Note: Today I will be getting on a plane and flying to Ohio, so I likely won't check in with you all. I should have time to catch up on Thursday. See you then.
How do you respond to comments on your blog?
I generally prefer to respond via email. Not everyone is going to go back to the various blogs they visit just to check and see if a response was left. And a longer conversation can happen via the privacy of email (as private as an email can be) rather than being left in a public-facing forum.
However, not everyone has their email enabled, so responding to all comments via email is not always feasible. And then Blogger decided to make that even harder.
But, it is still doable. And how to do it is my topic for today.
If you want to be able to receive emails from your comments on various Blogger blogs, you have to enable them. Under "Settings", find "General" (all the way at the bottom of the page), and click on "Edit Profile".
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Under "Privacy and Identity", you should have a contact email address. (If not, click on it, and you can add one.) Then make sure "Show my contact email address" is toggled "on". Your email is not actually shown. There's a link shown in your profile that someone can click on and email you.
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Of course, many people don't want to be contacted from blogs, and that's completely understandable. I have found that I don't get a lot of unwanted email this way. Of course, I also have one email that's dedicated to blogging (mostly), and I have other email addresses for other uses.
The part that Blogger "broke" a few months back can still be accessed albeit a bit differently than before. (Much thanks to Pradeep Nair of Time and Tide for discovering the solution.)
If you want to respond to comments via email, you first have to get the comments in email. To do that, in "Settings" find "Email" (it's about halfway down the page). Under "Comment notification subscribers", you should see your email address. (Mine went missing a couple months ago, and it took me two tries to get it to remain.) If it isn't there, you can add it by clicking on "Invite people to comment notifications" and adding your email. You then have to accept this via your email, and then you'll get an email every time someone comments on your blog posts.
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Once that's set, you can forget about it.
Now, whenever someone comments on your blog posts, you'll get an email. For me, this becomes a kind of group email, with a bunch of emails under one topic. Each commenter's email appears to be <noreply-comment@blogger.com>.
Those commenters who don't have email enabled were always "noreply-comment". But those whose emails are enabled can still be replied to.
Go to the comment you want to email reply to and hit "reply" for just that one email. (If you've ever gotten one of those email chains where someone sent an email to everybody and then someone did "reply all", you understand how to be careful here.) If you can reply to the comment, the "noreply-comment" email will be replaced by the commenter's email. And you can reply.
It's an extra step, yes. But it's still possible. If you want to do that sort of thing.
Haha! That sounds like too much work, but I'm with you. An email response is better. I used to make it around to everyone's blogs often so I'd see the responses regardless. These days, not so much.
ReplyDeleteNo worry about commenting in an email. Just have a safe flight!
ReplyDeleteMost people have their comments set up as they want them. This was for anyone who didn't know before.
DeleteI like to respond via email and the response will go to the blog comment (in Wordpress). Very convenient. My problem is when a blogger responds to my comment on blogspot because I cannot get notified and, like you said, it is hard to keep up where I left a comment. Sometimes, when I visit the blog again, I take the time to go see previous responses, but sometimes ...not.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's one of the things that tempts me to Wordpress. But, that would be a big switch, and I won't do that until I need to.
DeleteSafe travels to you (once again). I have used Blogger my entire blogging life because Wordpress seemed so complex, and I have little knowledge of html. But in some ways you get what you pay for (i.e. Blogger is free but inflexible). At the risk of being antisocial, I generally don't respond to comments. But now I know how to enable people to email me if I want to add that ability to my blog.
ReplyDeleteYeah, most people know this, but I posted it for those that don't.
DeleteI just reply to the comment left. If they see it they see it. I'm not going to worry about it! Sometimes I get an email that someone replied or liked my comment on their blog. That's usually Wordpress I think. I agree with Alana, Wordpress is not user friendly. I managed to use it for posting as a weekly host for someone else, but they set it up. I never was able to figure out how to set my own blog up without frustration. So, I stay with Blogger, for all it's frustrations! It was easy to set up a blog, it's the little things now that are frustrating.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice trip.
I've never tried Wordpress, so I'll take your word for it.
DeleteI hope you have a good time.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will have a great time! I like reading replies.
ReplyDeleteI tend to reply to any comments on my blog on the blog itself (that if, when I remember to do it at all), but I do so with the understanding that most people don't check back to see if there's been a reply. Your email approach is a good way to do it.
ReplyDeleteSafe travels!