Comments on: Are Your Automated Plugins Doing More Harm than Good?

By: Andy MacDonald

Andy MacDonald — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:51:29 +0000

A fantastic article Michael, I am a relatively new blogger, and unfortunately, i have fallen into this category, i have the plugin which emails a commenter thanking them for the first comment they leave on my site. Although i have added a personal message to the email that is sent, it is still automated and i can see where you are coming from. I will be disabling my plugin as a result of this post.

Keep up the great work!!

By: A little link love - week 29 » Things By Mike

A little link love - week 29 » Things By Mike — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:47:25 +0000

[...] Are automated plugins more harm than good? The plugins that automatically email a commenter or display a blurb at the top for first-time visitors suggesting they subscribe to your RSS feed might be hurting you. I’m not going to single them out by their names, but you know which ones I’m talking about. Popularity: 1% [?]If you’re new here, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. Related Posts [...]

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:28:43 +0000

@Adam: Yes, I agree that with a very high comment volume, that's not possible. I pick several people at a time, a few times a week to do this. I usually try to pick people I don't already know so I can introduce myself to them. Some of you may even be getting an email from me shortly!

By: Adam Snider

Adam Snider — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:54:47 +0000

Manually/personally responding to comments by email is such a simple step (that I should be employing myself). I'm not a huge fan of those automated emails.

HOWEVER, if you get hundreds of comments a day, you might not have time to go through and respond to all of them, so automated emails at least get people's attention for a couple of seconds (hopefully).

Still, they're a weak alternative to replying with a personalized email.

By: The Best of the Blogosphere: December 14, 2007 | Super Blogging

The Best of the Blogosphere: December 14, 2007 | Super Blogging — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:32:25 +0000

[...] Are Your Automated Plugins Doing More Harm Than Good? by Blogging Tips. [...]

By: Desty

Desty — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:29:16 +0000

The plugin in question, What Would Seth Godin Do?, comes with the subscribe to RSS message, but it can be changed to anything. Following bluehatseo.com I took a look at my stats and formated it to show my most popular articles, based off pageviews.

I use another plugin, Subscribe Remind, that automaticly adds a reminder at the end of every post. I totally agree, remind for RSS AFTER the article.

Great article, stumbled! Heck, I regestered just so I could comment on the article!

By: DamienOh

DamienOh — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:09:31 +0000

I think most of the seasoned bloggers are already immune to the RSS subscription plugin. For me, I tend to ignore it whenever I encounter one. In fact, if the content is good, I won't even need the RSS subscription reminder to subscribe to the feed.

By: My Recent Posts on Other Blogs

My Recent Posts on Other Blogs — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:45:49 +0000

[...] Are Your Automated Plugins Doing More Harm than Good? [...]

By: Weekly Linking 12/13 | InterWebHunt - Make Money Online

Weekly Linking 12/13 | InterWebHunt - Make Money Online — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:57:47 +0000

[...] Are Your Automated Plugins Doing More Harm Then Good? – A nice look at the potential downfalls of using automated plugins in wordpress and what you might be doing without even realizing it. [...]

By: Llama Money

Llama Money — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:32:20 +0000

I'm a fan of the pre-checked box, for what it's worth. Lots of folks leave comments here and there but forget where here and there are. A little automatic reminder in their inbox will help them continue the discussion.

If you don't want alerts, untick the box. Seems pretty easy to me.

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:33:36 +0000

@K: thanks for the stumble! Much appreciated. The way the subscribe to RSS plugin works (if I remember correctly) is that first-time visitors see it. A person may visit several times before deciding to subscribe. I know that in the past, I have done this myself. In my opinion, it seems better to simply include a subscribe link at the bottom of posts by building it into the theme files. You could just code it into the WordPress theme's index.php file, or even create it as an include, say, rssfooter.php and then call it from index.php with a php include. Just a thought.

By: K-IntheHouse

K-IntheHouse — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:23:30 +0000

Michael, great points. I don't use the automated reply for the same reason and I have thought about moving that RSS message to the bottom of the post as well. You have just convinced me to do it.

Rhys, that's another thing I have take care of then. To uncheck it. I had it checked because of personal preference because a lot of times when I am leaving a comment, I most often want to follow the conversation than not. But, I would easily forget to check the box before I clicked submit.

But, I already see how that could be addressed.. by showing the checkbox while you are already getting input from your reader.

Nice stuff all around! Stumbled so we get a lot more people to do this.

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:55:20 +0000

@Rhys: yes, great point! I don't like pre-checked boxes, either. Seth Godin already schooled everyone about permission marketing years ago. I guess some people missed that lesson.

I very much enjoy building relationships with people through personal emails as well as comments.

By: Rhys

Rhys — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:39:04 +0000

Quite Agree.

I don't like people who automaticallly tick the box, I feel as though the blog owner doesn't appreciate my comment.

I feel from a blogger's point of view I generally respond to commenters in my comment box, over time people have learnt that the discussion continues in the open not in the email box (generally ), and come back for more