Disqus is a popular commenting platform for websites. It works well for blogs. When you add Disqus to your WordPress blog, you will not be using the default WordPress commenting system any more. You will switch to Disqus which specializes in comments for website.
After installing Disqus for WordPress, your visitors will be able to comment using their Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or Google account. You can also allow them to comment with their name and email. While using accounts other than Facebook, your visitors will actually be authorizing their Facebook/Twitter/Google account to be used with Disqus.
If you use Disqus, all the commenting, notifications by comments etc. will be handled completely by Disqus. You won’t have to worry about this part anymore. You can moderate the comments and configure Disqus to fit your need.
To add Disqus to your WordPress Blog:
Step 1: Create a Disqus Account
- Visit Disqus.com.
- Click the “Add Disqus to your website” button.
- Sign up quickly using your email. You will have to verify your email by clicking a verification link delivered to your email address.
Step 2: Configure Disqus for Your Blog
- After signing up, you will be redirected to http://disqus.com/admin/create/.
- Fill in the following details:
- Site Name: Give a name for your site’s identification. After installation, this name is also displayed in the commenting area of your site.
- Unique Disqus URL: Choose a subdomain in Disqus for your website http://yourblog.diqus.com . This is for moderating and configuring purposes. Nothing is hosted there.
- Category: Give your website a category.
- Then a Disqus installation page will open.
- Choose your platform, which is WordPress in this case. You can see that it supports several other platforms. The instructions will tell you to install the official plugin.
Step 3: Installing Disqus Plugin to WordPress
- Install it from WordPress admin – Plugins > Add New and search for Disqus.
- The first result will be the Disqus plugin. Click on the “Install Now” link and this add-on will automatically be installed to your WordPress blog.
- Don’t forget to activate your plugin after installation.
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Step 4: Configuring Disqus for WordPress Plugin
- In WordPress, go to Comments > Disqus and you will see options to configure it.
- Login using your username and password that you created while signing up for Disqus.com
- Select the website profile that you created before. Hit Next.
- You want to export your WordPress comments to Disqus. All the previous comments made in WordPress will then be imported to Disqus. This option is also available in “Plugin Settings” of Disqus WordPress plugin.
You have finished adding and configuring Disqus for WordPress.
Moderating Comments Made in Disqus
If you’d like to moderate comments made in Disqus, then you have to visit your disqus URL that you created during signup. It is something like http://yourblog.disqus.com. You can also login via discus.com and visit the admin area for moderation. All the activities related to comments are handled via the Disqus website and not your WordPress blog admin area.
Allowing Guests to Comment
By default, when you install Disqus, guests won’t be able to use their email and password to comment on your blog. If you’d like to enable it then login to Disqus. You should open the subdomain that you created in Disqus http://yourblog.disqus.com for administration. You can also click on “Admin” link to reach this area. There, go to Settings. In the General tab, you will find a heading called “Community Rules” from when you can turn on guest commenting. Don’t forget to save your changes.