Today I am going to write about a popular plugin which most of us might be using, the Show Top Commentator plugin by Nate Sanden. I will not be reviewing about it since it is a known fact that the plugin is great. What I am going to write about is how you can fully utilize its functions and fit it into your blog.
We will look at 5 things on how you can optimize the plugin for your blog’s use.
Placement
It is indeed a good plugin to encourage your visitors to comment but what if you place it at the bottom of your blog? I place mine at a prominent and visible space in Wayne Liew Dot Com and it has been even rated higher than my popular posts by me.
Your visitors might be comment to get a linkback to boost their Page Rank or backlinks because appearing on a blog’s homepage will mean a link in each and every one of your blog page but what some visitors really want is a share of your traffic. One common sense thing about the placement of this widget is that if you place it too low, your visitors might not even know you offer a reward of people who comment! 
Number of Links Allowed
This is not easy as it seems. If you allow too many links to appear and your blog have less commentators, all the number 1 inside the brackets will show it to every readers of yours that no people is commenting. Also, if you allow too little links but if you have commentators with high frequency of commenting like kljs, semi-active commentators that are still not in the list will easily give up when they are tired of getting into the list.
You might say that the best is to hide the numbers by tweaking the plugin editor but I think people will not even try to challenge those who are on the list because they don’t know to which extent that they need to comment.
You can actually change the number of links that you want to show by modifying the number shown below in your Top Commentators plugin editor page.
Frequency of Reset
Some bloggers reset their comments count for this plugin once a week but some like me, make it once a month. This depends on the level of freshness you want. Resetting the plugin frequently will give chances to some featherweight commentators but it will always show a low comment count in the brackets. If you reset once a month like me, I guess you will still see people like Sean and Kitkat on my charts for at least 20 days more.
Linking to Your Comentators
Some people just love Google so much and they are experts in adding nofollow tags onto their links, even when they seems to be rewarding commentators with this plugin (I have seen these kind of bloggers before). I don’t know why they are so obedient towards Google and they think that their blog can live on with Google but without visitors. Don’t do this, doing this will break the aim of this plugin completely! I don’t think Google is that evil (is it?) to ban you for rewarding your commentators!
Also, this plugin does allow you not to link to your commentators but I don’t see why you should disable the linking unless you are giving away monthly prizes to those who got to the top every month or every week!
Don’t Win Your Own Competition
Sorry if I offended you but I admit that I laughed when I see a blogger is the winner on their own top commentators list. Don’t do that because you might be perceived as little Ashwin Khanna! Of course you will be on top as you will be commenting in each and everyone of your post because you are replying to your readers. Remove your name by adding in text like admin, xxx and Wayne Liew (example) to the plugin editor as shown below.
Conclusion
Show Top Commentator plugin is one of the best plugin that I will be recommending to every Wordpress bloggers. It gives your readers reason to comment. The negative side of it is that you will be inviting spasm but I guess Akismet will always be there to do the cleaning job for you. Know your commentators and suit the plugin to your blog.
Do you use this plugin? Do you find it useful in helping you to increase the number of comments? Maybe one of the reasons that I forgot to add into 10 Reasons You Are Not Getting Comments is that you don’t reward your commentators. Tell me what you think about the tips I have provided above. Did I miss out any usable tweaks to the plugin?
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November 12th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Good plugin. Always see my name there wakakaka…
November 12th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I remembered I was the top commentor for last two months right? haha~
But this month cannot make it, but it’s allrite~
November 12th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I am leading the pack. hmmm….. can I spam somemore now? lol… kidding….
Anyway, thanks for recommending the Show Top Commentator plugin… I will try it out…..
November 12th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Well you think Google will not punish you and is not that cruel??
I hope so too. In my PR2 site I will not have no follow la.. Spread a little link love.
But in my PR4 site I am thinking twice. Google is using algorithms (not humans) to check. So with lots of “do follow” links going out, there may be dilution and you may be sacrificing a bit of PR. Of course that’s only my theory and I could be wrong.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Great post on the TC plugin… I just added it a few weeks ago myself. The frequency is something to play around with, especially if you get some blog just posting meaningless comments over and over again to get on the TC list.
I added that and the do follow in my comments, I think they both work great. Scott
November 12th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
About the Do Follow thing in the comment, does Google agree with the You Comment, I follow thing? because Google started the no follow thing, and I don’t think enabling Do Follow will make Google happy…..
November 13th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Well generally if ‘too much link love’ is given out then it won’t be favourable for the website’s PR. But then again, why make our whole life center around making Google happy.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Excellent tips Wayne. With regards to the frequency of the reset - I think this should probably depend on the popularity of your blog. When I first put my widget on there it took a few weeks to get rid of the (1)’s as I didn’t have many comments but now I have some more.
On the other hand a really opular blog like John Chow resets his weekly (I think) just to give people a chance to get on it.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Google should not have any problems with “Top Commentators” as the links are not sold out…
November 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Well again, it is the bots that traverse your site not human. So if a text link just exists there like a paid link then I think it looks like a paid link to the google bot no matter whether it’s paid or not.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Andrew Ooi -Like Jalaj says Google don’t have any problems with “top commentators” as the link not sold out is correct. Any system not passing pagerank in a hidden manner is ok for them.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
@ Kitkat
Ya, keep the efforts up!
@ Sean
Yes, you are and I really thank you for that. Keep it up!
@ kljs
I am using it so I am thinking why not give the plugin creator some credits since it is a very good plugin.
@ Andrew
No one knows exactly what will happen but if I am getting demoted, I will just request a reconsideration which by then my site will be reviewed by a human.
Anyway, I am still on the pro-reader side. I am not into this technical speculation of how Google Page Rank works. I don’t sell links and I don’t write that much paid posts here so I guess everything will be all right even if they demote my PR.
My stand might sound a bit arrogant but it’s true that I didn’t depend on PR here to make money. It is on another blog that I am concerned about.
@ Scott
They will work like a charm! Other than modifying the number of links to show, you can type in those names of people that are always typing useless comments into the plugin editor. This will make their efforts nothing.
@ kljs
No one can confirms that for you as Google/Matt Cutts didn’t use this as example but what I did find out is that many of the big blogs out there actually have more outgoing links than me!
As I always say, I am towards rewarding my readers like you.
@ Andrew
Yes, don’t make your life miserable with the Big G always in your head. I am doing this and of course you can see my intentions is to create discussion, without Google in my mind.
@ Caroline
Yes, John Chow do resets his widget weekly.
You are so famous now. Famous people will have problems that common people will not understand.
@ Jalaj
Yes, also, I think they will see it as relevant because the names on the list is actually the names that will be found in my post pages.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Don’t worry. Soon Google will require that someone buy Adwords for every link that’s not nofollowed. They’re going to end up marching themselves into anti-trust court over that stupid green bar.
Technically since it’s not a paid link it shouldn’t matter. They would have to also penalize forums and other such locations where links are frequently used.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:31 am
@Wayne : Still think Do Follow will not make Google happy, since I read up on why Google started the No Follow. Something about the pagerank thingy. That’s why You Comment, I Follow probably has some element of risks if your blog is using adsense……somehow I feel Google will do something about it if lots of people start enabling Do Follow or something like that….
November 14th, 2007 at 10:58 am
@ Frank C
This is why I am more to the pro-reader side. Anyway, I don’t want to be bounded by Google all the time…
@ kljs
Hmm, I am not using Adsense and that is why I can be so notorious about Google Adsense. Secondly, my commentators are not 50+ or 30+ like those big blogs, so I don’t think here will be a problem giving out link loves to my commentators.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Great Tips Liew! After reading your post, i decide to install think plugin to my wordpress. Thanks Liew for sharing!
November 16th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
@ Andrew Ooi
In that case blogrolls (I think wordpress has it dofollow) too can be considered as paid links by bot…
why don’t blogger’s sell links under heading blogroll 
November 16th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
@ dicky
Thanks for commenting on my post.
I am sure that you will like it very much!
@ Jalaj
Blogroll can be set as nofollow under Wordpress but by default, it should be dofollow. What Matt Cutts say is that the relevance of links is the key here, so if you suddenly have a betting link on Wayne Liew Dot Com, I will be penalized for selling links.
Ridiculous but it’s true.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Some great tips on using the Top Commenters plugin, it’s something I’ve used for around 9 months since I started my blog, but never really had given it much thought as to how to use it to it’s best.
I’ve now starting implementing some of your advice and will see how successful it is. I like the idea of rewarding people who take the time to not only regularly read your content, but also contribute to it.
December 28th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Thanks for reading my blog and I hope the tips help you to gain more commentators as this is the core function of this plugin.
Rewarding your commentators is a way of interaction with your readers as well as they will come back to contribute more to win this little competition of their own.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Hi Wayne,
I’ve never liked the idea of using this plugin but after what I read, I’m seriously considering if I should use it.
Regards,
Samuel
March 5th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Well, blogging is all about user interaction and two way traffic. Offering this widget is like something we give in return for comments. Comment is not like a trade for some but giving out incentives can help to boost something.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for the great tips on using the ‘Top Commentator’ wordpress plugin. I’ll definitely be looking at adding it to my blogs.
I agree with you about its placement to be visible & prominent… You need to encourage your visitors to leave a comment. I’ve seen a lot of sites who place it right at the bottom of the page & how many site visitors scroll right down there!..me for one anyway!
April 11th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Yes, when put right at the bottom, top commentators will get a link but this is not really what they want. I want true comments from readers. If it is just about getting a link, I would encourage my readers to put in keywords as their commentator name rather than their real name or nickname.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Thanks for the tips brother. Didn’t know about this at all!