Disqus - After 5 Days on Disqus, I’m Turning Back to Wordpress Comments
I’m an avid reader of Fred Wilson’s blog and was tempted to test-drive Disqus when Fred first integrated it onto his site. I finally decided to install it on my blog (which is powered by Wordpress) after Fred wrote his post “Three Reasons to Use Disqus“. It’s worth noting that installing Disqus is amazingly easy.
I installed Disqus on Sunday…
Today is Thursday and I have decided to remove it.
Why?
In concept, Disqus is bold and a clear improvement over static comments. I believe fully that threaded, social and portable commenting is the future of discussion and is certainly empowering for readers. I like being able to follow a user’s activity across other blogs - for instance, I just accessed all of Gabe Rivera’s Disqus comments (here) and arrived on some fascinating blogs (that I wouldn’t have found otherwise).
As a blog owner, though, Disqus simply isn’t empowering enough…. yet:
My core issue is that the content (and it can be argued that comments and discussions are the most important aspect of a site) isn’t truly mine. It’s rendered via javascript on my end and as direct html on Disqus.com. That means that I lose all of the SEO value of the comments (which is significant) and Disqus gains from it. Honestly, that makes me quite uncomfortable. A couple other critiques:
- Trackbacks are critical elements of a blog (SEO, navigation, etc). They aren’t yet available with Disqus and are must-adds.
- Disqus doesn’t provide commenter emails and contact information. Sounds minor, but I have engaged directly with numerous readers and formed deep relationships. Another must-have before I switch back. (update: according to Daniel Ha of Disqus email addresses are accessible; full response in below comments)
- The administration and deep interactions occur on Disqus.com - and consequently off my site. Furthermore, as the admin, there is neither enough transparency nor available configurations.
I think Disqus is close. And I expect that I’ll give it another test-drive shortly. But it’s going to take some additional benefits as a blogger (I clearly see the benefits as a reader); and as I think about services I’m willing to pay, perhaps that’s the solution for Disqus: offer premium accounts. I’d be willing to buy that.
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May 15th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Hi Ryan,
I do recall replying to your comment about these issues a few days back. I’d just like to reiterate in case you’d iss them.
1) Agreed. Trackbacks are important but I don’t think the current approach is very good. We’re working on something pretty big with this. It’s an understandable frustration that there is no explicit support for the traditional method yet, however. We will address this.
2) Yes we do. You can get this from the drop-down admin menu (hover over any picture) or from your Dashboard.
3) No, you can do it all from your site. Again, bring down the admin-menu. There are a number of options under the Access and Moderators page as well.
Regardless, we do appreciate this feedback. If you get a chance, circle around and check the things I brought to light.
Daniel
May 15th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Daniel -
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. As I said in the post, I am not writing Disqus off, I just struggled with the current version (SEO, trackbacks, etc).
I am excited to hear that “something pretty big” is coming. Keep me posted.
Regarding points 2 & 3: Now that you’ve pointed me in that direction, I got it. I am embarrassed that I didn’t get the UI - but after reading other commentaries, I don’t seem to be alone.
Thanks again and keep me posted
May 15th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Well reasoned Ryan!
SEO part is huge and comments are one of the most valuable things on any site. Disqus’ strategy is to take away those things from other sites and grow from it. Interesting, to say the least, strategy.
Why not just wait for someone to write threaded comment plugin for Wordpress?
Mike
May 15th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Wordpress has a threaded comments plugin:
http://code.google.com/p/briansthreadedcomments/
We use it at Antiwar.com and it has dramatically improved our comment system.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Mike: thanks! I’ll install it on my blog tomorrow.
OK, so what;s the big deal with Disqus then? What does it offer that this plug doesn’t do?
Looks like another hyped up trend by VC types who have vested interest in a certain technology.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I second the brian’s threaded comments plugin. It works wonderfully. A definite must-install if you want to spice up commenting on your site.
Why would a blogger ever want to hand over content that he or she earned to some startup?
May 15th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Thank you, Ryan, for putting into words the issues I had with Disqus but couldn’t articulate well enough to even figure out how to search for a solution. I just had this vague “where have my comments gone” feeling.
And thanks, Brian, for the plugin. I’ll give that a try tomorrow.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Well for the SEO bit, your DISQUS page at least gives your blogs some “Google Juice”. They get a PageRank and gets indexed by search engines. Link them up in your normal blog network and they looks like your own.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Ryan,
This is Jitendra from SezWho…I like Brian’s Threaded comments too…In fact we are working on a new template for threaded comments that provides an alternative to the default layout with Disqus - as a way to pay tribute to great work by Brian…
Also check out SezWho…We provide a service that brings the community and context to your site by providing universal activity profiles for comments within the context of the conversation, while leaving the comments where they belong - right along with your blog.
thanks, Jitendra
Let me know if you have any questions etc.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
[…] note: I’d actually started writing this before this post hit Techmeme, so I’ve updated this post to […]
May 16th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I’ve always found that the wordpress plugins can get the comments up to scratch – threaded, email notifications, avatars and wysiwyg editors… I really don’t see the need for a replacement.
And you are right, what you lose by letting someone else handle that side of things is raw information, about your readers and your site… as well as a loss of content.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:03 am
[…] Disqus - After 5 Days on Disqus, I’m Turning Back to Wordpress Comments | RyanSpoon.com […]
May 16th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Ryan,
I’ve discovered the same things as you have with Disqus. I thought it was a great idea and installed it on my blog for a few days, then I realized that unless your blog has a LOT of comments flying around it doesn’t really help with the conversation about your writings. It turns it more into a forum for your blog, which can be good or bad. I too did not like that viewers are sent to a 3rd party site. Ultimately I removed it so I can retain control of my comments.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Ryan, I agree with all your points (except the admin one, which never really bothered me) - I recently rolled out Disqus, too. I’m glad to hear they’re working on some big fancy trackback-esque thing, curious to see how it comes out. The big loss to me is the SEO hit from not having the comments be local - perhaps they’ll build a new API version again that’ll build the text right into the page. It also annoys me that the email updates send people to Disqus and not to my blog.
However, I really, really love being able to reply to comments via email. That’s a really great feature. And a little bonus that my comments everywhere can turn up in a feed is quite convenient, too. For me, I’m pretty close to on the fence on the whole thing with just a slight lean towards keeping it. Hopefully, they rollout new features quickly!
May 16th, 2008 at 6:12 am
mike> OK, so what;s the big deal with Disqus then? What does it offer that this plug doesn’t do?
mike, I comment on a lot of blogs, and I will not check back in on my comments to most of those blogs. If disqus were to gain adoption, you would conceivably hook me as a reader by involving me in an interesting conversation and allow me to track it at a central site.
For example, this comment. I will not be able to track responses to it and I guarantee that I’ll never come back to check it. I also am not convinced to subscribe to this blog, therefore I’m lost as a potential reader.
If, on the other hand, I were a disqus user commenting on this site and following the conversation about it there, and I found that there were interesting, insightful comments, I might become a subscriber and frequent commenter.
(Disclaimer: I’m neither a disqus shill nor even a disqus user, I just think it’s a good idea I’d like to see catch on because I’m frustrated about not following the comments I’ve made on lots of sites.)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Yes. This is exactly the reason why I have not switched to a solution like this. The comments are no longer a part of your site. Frankly, I don’t see a way around this. Some people are okay with it obviously, but if you are concerned about valuable content coming from your comments on your site, don’t install this.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Ryan,
Disqus is far from perfect but I’ve been using it on my Nortel blog - allaboutnortel.com - for several months, and been very impressed. Yes, it needs to add a trackback feature and a way to take control of comments but abandoning Disqus after only five days is like not going on a second date with someone because you didn’t like the clothes they were wearing.
Mark
May 16th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Mark -
Thanks for the comment and email exchange. I agree that abandoning Disqus after five days is probably too short… but I became increasingly afraid that I was losing “activity” gathered during that period. If I had waited 30 days, for instance, I would be forced to either forgo the previous month’s activity or stick with Disqus - not a great position.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thanks for this post. I’ve been considering adding Disqus to my blog for a few reasons.
Firstly, comment spam is killing my time. I need to upgrade to a new system anyway. Second, having comments out a bit farther will help gain traffic, regardless of the SEO aspects.
Really, if Google is any good and the Disqus links back to your site aren’t “nofollow” then it should only help and not hurt as comments to your site are spread much further than your own site.
I don’t like losing the actual content, though. I was considering looking to see if they had an API so the content could at least be archived in the event that Disqus goes away or some other even requires putting a different commenting system back in.
Finally, I find trackbacks are the largest form of spam these days. So many trackbacks don’t add to the discussions at all. I think a social commenting system replaces them fully, but I’ll be curious to see what Disqus is adding that they see as a better replacement, too.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:35 am
To the folks who don’t know the value proposition of Disquis, how about reading the post, and then reading the comments on the post?
At least two of the benefits of using Disquis are pointed to explicitly, repeatedly even - they are things that a junky Wordpress plugin will not offer.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Peter,
Do you run a big site? Could you link to it?
I ask because anyone who has a site and actually tracks analytics with Google Analytics or something like that would realize how valuable comments are. On some sites, they bring over 30% of traffic. So Disqus takes that away from you and they are increasing their traffic.
Also, what will you do when Disqus is sold/fails/starts charging? What will you do then? How will you get your comments back in that case?
You’d have to be incredibly naive to think that Disqus will be free forever. They will have to monetize it somehow! And I’m guessing they’ll monetize it by either charging YOU or by inserting ads on YOUR site and taking money from YOUR site.
So you decide… is some shitty threading worth all this trouble? Answer is clearly no to me.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:11 am
[…] Blogger and friend Ryan Spoon took Disqus for a spin, and decided to un-install it. He explains why here. […]
May 20th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
i know i’ve been called a “shill for disqus” and i do have a vested interest because of my investment in them which i try to disclose every time i write about them.
but i cannot emphasize how big of a deal the email stuff that disqus has done is. it’s game changing, at least for anyone that is not in front of a computer all day long. it lets me engage with my readers on my blog all day long.
as to your critiques, they are spot on. and as daniel said, they are working on all of them.
one thing i’d point out on the “i want to own my comments” thing is that the best solution is for both the blogger and the commenter to co-own the comment. and a third party system allows that.
the SEO thing is thorny. i’ll admit that. it’s going to take some work to get the SEO right.
Fred
May 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Fred,
There are plugins that provide the functionality you mention below:
“but i cannot emphasize how big of a deal the email stuff that disqus has done is. it’s game changing, at least for anyone that is not in front of a computer all day long. it lets me engage with my readers on my blog all day long.”
Ok I get it. Disqus will solve world hunger and all of us should give our comments to Disqus. Now can you talk about something else. I rather enjoy your posts.
-B
May 27th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I don’t use Wordpress, I use b2evolution and Blogger/BlogSpot.
For my self-hosted b2evolution, I still have my trackbacks but comments on DISQUS already.
Additionally, old comments are still viewable as usual at the same time, these old posts are DISQUS-enabled.
I strongly believe it is possible with Wordpress as well, it is just a matter of doing the correct edits. However, the Wordpress Plugin system may not have a provision for such, in this case it is Wordpress’ limitations.
Then also WP’s trackback and comment system are one and the same. If you turn it off, trackback also goes off. Which is the same with b2evolution (they both are a fork of b2, b2evolution is the first fork).
For SEO power, there is the API. Since Wordpress DISQUS is plugin based, I expected it to be “API” based. The JavaScript method is for those that can not use the API - mostly non-self-hosted blogs like blogger.com.
For us self-hosted blogs, we can use the API, add our own plugins, etc. It just a matter of knowing how to use it. And writing our plugins using the API, not the JS code.
Since you mentioned it, maybe the first version of the Wordpress DISQUS plugin is JS-based still, since the DISQUS API is still in heavy development according to DISQUS.
Until then, we have to wait for the full version of the API, and I can’t wait.
^_^
June 8th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Thanks for the insightful bits here, folks! Undecided too as to our long term committment to Disqus. I certainly see many advantages and for the time being they outweigh the lack of trackbacks and worries about activity/traffic.
Following the discussion didn’t bring me anywhere near a conclusion, however. We’ll keep watching what happens, while we try it out and see what Disqus can do for us.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:27 am
[…] these play a vital role in the blogging “if I link to you, you link to me too” ecology. Daniel Ha of Disqus says they’re working on something big in this deparment. One can’t help but wonder, though, […]