Google has finally launched the Google+ commenting system for Blogspot blogs. Well, if Facebook’s commenting system can become so popular, then why should Google stay behind? That’s why, Blogger users can now enable Google+ commenting system on their blogs. This new commenting system is more social, and makes more sense since it looks better the default Blogger commenting system. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to enable the Google plus commenting system on Blogger (or call it as Blogspot).
Why Use Google+ Commenting System?
There are certain advantages of enabling Google+ comments on Blogger. Basically, this is an alternative to the default commenting system on Blogger, but it needs to be enabled manually by the user. Some of the advantages of using the new Google+ commenting system are:
- Google+ comments are all about getting social. When someone shares your post on Google+, it will also appear on your Google+ commenting system.
- When leaving a comment on the blog, the option to share that comment to Google+ is checked by default. This means your comments as well as blog posts will get more exposure.
- Visitors who want to comment have the option to comment publicly or privately to their Google+ circles.
- Visitors (readers) have the option to view all comments, top comments or just the ones made by the people in their circles.
- Your existing Blogger comments won’t disappear. Even after upgrading to Google+ comments, your old Blogger comments will still be visible on your blog.
- Looks wise, it looks really slick, simple and it just works.
Points to Note Before Enabling Google+ Comments
You might be excited to enable the Google+ comments on your blog, but before doing so, here are some points that you “really” should note.
- If you’re thinking to move to/from a custom domain or change your blog’s URL, then you should do that before enabling Google+ Comments. Changing your blog’s URL will cause existing Google+ Comments to disappear.
- If you are using third-party commenting system like Disqus or Facebook comments, then you will lose all your existing comments. But if you’re using Blogger’s default commenting system, then there’s no problem at all.
- If your readers don’t have a Google+ profile or page, then they’ll not be able to comment on your blog, but they’ll be prompted to create one.
- Google+ comments won’t work for private blogs. You’ll need to change your blog to public to use this feature. Also on some Classic templates, and on adult content blogs, this option might be grayed out.
Turn On/Enable Google Plus Comments on Blogger
There are two effects of doing this.
- Turn on Google+ comments.
- Integrate Google+ with your blog. This will also help you to get Google Authorship for your blog.
Login to your Blogger account, and then click on the Blog for which you want to connect your Google+ account.
From the Dashboard, click on Google+ from the left sidebar. Next, click on the “Get Started” button.
As informed earlier, your profile information will now be migrated from Blogger to Google+ profile. You’ll be able to see this clearly in the next page. Tick mark on “I’ve read the above…” statement and then click on “Switch Now” button.
From the next screen, Google will ask you to add your blog to the Google+ profile page. You can do this now, or else, click on the “Skip” button.
Next, go back to your Blogger Dashboard and then again, click on Google+ from the left sidebar. Checkmark “Use Google+ Comments on this blog.”
With this step being done, you have successfully integrated Google+ to your Blogger account.
If you are using a custom template, then you can add the Google+ comments widget by adding the following code to your template:
<div class='cmt_iframe_holder'
expr:data-href='data:post.canonicalUrl'
expr:data-viewtype='data:post.viewType'/>
Let me know what’s your opinion on this new commenting system from Google.
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