Today I took a cruise around the blogs of the Top Commentators to see what new posts they had up. Being a Top Commentator on this blog offers many perks. The first is you get your name listed under Top Commentators with a link to your blog. Unlike links in the comments, the links under the Top Commentators is a full link without a nofollow tag. That means Google loves you.
The second perk for being a Top Commentator is you’ll get a nice set of pens at the end of this month. The third perk happens right now – you get one of your recent blog posts featured in this blog post. Here they are.
- You’re Losing Backlinks If You Don’t Redirect – Marc
- Traffic From Search Engines – Nomar
- Rainbow Six Vegas Experience Glitch – Ryan
- Give your website an easy PageRank boost – Leftblank
- Climbing Technorati – Jane May
- Stonegrill sells the sizzle, not the steak – Michael Kwan
- 7 Ways To Increase Commenting On Your Blog – Kalle
- Timing your blog posts and diggs – Jeff Kee
- Our Meeting with a Domain Investing Mogul – Nate Whitehill
- 2 Comment Related Plugins I Won’t be Using – Allen Heat
I was always told you need to reward your top contributors because they’re the driving force behind your success. Without the Top Commentators, this blog wouldn’t be a lively as it is now. Yes, the Top Commentators are mostly there for the free backlink, but these additional unexpected perks help create tremendous loyalty.
You can chalk this up to another lesson in under promise, over deliver.
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{ 60 comments }
WOO HOO!!!
Hey, Jeff. I enjoyed your post so much, I linked to it in a recent post. I like.
Love the avatar!
It’s my lucky day!
I love these perks!!! I think I love you John! Well, at least your ability to engage and reward your readers
p.s. We are hosting our first contest. I think some of the top commentators here might be interested
Oooh I’m holding a contest soon too!
haha…looks like I beat you to it huh Jeff…well, let’s go see what Jeff has instore!
OK, MY FIRST CONTEST IS UP AT MY BLOG
Are the comments reset at the end of every month? I want a box of pens, so I’m gonna save all my comments for next month!
Yes, the commentators are reset every month.
Why not reward the top commentator of each month with a link in your blog roll?
I think I might have been on top in January…
That would “expensive” over time. It would also decrease the value of John’s blogroll.
Not if he only left them in there for a short few month rotation.
Beautiful senitments….John. You’re a true dot com mogul
May I know which plugin you use so that people can see commentors’ thumbnail in their comments?
Thank you.
I am also interested in this…I have the sidebar widget that displays the pictures of the recent MyBlogLog users, but I would like their pictures in the comments too.
It’s call MyAvatars for MyBlogLog. I wrote about it here: http://www.johnchow.com/myavatars-for-mybloglog/
Sweet!! I somehow missed that post…Thanks John
Where do you get the 3 across 3 down code? I only found the single column across code.
Thanks for the link John. This is very much in tune with “under promise, over deliver.” Interestingly, it seems that Ryan and I are the only ones with blogs that aren’t as dedicated toward blogging, monetizing, and other dot com-like things. That does serve as an indication as to what kind of audience this blog draws, though.
Well, I can say that I got a bit excited when I saw that John Chow was one of my recent visitors…quite an honour to have your site checked out by such a dot com mogul
Do I understand this correctly? Commentators are reset every month??? Does this mean that on March 1st everyone starts with 0 comments? That would be great for someone like me who would love to be a top commentator cause I know that I will never catch up to these other guys with 100 comments!
Yes, that is correct. All comments are reset to zero at the start of each month. Everyone has a shot at making the Top Commentators list.
Nice Information
Hmm… becoming a comment whore will be difficult for me, as I have more of a habit of lurking rather than commenting.
[sillyness]
Darn you John, for giving such perks to top commentators! *shakes fist*
[/sillyness]
You and me both! I’ve cut back on leaving comments because I’ve been so busy.
I understand what a nofollow link is, but does Google even consider them to your knowledge when calculating page rank? I sometimes put nofollow in my links, but I have since started using “open in new window”. There’s nothing more annoying then having to cut n paste when you can do it in a click.
So get real links… got it.
Thank you John !! I appreciate this !! I don’t care that you spelled my name wrong
You are a kind man !
Come on Nomar anyone that reads your blog knows you can’t spell either! Give him a break.
People read Nomar’s blog? I thought it was just a group of bots?
whahaha, funny guys, yeah i know.. im from the netherlands.. englisch is not my # 1 language hehe
I am actually laughing my ass of from this…sorry Nomar! :p Damn, and now I am late for work!!! Thanks John, you made me late for making me read these damn comments…well, it’s probably a good thing actually, I need to find a way to make people late for work because they are reading my blog’s comments.
I don’t know why I get caught up, because I read it from work also!
hehe, thats not a good thing that you are coming to late because reading comments.
you should read on your work
I’ve been reading your blog since Nov 06 and decided today it’s about time to get some credit for reading and try out for your Top Commentators post. Hello from Jason.
Long time reader, First time Poster. I like what you are doing. Providing something back to your loyal reader. I like I like.
I was gonna post something earlier on Vday when you posted pics of the Cannery. I had a feeling you were gonna go there when you said you were gonna take your misses somewhere nice. I had a look when I was there but didn’t see ya. I agree the service was fast. I go several times a year cause I live close by and that was the worst time/service I ever received there.
Good luck
arh I had a nice long post and it disappeared.. will try and write it some other time
I think its above you
great idea!
Nice list John, thanks. You might be a bit right indeed, the free backlinks from your website are very nice and very good as promotional tool. However, your blog is still the main reason I’m here, I wouldn’t manage to keep commenting a non-interesting blog
lame contest announcements on someone elses blog
great idea to add a little snip of your top commentors. I am all about giving back to bloggers and especially bloggers who support and give to our site
When I leave John’s blog I typically choose a link in the top commentators section. Consider that an added perk!
Nice links, apart from sharing the link love they also offer useful information. Good job John.
Following your advice, I am trialling a latest comments list in the sidebar of my web tech section. So far I am the top commentator on my blog, so do I give myself a prize and a backlink?
Wow, two links to my blog in one week, thanks for that John!
Though as I said in my post about the comment-incentives, aren’t you even worried about getting more worthless comments now? especially during the first week of March?
Cheers,
Allen.H
Great way to encourage people to comment, but I’m sure it will result in many comments that bring absolutely nothing to the discussion, making actually reading them unattractive.
Great idea to link to your Top Commentators.
I especially liked Kalle’s 7 Ways to Increase Commenting article.
Brilliant!
at the end of the month i will hold a commercial break to
Thanks a lot for linking to an article of mine John, appreciated!
I will definately keep commenting and reading your blog!
The linkback love is always appreciated John. This is also extra incentive for top commentators to write compelling content. ‘Cause you never know when John Chow will drop by and need good content to send a pile of visitors.
Keep up the good work you are already doing and people will say,” It’s about time John noticed that blog!”
I need to work on my commenting. And then I’m going to Jeff’s blog to raid his Top Commentor’s list.
Sadly, I don’t think I’m quite witty enough to come up with 50+ comments a month to get on your list. But you add a lot of value with your posts, so I wanted to drop by and say thanks.
I added this same plugin to my site and it made a massive difference in participation – plus about 5 of my readers went and installed it themselves.
It’s the least we can do to say thanks to the people who make our blogs great communities.
Wendy, this was the best comment and most valued i ever read in all this post.
Thanks John. I just learned about 10 great blogs that I will visit more frequently.
Great idea to reward the commentators john. I may have to try it out sometime on my own site.
chaunceysmith should be banned, he’s gaming your comment system.
He just got banned! Don’t post here no more!
John, some off-topic (or maybe not), how do you manage all the comments? Don’t you have problems with spam that askimet doesn’t block?
Nice. Looks like I have to work on getting myself to the Top 10
Always nice to see you giving back to the community – it also gives other bloggers (like me) ideas of what we can do with our own community.
just don’t do what chaunceysmith did and post a bunch of randon crap, John will ban you…see above.