I started using Disqus on the blog about a year ago. It was beautiful, easy to use, and almost spam-free. I loved it!
But now, after months of using and some serious consideration, I finally decided to move back to the default comments system by WordPress. Here's why:
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1. Disqus Greatly Reduces the Number of Comments
Before Disqus, I got 30-40 comments on average for every new post. After using it, the number dropped significantly.
The hassle of having to login to comment often prevents people from doing it. And sometimes you forget your login information as well. With the WordPress comments system, it's just faster and easier.
Additionally, some people don't like to comment with Disqus because they won't get a link back to their blog or website. And I actually like to follow people around via their links on the comments as well.
2. Disqus Makes Blog Posts Load Slower
There's actually a few second delay for Disqus to fully load the comments and sometimes if your internet connection is slow, the CSS styling messes up.
I did some tests using Pingdom and found out that Disqus increased page size, number of requests and page loading time.
There's also an analysis that agrees with me on this too.
3. There's a Better Way to Welcome New Commentators
By using this plugin Comment Redirect, I can send people who just made their first comment on the blog to a new page where i can thank them for commenting and ask them to subscribe to my email list or follow me on social media.
4. Disqus May Tracks and Use Your Data For Advertising
Well, their comment system is free, so they have to find a way to make money right?
According to Chris Lema:
Even though I might have turned off the ads on my own site, the people coming to my site, and commenting, were having that data aggregated by Disqus to turn into a profile to be used for placing and selling ad space.
That means my visitors – without knowing and without me warning them – were getting tracked while on my site for something Disqus planned to do.
So by switching back to WP default comment system, i can prevent Disqus from tracking your data without your permission.
What Do You Think?
I'd love to get your feedback on this. If you have a blog, which comments system do you use? Do you think I made the right decision?
Let me know in the comments section!
