Disqus Comments and the Trouble Behind Them
I have been running a WordPress site for a few years. Actually, I run multiple WordPress sites. I’ve been doing it for a while. When I first started out, I figured out everything as I went. I didn’t always do everything the right way. Many times, I would come across a new strategy, and in an attempt to increase interaction, I’d install a plugin to see how it did. One of those plugins was the Disqus commenting plugin, which I’ll talk about and explain why I stopped using it. Disqus Comments may work for some, but I am not a fan.
Load Times
Load times have always been a concern, even when i didn’t know much about blogging. The problem with Disqus is that it seems to take forever to load. You would get to the bottom of the page, expecting to see the comments section. Instead, you would see a spinning wheel. Sometimes, it would take a minute or longer to load, which really hurt your overall load time.
It Hurt Your Metrics
Depending on how you have your WordPress site set up, Disqus may take forever to load. The problem is that in some browsers, the browser itself would hold off on rendering the rest of your site, while Disqus tried to load. This caused a lot of display and usability issues. For example, someone might be in a certain spot on your blog while reading your content. When the page loaded, the placement could jump, causing readers to lose their place. Yikes!
It Might not Load At All
This happened to me more than once. this was the original reason why I gave Disqus Comments the axe. Imagine running a “comment to win” contest, only for your visitors to never be bale to comment. What a horrible experience for readers. Regular readers may forgive you, but for 1st time visitors, that was my first impression to them.
Conclusion
I ended up discontinuing my use of Disqus Comments. With load times being a factor in search engine rankings, I can’t afford to risk it. Also, I have been to other sites that use the Disqus commenting platform, and things haven’t seemed to get any better. What about you? Do you use Disqus comments on your WordPress site? Have you had any problems with it? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.