 3k coments in there, but somehow i still have problem with it. It loads very slow.. but i know the comments are there. If you see the source code, you wil see all 3k coments load up, it even crush my computer.

    Im thinking about moving back to wordpress coment.

    I wonder if you know the solution? thx

    you co

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  24. You will only see 30+ comments in my page, thats the new one, the old comments i just move is actually tehere, it just behind the scene. see the source code. i dont know what to do now.

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  25. First, I'm not sure with what happens on your first comment, the one with the link to your blog. Disqus throws me an email but I never saw your comment here, in disqus nor on blogger. Did you delete it? Though I tried to see the link that you said in there (I think it's about Justin Bieber).

    Next, your old comments are behind (backend in technical terms), do you mean in disqus or still on your wordpress? is the sync completed now? If it is on disqus now, you can see the comments on moderate and see the error in there. It could be spammed, flagged or the URL is not compatible to the actual URL of the post (it happened to me).

    Regarding the speed, the best advice I can give is to paginate your comments, loading 30+ comments at the beginning is really way to slow. So try loading them chunks by chunks. See mine.

    I really want to help you but I need some details as you can see. Hope you can make it work for you or better yet, ask disqus' help. Their technical support are really nice :)

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  26. Blogspot domains, this one word is blacklisted in probably all searh engines accessible in china, it happens with facebook, Twitter and stuff like that too.

    Ahh I see, haha!

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  27. Techniciablog9/8/11, 5:26 PM

    how to change appearence of disqus commenting system like urs

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  28. hi and welcome here!

    First, go to disqus and select the site to configure

    Second, go to Settings > Appearance

    At the bottom, you can see "Custom CSS", I did my editing in there to customize the appearance of my disqus comment system using CSS.

    Thanks for dropping by. I hope I answer your question :)

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  29. The sync process -- copying comments from Disqus to Blogger -- occurs on a regular basis so if a new comment is posted during one sync it will simply be synced to Blogger during the next sync. cc @08c12c41d13ebbfaf8b2124b99101848 

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  30. wow.. based on your email and name, I assume your the same Tyler that I'm talking during the support, right? 

    I appreciate that you shared your idea regarding this syncing, now it's clearer. Also, it's great to hear someone from disqus, explaining this issue. Thanks!

    By the way, I'm really thankful for the support last time, and welcome to my blog! Cheers!

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  31. Guilty as charged. It is I :)

    Just happy to help. As always don't hesitate to contact us at http://disqus.com/support with any other questions or thoughts.

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  32. yeah..disqus..best commenting platform

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  33. Great experience shown by the site i like to read it please share more info about the benefit of disqus i like o find this great and amazing work..
    work experience insurance

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  34. I really like Disqus. I have read some reviews on it & some commenters have said how much they hate it. I don't understand why. I am using it on my Blogger site & compared to Disqus the standard Blogger comment system just doesn't compare. I really dislike that Blogger doesn't support threaded comments which makes discussion more awkward.  From your review I think I've found an answer to a problem. I have one particular visitor whose comments show up i my Blogger comments dashboard but don't come through to Disqus. I now assume it is the problem with them commenting from a mobile device. The same person who uses Blogger also told me how much they dislike Disqus comment system & prefer to stick with the Blogger comment system. I'm sorry but I just don't understand this reasoning as in my opinion I fail to understand how anyone could prefer Blogger comments over Disqus which has so many more benefits. Plus it doesn't have that wretched Captcha that I hate so much. Great post!!!

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  35. I tried Intense Debate & had problems with comments that had been visible unexplainably disappearing. Much prefer Disqus

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  36. first of all, thanks for dropping by Tony. :)

    I also heard a lot of bloggers hating Disqus because of the loading speed. That is their usual reason why they aren't shifting to it and would want to stick with blogger's default system. I too hate blogger's default comment system and as of now, I'm still loving how Disqus organize my comments so I would still use it on my blogs. :)

    Thanks again!

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  37. I transferred my webcomics to Blogger only last weekend after my self hosted WP site died. I've had one of my regular visitors complain of the loading slowness but I don't experience that myself. Depends what they regard as slow & how fast or slow their internet connection is I guess. Some people these days expect everything on the internet to load almost instantly & to a lot of people even just 5 seconds seems like too long. With a system like Disqus available I don't know how anyone on Blogger can tolerate the standard comment form..Maybe I was too spoilt with a decent comment system on WP for too long & those who have only ever used Blogger are just comfortable with what they are used too.

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  38. I've tried using Disqus in my blog.. but I ended up hating it. I've heard some of the positive comments about it, though.. Oh well, to each his own. :)

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  39. I guess you're right :)

    Every one has its own likes and dislikes, actually for me, I would rather enjoy this one than the default blogger's comment system.

    BTW, Thanks for dropping by Ms. Leah :)

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  40. xxxtruthordare11/9/11, 2:11 PM

    I tried to intense debate and had problems with the comments that were visible inexplicably disappear. Many prefer Disqus....................

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  41. I had tried but didn't get success......

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  42. Hi! what exactly have you tried?

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  43. This is a great blog to model mine after. I hope you don’t mind if i bookmark your site, so that i can easily find it again in the future. Cheers!

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  44. wow.. thank you for that very inspiring comment :)

    welcome to my tree!

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  45. Hi,
    I actually had some problems with Disqus, but in theory it is a good plugin. I liked how they sent emails to me when someone commented, but overall the system just didn't work for me.

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  46. Well, I guess that widgets are relative to the user. It may or may not be beneficial for them

    Thanks for passing by! :)

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  47. Thanks! I really appreciate it :)

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  48. inally, an issue that I am passionate about. I have looked for
    information of this caliber for the last several hours. Your site is
    greatly appreciated.

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  49. thanks, glad if I helped you! :)

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  50. Its hard to find informative and accurate info but here I found…update on new content on this internet site , bookmarked ! .thanks

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  51. You did a good jab, thanks for share with all.
    Really your site is full of helpful materials.

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  52. Disqus is having a good portability and  a several unique features which are useful

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  53. are you on blogger? cause in blogger, disqus won't work on mobile theme. To sync both comments database, you need to do it manually.

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  54. I  have been having the mobile theme issue. I am confused about how to address it though?
    On my blog, disqus doesn't even engage for the mobile theme. So on any given post I might have 2 blogger comments (from mobiles) and 6 disqus comments.

    Have you run into this problem?

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  55. ReputationManagements1/14/12, 6:06 PM

    you may have a harder time filtering the spam comments out of the good ones.

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  56. thank u sir.. good articles.. that is a good blog...

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  57. I think its a great comment system.

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  58. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  59. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  60. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  61. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  62. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  63.  I definitely agree! Disqus is actually the best comment system because it is easy to use  that is why most blogger would like to put in their blog.

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  64. Informative post! I know it has been month since this was posted,
    can't help but comment.  I have to agree that Disqus is very convenient to
    use.  I am actually contemplating on using it on some of our resource
    blog. 
    Neteffects- Computer Network
    Specialist http://www.neteffects.com.au

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  65. Disqus can Help You Combat Blog Comment Spams… or Not?

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  66. Disqus is very nice blog
    commenting system, I am using Disqus since long time. I love to use
    disqus, It is also very easy way to use disqus.

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  67. but always and always disqus usually crash..

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  68. thanks for posting such a good article

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  69. Great stuff - but can you tell me which one do you use - I like the way you have it

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  70. I read your article. i really happy to read this article. Thanks for sharing best post.....
    thanks for posting such a good article Read more at: http://www.ajibanda.com/2011/08/disqus-is-it-good-comment-system.htmlCopyright © Aj Banda - Beneath The Tree
    thanks for posting such a good article Read more at: http://www.ajibanda.com/2011/08/disqus-is-it-good-comment-system.htmlCopyright © Aj Banda - Beneath The Treethanks for posting such a good article Read more at: http://www.ajibanda.com/2011/08/disqus-is-it-good-comment-system.htmlCopyright © Aj Banda - Beneath The Tree

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  71. I am curious and not understand why can he do it? You have the same idea with me. Please share it if you have:))

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  72. obviously, I'm using disqus :)

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  73. what do you mean? please elaborate. Thanks :)

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  74. I am using Disqus for last 3 years and it is improving the structure gradually with the passage of time. I prefer this facility for publishing my comments on the different blogs.

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  75. Disqus is very nice blog comenting system.I really love reading good blog article.
    Tnaks for sharing.

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  76. its always error

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  77. disqus is really a cool plugin for commenting

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  78. Great writing like this is a pleasure to find.There are a lot of good resources here.thanks for sharing this with all of us.

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  79. I am impressed by the quality of information on this website.

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  80. Useful information. Worth the read.

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  81. multiple chaining is a unique feature of discuss 

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  82. I agree with that and welcome to my tree Kent.

    SEO-wise, Disqus works well. I gain more traffic because of this.
    Well, I'm not sure about the comparison with other comment system such
    as IntenseDebate, as I have said, I never tried it since I find it hard
    to install on blogger. But obviously. I was too spoilt with a decent comment system on WP for too long &
    those who have only ever used Blogger are just comfortable with what
    they are used too.

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  83. I really dislike that Blogger doesn't support threaded comments which
    makes discussion more awkward. From your review I think I've found an
    answer to a problem. I have one particular visitor whose comments show
    up i my Blogger comments dashboard but don't come through to Disqus. I
    now assume it is the problem with them commenting from a mobile device.
    The same person who uses Blogger also told me how much they dislike
    Disqus comment system & prefer to stick with the Blogger comment
    system. I'm sorry but I just don't understand this reasoning as in my
    opinion I fail to understand how anyone could prefer Blogger comments
    over Disqus which has so many more benefits.

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  84. thanks for this! ill give it a try

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  85. its really a better comment placing system great user interface along with social media connectivity too

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  86. Maybe someone can help. Every time I post a video on Blogger or for anyone to leave a comment on Disqus the post title has to be clicked in order for it to show up.


    Any solutions?
    Thanks

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  87. by default, disqus only appears on blogger on item pages (article page) and not on the homepage. I've checked the link attached to your disqus profile and it seems to be working fine.

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  88. Thank you. But still the post title has to be clicked in order for a video to show up. Otherwise only a white box appears. Any suggestions on how to fix this?
    Thanks

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  89. As I have said, everything seems to be fine in your blog. If it is the video that is not showing up (I've checked this but is is fine too) then it is the video's loading issue and not of Disqus.

    Thanks.

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  90. HI Meredith.. Use this link to enable Disqus for mobile
    http://thetrickslab.com/2013/04/how-to-enable-disqus-for-mobile.html

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  91. really disqus is a nice way to commenting..

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  92. Disqus, comments are extremely easy to manage. You can remove unwanted
    comments or block notorious commentators from your dashboard. Their
    advanced spam and troll filtering make your discussions truly worry-free.

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