Pros and Cons of Using the Facebook Commenting System for WordPress

 Wordpress  Add comments
Oct 202012
 

Almost every blogger is aware that Facebook offers a commenting system for WordPress blogs. This comment plugin from Facebook is basically a code written in FBML (Facebook Markup Language) or may be an iframe which is needed and gets embedded in the html source of your WordPress blog to incorporate this commenting plugin.
You can use this Facebook commenting plugin as a stand-alone system or can be integrated with your WordPress’ default commenting system as well giving 2 ways for readers to leave comments.facebook comment 350x175 Pros and Cons of Using the Facebook Commenting System for Wordpress

But before deciding upon actually implementing this commenting system on your blog, I would like you to have proper insights into its pros and cons.


Pros:

  1. Reduced Spam:
    Spam is really a very big problem for most of blog owners today as people are putting garbage comments on blogs just for the sake of getting links. So blog owners have to take special care when approving comments to ensure they are genuine. But when you start using Facebook commenting plugin the chances of spammed comments reduces drastically as the user has to leave a comment using their Facebook profile which means their identity and profile can be easily judged to check whether it’s from a real account of from a fake one.  This is one of the most compelling reasons to consider the Facebook commenting system is that there is no anonymity therefore spamming is reduced.
  2. Boost in Traffic:
    As social media is becoming extremely popular day by day and Facebook is the best one and most engaging social networking media which is having millions of users. If someone comment on your blog using Facebook commenting then the comment will be visible to their own timeline as well and get viral promotion by being visible to the user’s friends and subscribers hence boosting chances of getting more traffic.
  3. Reduction in Server Load:
    Its quite clear as the comments will be posted using Facebook profile hence they will be hosted on servers of Facebook itself thus cutting down your server load to a great extent.
  4. Easy to portable:
    It will be quite easy for you to shift your blog from WordPress to other platform with Facebook commenting system as you would simply need to embed the FBML code only to your blog source again to get the previous comments back.
  5. Automatic login feature:
    If the user who wants to comment on your blog is already logged in his/her Facebook account then he/she need not to sign-in again but can make a comment directly eliminating the overhead of signing in again and again.

 

Cons:

  1. Slow down the loading speed of a page:
    As the comment system will be hosted on Facebook server and not on yours hence increasing the HTTP requests to the other server and finally the page loading speed will be slowed down.
  2. Makes blog dependable on Facebook for proper functioning:
    Since the comments will be loaded from Facebok server so your blog will become dependable on Facebook’s working as well and if anytime Facebook breaks down for any reason then your commenting system won’t also work leading to glitches.
  3. No comments from Twitter, Google+ users:
    Facebook is certainly one of the best social networking websites, however you cannot still be sure whether your targeted audience is getting captured or not as many people still don’t use Facebook and give preference to Twitter and Google+ instead. In such cases you won’t be able to get comments from those Twitter and Google+ users.
  4. Increase duplicacy issues:
    As the same comments will be posted on your blog and Facebook pages as well so it may lead to duplicate content problem from search engine’s perspective.

Also when you are using Facebook commenting system on your blog then there will be less OBL on your pages and your link juice will not pass to others. Facebook commenting system is really awesome if you want to make your posts viral on Facebook.

Well my personal opinion is that the benefits of Facebook Commenting System for WordPress blog rules over its shortcomings.

Let me know what do you feel?

Pros and Cons of Using the Facebook Commenting System for Wordpress

Saif

I have been working on SEO field from last 5 years. I just loves to play with new Gadgets and Games. ;) Get a quote about SEO and Austin Web Design Company now.
  • http://www.inspiretothrive.com/ lisabuben290

    I’ve never liked the Facebook comment system, I would rather have my blog’s link in a comment. I don’t want to be connected to everyone on Facebook either :) Great pro’s and cons you listed.  Had not thought of the duplicity issue.

    • http://www.saifullahbutt.com/seo-services saifbutt44

      @lisabuben290 Hey ,
      Thank you for liking the post, Every does like his or her blog link in the comment. :)
      Most of the pictures blog has been adding Facebook commenting system to get traffic from Facebook so if you have a pictures blog or some funny website like 9gag then you can add this system. :)

  • http://www.dragonblogger.com/ Dragon Blogger

    The Duplicity issue is not really an issue, the comments aren’t in the html source code and therefore not visible to Google when you install the Facebook commenting system.  iFrame/script embed means the material is pulled from the source, not re-posted separately on the existing page.  So duplicity issue only exists if you use a plugin that also reprints the comments to your html source code plus they exist separately in Facebook.For me bloggers have told me Facebook really dramatically reduces spam, hands down, no spam because people have to have accounts to comment, however you don’t provide backlinks any benefit to entice commenters and true there are 1 billion Facebook users, but there are also many who don’t use it publicly and won’t comment with it.I know a big time blog who switched to Facebook commenting and said they removed much of the spam moderation but their commenting has gone down dramatically as a result of the switch.

  • davelucas

    Hey Justin! I added FB comments to my blogspot blog – it is an enhancement in that it does not replace built-in blogger comments, and users don’t have try to guess the capcha 117 times and then give up trying to leave a comment.
     
    Once before I added a second commenting system, Haloscan, which I ALMOST went to exclusively: I am so glad I didn’t because they were taken over by another company who then turned it into a “Pay” system – What, ME pay? No way, Jose! I hand-copied some of the “important’ comments on posts into blogspot comments, and I learned a valuable lesson about depending on 3rd parties for anything.
     
    Having written that, the only thing I don’t like about FB comments is I don’t get any kind of notification – so if you leave a FB comment or ask me a question on a post from, say, August – chances are I won’t knowo it’s there.
     
    Bottom line: FB comments HAS INDEED increased traffic for me as well as providing a spam-free avenue of interaction.

    • http://www.dragonblogger.com/ Dragon Blogger

      @davelucas I was curious about it myself and the fact that you get no notifications or warning at all when someone leaves comments, have no ability to edit/moderate them other than flag them are major deterrents for me.  However, I would use ANYTHING except the default Blogspot commenting system if I were running a Blogger blog.

  • http://zagorath.wordpress.com Zagorath

    I have a HUGE negative with Facebook comments that you may not have considered.

    I’ve only had this issue on one particular site, but I’ve seen it happen many times to myself and others: Facebook randomly deletes or doesn’t show comments that have been made.

    Also, I don’t know for certain about this, but I *think* the person who creates a top-level comment can then moderate further down comments within the same thread, out of your (the site owner’s) control. I may be wrong on that one, though.

    Then there’s the fact that Facebook is blocked or strange in some places. (By strange, I mean here in Vietnam it seems to work, but it is much slower than most websites and frequently will fail to load until you refresh a few times.) That means your comments will be limited to people in countries where it works.

    • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

      You make a great point, and there definitely are some limitations. With any 3rd party moderation system you lose control over potential who/what can edit the comment. I have heard @GrowMap mention and complain several times that @Livefyre removes comments from others blogs (not their own) without warning and reason on occasion and implements a form of censorship but I haven’t confirmed this myself nor seen this happen with my own blogs when they were on Livefyre.

      By trusting in a 3rd party comment system, especially one you aren’t paying for you are at their mercy no doubt vs having complete control of your comments when they are stored in your own WordPress database.

  • Heena Soni

    Facebook is mostly filled with its cons only. Duplicacy issue is moslty found in facebook.