A few weeks ago, I had to remove the Top Commentators Plugin because it was overloading my database. Because the plugin goes though the entire database to find the top commentators, it can slow down a blog with a lot of users. In my case, it slowed it to the point where I had to remove it because the blog was taking forever to load.
I’m happy to report that the plugin is back and the database problem has been fixed. An upgrade to the latest version of Show Top Commentators seem to have remedy the problems.
The Top Commentators list the top 10 readers who posted the most comments to this blog over the past seven days. It’s a running seven day total. If a reader stops commenting, he will disappear off the list within a week.
The main selling point of the Top Commentator plugin is the list does not have a nofollow tag so Google follows the links. I know the plugin works to increase comments because I noticed a decrease in comments over the past two weeks when the plugin was turned off. Show Top Commentators is a great way to encourage comments on your blog. The plugin allows you to set a limit on the number of commentators to display and how often to reset the list.