Lately we’ve seen an increase in people that leave comments that are actually responding or even sharing their thoughts in the blog entry. But sometimes they include an off-topic link at the end of the comment.

The said comments aren’t spammy, but linking to off-topic sites isn’t something I consider good commenting behavior. In fact, comments like these give the impression that the person who did this was insincere and is only using my blog as part of SEO. Frankly, this blatant promotion annoys me at times, because there are way too many comments to edit and links to delete, and I don’t have much time for that. A plugin that will automate the process of removing links through a single mouse click would be a godsend.
Strip! by Markku Seguerra is a WordPress plugin that allows you hide links from a given comment. This gives you a button to strip any given comment of links, and unlike other plugins that offer a similar function, Strip! also gives you the option of restoring the links with the same button.


Strip! has been tested on WordPress 2.6, but may still work with older versions.
Installation of Strip! is easy: just upload to your WordPress installation using your favorite FTP client, and activate through the plugins page. You’d see the strip/unstrip buttons right away. I’ve been using Strip! on my personal blog since the time he unveiled it at WordCamp Philippines, and I’ve been satisfied with it so far. You can download Strip! from here.
What other commenting behavior do you find annoying? If you use other plugins to combat comment off-topic llinking, tell me about it.
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2 Responses
Clare
December 6th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
1I found this post interesting because I’m not sure I agree with your stance. You write articles about blogging and therefore I read them as I write a blog. However I don’t write a blog about blogging so the link I put in the link field is to an ‘off-topic’ website.
I don’t mind if people link to ‘off topic’ sites from my comments as long as they have something worthwhile to say and add value to the discussion I prompt through my posts.
Just my two cents
Rebecca
December 18th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
2I couldn’t agree more! You already get a link to click on your name, so not only is it annoying to look at, it IS spam, imo. You get your precious SEO and hits from the comment, without making it “advertising”. I think that people need to learn that it’s just rude, and pointless. I run a graphics site, and once in a comment a person just said “nice blog” then posted a link to their site on cross-stitch. I find it rude and disrespectful to do that
~Rebecca
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