Did you ever have a problem and wish the perfect solution would come along?
Let me put it this way – ever feel like you're waiting for a “sign” before making a decision about something?
Well some might call it procrastination and maybe it is just a little bit. But this kind of stuff happens to me all the time. 
I feel like there are little voices in my head saying “not yet” or “just give it another couple of days before you make a move“.
And then all of a sudden…
BAM!!
It seems to appear out of the blue and the answer falls right into my lap!
Well that is what happened to me earlier today when I decided to install Google+ Comments here on Basic Blog Tips.
It's always good to have mentors
I noticed a lot of my peers and mentors removing CommentLuv from their blogs. First it was Lisa Irby from 2 Create a Website, then Ana Hoffman from Traffic Generation Cafe and a few others who I can't recall at this very moment. Oh yeah, let's not forget Justin Germino from Dragon Blogger, he was one of the first people I know to make the switch.
But in the end it was the video from my friend Chris Lang that convinced me it was time to try something different. Chris is a Google+ expert and you can click here to find out more about the business coaching program he offers.
This move to Google+ Comments doesn't have to be the “perfect” solution, heck I haven't even weighed all the options yet, but it's a chance that I'm willing to take.
CommentLuv is Still a Worthy Option
Now hang on a sec, I'm not taking back anything I said in the past about CommentLuv Premium. It's a fantastic plugin and I actually still have it installed – I just turned off the “LUV” part.
Remember there are a ton of modules and benefits to using CommentLuv Premium and I'm not suggesting that you remove the plugin if it's working for you.
Don't Wait for Perfection, Just Dive In!
I need take a second to explain this for anyone who might be visiting this blog for the very first time or who might not realize that I'm probably one of the most well known bloggers who uses CommentLuv. In fact if you check out my SEOPressor Version 5 video, you'll see that at the time of recording (February 2013) I ranked on page #1 of Google search for the term and I've held that position for a very, very long time.
Right after I sent an email to my subscribers informing them about the change I just made, I got another “sign” from one of my online mentors.
Michael Stelzner, CEO of Social Media Examiner, shared this on Facebook:
He said – and I quote:
“You know that feeling just after you jump off a cliff into the great unknown… That point of no return. I'm there and what I see coming is very exciting”
Yes Michael, I know the feeling. Thanks for the encouragement and for the tip about grabbing a parachute.
Ok so these Google+ comments, I have seen that probloggingsuccess and famousbloggers have also installed, but I fear comments may reduce because of this action…
Fear is not an option 🙂
I was giving it a thought for a couple of days before removing. The only thing that was holding me back was the fact that I’d certainly see a decrease in the number of comments! But as Ileane says fear is not an option!
But did you notice a drop in comments? Traffic?
It hasn’t even been 24 hours so stay tuned….
no I was asking Jane about probloggingsuccess… 😀
Sorry, Gautham. My bad!
To me, YES. There is a drastic drop in the comments – the ones who used to comment just for links have gone. And I consider that a great thing. Less junk for my blog. And with Google plus comments I find +1s increasing for each post.
The only drawback with Google plus comments is that there is no moderation notification facility. Anyone can drop links to spam pages or even leave abuse comments. I only accidentally found out some and removed them!
That’s great, looks like you have found the right balance 🙂
Ileane, I have installed the plugin but its worth keeping the commentluv plugin intact for those who just want to use it for backlinking. There are some very good commentators who leave comments just for the back link but they leave very good comments in the first place.
Hi Jane!
I know that I’ll get less comments and I’m ok with that. There are close to 40,000 comments on this blog. Can you imagine?
Hi Ileane,
I totally agree with Ileane, something that might seem perfect to me may not be what my blog readers for example want or need. I always say that people should aim for progress not perfection.
I think I’m gonna try the Google+ comments too, testing never hurt anyone, right?
~Philip
Hi Philip! That is so true. I always tell people that they need to test things to see what works for them and not to “blindly” follow others.
Wow, ill be visitting u a little bit more nowadays to see how this thing with google is going to work, anyway, it looks awesome adding +1 to the comments! See ya soon :P!
Thanks for stopping by Angel and stay tuned….
You know I run G+ Comments in addition to native comments on my blog. I’ve got several blog posts on the matter. There are countless downsides, without a doubt, which few mention, but as a supplemental system it works okay I suppose. I’ve enjoyed having them if for no other reason than that they give me one more way to track my own social mentions of shares of my stuff that I never had a way to see before. That said though, I still offer the native system as well 🙂
Kim
Kim, actually I didn’t notice that you added Google + comments on Just-ask-kim but I’m pleased to hear it. Did you turn off CommentLuv?
No, I remain dofollow (after 3)/keywordname/commentluv enabled.
Hi Ileane, totally agreed, always aim for improvement and set goals to achieve to help people enjoy what you do.
Thanks – Ferb
Hi Ferb, thanks for your support!
Waiting perfection is like procrastination. This even takes place outside of IM.
Yes Leslie, I’m glad you agree. This post is more about life than it is about IM.
Interesting Ileane,
Let’s see how it goes and take a small step from there.
Google+ commenting system is starting to be loved by blogger more and more.
I am wondering if people are going to take it off, just like many did with the Facebook comments.
Samuel from internetdreams.com
Hi Ileane,
It is good that you are experimenting with Google comments but I will always want your love with CommentLuv intact. Anyway, thanks for sharing all this information. Even the comments in the Google plus part are worth reading for the early experience of bloggers using Google + comment system.
Thanks for your support. I think that using Google+ comments is a great option.
Hi Ileane,
It’s interesting decision you have made. Actually it’s one of many reason why I am always visit your blog (the comluv). I’ve even made the list of comluv enabled blogs on my blog and put basicblogtips on one of them.
But, once again, it’s interseting for me to keep my eyes here :). Wish you the best
Hi Okto!
Feel free to remove my blog from your list if you like. I won’t mind.
Haha, I scrolled down and realized you still had these comments enabled along eith Google+.
🙂
Although I won’t be changing my comment system (I tried Facebook comments, Livefyre, Disqus & IntenseDebate but switched back) I will be removing the Comment Luv plugin on June 1st for two months to see how it affects my comments. I suspect that removing Comment Luv will result in less junk links.
Hey Dean, keep me posted on how things go! I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Nice move, Ileane! I actually installed G+ comments a couple of weeks ago as well…
What I still don’t understand is why you actually turned off CL. I did it because of hundreds of broken links, and never had a chance to go back to sift through them even after Andy released the broken link checker.
Hi Ana,
The main point I’m trying to get across here is that it’s not really about CommentLuv. It’s more about making a change. I knew that I didn’t want Disqus or Livefyre (does anyone still use that one?) but Google + comments just “feels right”. A few people have mentioned they don’t like this or that about the way the plugin works. But solutions don’t need to be “perfect” in order for us to take action. Seeing that post on Facebook from Mike Stelzner right after I installed the plugin and turned off CL was like a sign for me. You know how the “stars had to align” in order for me to be the very first one to leave a comment on one of Mike’s Facebook posts?
Just got finished preaching about “progress, not perfection” on Facebook. And, here you go talking about the same thing. Good thing that great minds think alike, don’t you agree? 🙂
Perfection has no borders nor it has a limit; therefore instead of just waiting for it we should jump into a venture resolving to get it from the day one either we do it or not but our every effort should focus to achieve it.
I request if you can add the comment luv plugin back to your website, I would be pleased.
Nice try Wilfred 🙂
When checking where my traffic was referred from and what terms were used to find me I notice a whole bunch of phrases containing the words comment luv blogs then a colon… this only confirms the fact that many just use Comment Luv enabled blogs for backlinks and to be honest I too have used that tactic but I at least read the whole posts and make an informed relevant comment instead of just saying Great Blog 🙄
So perhaps this G plus comment option will cut much of that down. And with the proven fact that Google loves itself I suspect the content indexing will increase thus putting more g plus enabled commented on content into Googles search results.
Now I wonder who is going to come up with the next WSO or Clickbank product touting this as the new secret loophole for top Google rankings 😆
Since it was already added to Blogger on April 18 I think I’ll test it out there on an old blogger blog first…
Hi Caleb,
At first I was hesitant to remove CommentLuv, but then I remembered that since I have CommentLuv Premium I can turn off the LUV but still keep all of the other amazing benefits of the plugin.
My advice about WSO is – don’t go there. 🙂
Btw – did you happen to see the post over on Glen Allsop’s blog Viper Chill about all the products with fake reviews and how the moderators deleted his comments? http://www.viperchill.com/warrior-trojan/
Yes, I did read Glen’s post a day or two after it was published and it didn’t surprise me one bit because as you know I’ve been around for a while and did my tour of duty over at WF and have made affiliate commissions from products I purchased and used myself. Unfortunately many products there do lack in quality which is the reason for my sarcasm in that part of my comment. Something like what you are talking about in this post is the type of stuff that end up on places like WF selling for 7 to 9 bucks.
As for turning off the luv in CL that actually makes it a safe experiment to run the Gplus comment plugin while still maintaining CL so thanks for the clarity.
Good! I’m glad you saw Glen’s post. There was another post on Danny Inny’s blog (by a guest author) who was mentioning WF. I asked him if there were ever any women on that forum and he couldn’t come up with any examples. Then he compared Lisa Irby’s forum to WF. I know he didn’t mean any harm but I just got the biggest laugh out of that because this guy obviously never joined Lisa’s forum or he would know that it is the total opposite.
I’m not trying to bash him (the article was quite good actually) I just wanted to share a little joke with you because I know you would understand 🙂
Well, Ileane, you might not have been waiting for perfection but it seems you’ve found the perfect complement! 🙂
Hi Vernessa,
Kim used the word “supplemental” commenting system – sounds super smart when you say it that way right 🙂
Thanks for using both of them.
Nice article Mam! BTW howyou installed G+ comments? Which plugin is this?
Hey, the new commenting system looks nice and howz it affecting the overall site speed. Also, you were one of the vocal supporters of Commentluv,so they might see a huge drop in adoption 🙂
Bishwajeet, I haven’t done any site speed testing yet. Mainly because I didn’t notice any slow down and since I already made my decision, I’m not going to let that stop me 🙂
You did not need to think about it because you already have a good community of a very successful bloggers following you and will engage with your blog. not all of us has such a community. maybe i will also try it, still thinking 🙂
I think google plus comments looking good and also matching your theme. But commluv is also awesome 🙂
most of the blogs do not have the g+ comment….
Hi Ileane. Quite an interesting topic, and judging from the amount of feedbacks you are getting, I think I’m not “off track” 🙂
You know, like all the people you mentioned above, I too have been thinking of “switching off” CLP for a while to see if I can get those crappy comments that I am sick of moderating. I installed the G+ comments back in April and I quite like it. Still not getting that much traction, but you know me, always testing things to improve “visibility” and increase interactions.
I think that your move is on spot, and I may just follow you on this one, if you don’t mind 😉
DiTesco,
If you plan to do what I’ve done then you just need to turn off the CommentLuv module and the Twitter link module. Keep everything else!!
I know that you are faced with some of the same moderation issues that I was faced with so let’s give it a try.
In a perfect world all of the trolls will go away in 6 months we can turn those modules back on, but like the title of the post says, let’s NOT wait for perfection – it may never show up!
Ileane,
It’s always refreshing to see the changes. However, this time, about Google+ Comment system, I could not agree much. A found several issues that stopped me from replacing the native commenting system with Google+ Commenting. I believe it must be well discussed first. Because commentLuv no longer exists, I’ve pasted the link here without http:// bivori.com/google-comment-commentluv/
I just started getting some good amount of comment on my blog but i wonder if i remove the love plugin, how it would be. But as you said, fear is not an option. Thanks amma try the plugin
Curious to see how this will pl ay out with comment numbers over the next few weeks. I guess everyone will wind up pandering to Google at some point – now that’s market power.
Great post Ileane, I think there isn’t much difference in what you use, try to make the best of what you have in mind , commentluv, commenthate, facebookgraph, google+
what matters is the end result
Interesting idea Ileane. Thing is, you get a lot of shares on G+ so it might make sense for you to do something like that. I don’t even know if I get any shares there, and that’s whether I actually put a blog post on there myself or not. So I think I would lose out drastically because I like to use CommentLuv as a way to decide which blogs I might like to visit because of the topics. Still, I hope it works out well for you.
Hi Mitch,
Ann Smarty has a cool tool that you can use to check Google + ones on any URL. All you need to do is sign in with a Twitter account and you can see the counts for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ 1’s http://saa.viralcontentbuzz.com/
(btw the StumbleUpon counts don’t work yet but she is working on getting that fixed)
Have fun!
Although there are a lot of great arguments for installing G+ comments, I am going to turn it down as fast as I did for Facebook. I love my in house comments. Now, if WordPress could integrate a way to checkmark comments to post to FB and G+ , that would be great.
I just don’t think anyone, including myself has the time to tinker with such a plugin.
Hi Nile! When you say “checkmark” comments I assume you mean moderate comments is that right? To be honest, that is exactly what I’m trying to avoid. It seems I spend half my day “moderating” here, there and everywhere and it never stops. I can’t even run a PAID advertisement on Facebook without someone posting spammy links in the comments. It’s amazing to me how desperate people are. They even found a way to hack into my Yahoo account and send out spammy links!! It’s maddening.
It comes with the territory Ileane. Before I did my big re-focus in 2008 for Blondish.net, I had over 1000 posts and more than 60,000 spam comments before moderating… not including the 176,000 that Akismet had caught. I am moderating between 400 to 1000 in a day and I do cut out quite a bit.
It comes with popular sites and sites with domain age behind it. I get hit with both. I sometimes contemplate hiring someone just to look through comments and moderate them, then I can just reply back.
I know the feeling on being hacked. I still own groups in Yahoo! with over 50,000 members and in the 30,000 range, and have been hacked that I stopped using my very old Yahoo! account that I have had since 1998 (back when they allows capital letters in the username… I was also part of the group that hacked profiles and clubs, and now Yahoo! had no choice but to offer colors to both member profiles and groups.)
I might suggest… since you do have a successful site and it IS a business itself… try putting out a hire form for social media interns. You don’t pay them, but they get a recommendation from you on their resume. And believe me… being an intern for a popular site does make employers look.
Just a thought. *hugs* I DO feel your growing pains with your site.
Hi Ileane, I guess this is the first time I comment on your blog even if I’ve been reading it for a while.
This CommentLuv thing where a lot of bloggers swearing once about how much a wonderful plugin it was, thanks also to a good affiliate system, are now removing it for one reason or another is interesting especially because it gives the idea that a big part of the promotion made before was just for the money. I’m not talking about you, just in general.
In many blogs the owner would do everything for the money promoting one affiliate product after another, and another, and another masking it as a new tactic for traffic or whatever. That is to say that it seems that what matters most is money and luring readers into buying any and every premium theme and plugin and service available and peace if it lasts just for a month; next month there will be something new to sell to readers.
Isn’t this very similar to what happened to Market Samurai? People swearing about it and boasting thousands of dollars of earnings from it but now almost no one still talks about it as other services have come and thanks also to Google hunting down those who try to game its algorithm.
Well, let’s forget that the algorithm games itself extremely well.
I’m not into the marketing field so I say these things just from a reader perspective but it doesn’t give a good impression about some internet marketers this permanent change of direction according to where the money is, so to say. Clearly a business is a business and money is important but there are other things which aloso matter: ethic, integrity, honesty, reliability and so on.
Clearly this is not the case as there is no money to earn using G comments, maybe a bit of traffic but the idea is that a product is good until it’s on the wave then it’s not anymore which poses some questions on how reliable are the opinions of some internet marketers or experts.
Also it seems somehow a bit unfair in respect to Andy Bailey.
I’m sorry if we get to know each other with such a comment but it was something I was thinking for a long time and it came out just now, I hope you won’t mind. 🙂
Ops, I was almost forgetting, I don’t use CommentLuv on my blog.
Clearly I’m too for testing new services and product, who doesn’t? As an example I’ve used Livefyre for a year but now I’m testing my website with the native WP system. Only that really these kind of things do not put many internet marketers or self-applied experts in a good light.
As a matter of fact I very seldomly buy something promoted by an expert of something for a simple reason: I already know that next month or so he or she will be promoting something else so how good, honest and reliable is his or her opinion?
Well, sorry if I went longwinded and let me say again that I’m not talking about you, far from it as you are pretty balanced in your reviews and opinions but many of the others are not.
It’s just the humble opinion of a reader of many internet marketers’ blogs. 🙂
Cheers!
Hi Andrea,
It’s so nice of you to be a loyal reader and I really appreciate you for that.
I can see that you had a lot of things you wanted to get off your chest and that’s what the comment section is for so I’m happy to provide that for you.
I can’t address everything now, but there is one thing that I do want to address and that is what you said about Andy Bailey. I chatted with Andy about all of this and he and I went into some great detail about what’s happening with CLP. In response he is working on some super Ninja Tactics that will improve the plugin even more and you can hear about this in this video (by the way, just so you know that Andy and I are still “besties” this link starts the video right when he mentions me and my blog – but you can watch the whole thing when you get time)
http://youtu.be/tZo7sC0kvEI?t=6m25s
Thanks Ileane. As I said my comment isn’t directly related to you but in general to a whole bunch of internet marketers or so called experts. Having to follow all their advices a blogger would end up almost broken without considering that many of those advices last the time of a promotion.
Many pose as experts of something but what comes out is that they simply crave for money and are full of “friends” selling this or that. Great as someone can become an expert in a year or so uh? The amazing power of the net. 😀
P.s cool your point on Andy Bailey. Will check the video.
Have a great week!
People like to comment more when they see the ComLuv plugin. It gives a professional touch to the comment, I believe
HI Ileane, I ended up here today because I am doing my due diligence on this G+ plug-in and I am thinking I am going to hold off and see how this all pans out. Thanks for sharing Great Blog by the way.. Chery 🙂
Hi Chery,
I have nothing but good things to say about Google + comments.
Has anyone mentioned a down side?
Thanks for making an informed decision. That’s always a smart idea.
Hello Ms. Ileane,
I always hear the saying that “time is gold” and that time should never be wasted. The most important thing in this world is time and it shouldn’t be wasted by waiting for something. Nothing will happen if you just forever wait. Take action and make everything happen while their is time to spent. Your goals and dreams will never come before you. You should come to them by making things possible to achieve them.
Perfection is paralysis and i think it is impossible to achieve because conditions are changing day by day.and i agree with your point of might iss the boat.because one can pretend to be perfect just by experience.
Go ahead and take the risk. Venture into the unknown. We cannot be 100% all the time. What we don’t know is that we might miss the opportunity we have been waiting for.
How does it go compared to Facebook comments? Anyone?
Although I do feel a lot of people will be upset with your decision, the people that actually care to comment for more than just dropping a link will be ok with it. I dropped commentluv a while back on most of my blogs because I read that it massively effects SEO negatively.
That being said, I still run commentluv on one or two, but for the others, I use Disqus. It’s never given me any problems and it’s easy to use for both me as the administrator and my audience.
The “perfection” in the title got me, too. I got the newsletter some days back but never got around to clicking the link until now. (Apologies for that.)
Been seeing a lot of blogs with Google+ commenting incorporated, and with you taking the plunge as well, I’m sure this is going to be huge. 🙂
Totally true! Most of the successful bloggers started from scratch and the mistakes that were made were the ones that brought out the best in it. So perfection is not always a goal, give room for mistakes and improvement to reach success.
I have not really decided yet if Google plus is a good option. But I have to admit I cannot remove the CommentLuv which has been very helpful to me.
Absolutely. Start from where ever you are, things will never get perfect.
Hi..I totally agree with Ileane, something that might seem perfect to me may not be what my blog readers for example want or need. I always say that people should aim for progress not perfection. Thank you…
I landed here researching comment luv. I can’t say in public but yest i had missed a very big boat and the damn culprit was “PERFECTION” , Nevertheless I was able to catch up with boat later but yes it was first time miss and though i got it for second time, it still pinches me a lot……