A while back we covered a plug-in called Subscribe To Comments. It’s a great way to ensure that when visitors comment on your blog posts, they receive follow-up comments and stay a part of the conversation.
After using Subscribe To Comments for over a year, there was one major issue, fake email addresses. Whether they are from people who didn’t want to leave their real email address, or from spammers, the number of bounce backs can become overwhelming.
The good news is there are developers out there that have taken the Subscribe To Comments plug-in to the next level. They require a user to validate their email address before subscribing to the comments. This ensures that they wanted to subscribe and that their email address is valid.
The two plug-ins that I’ve seen are Gurken Subscribe to Comments and Subscribe to Double-Opt-In Comments. I’ve started to use Gurken Subscribe to Comments and like the added functionality.
One thing that I did notice however is that you need to make sure to customize the subscription confirmation emails that go out. The default one went into Gmail’s spam folder, as it was very light on content. Take the time and write out a nice email to help keep it out of peoples spam boxes and inform the user as to why they are getting the verification email.
If you are currently using Subscribe To Comments, I’d suggest changing over to Gurken Subscribe to Comments and working with that on a go forward. Not only will it make things easier for the person getting all the bounce backs, but it’ll also ensure that users want to be subscribed to comments and offer a better opt-in notification.
Having subscribers confirm their email should be a standard – good to know about these plugins.
An interesting idea, though I wonder how much it will annoy people. I tend to angrily roll my eyes whenever I have to “verify” my email address. Usually it means that someone wants me to white list them from my spam filter so they can spam me later.