Danger Will Robinson! CommentLuv and Feedburner DANGER and how you can fix it

Barbara Ling.com - niche blogging and site building

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Danger Will Robinson Morning!

One of my favorite Wordpress plugins has to be CommentLuv - that wondrous beastie that retrieves one’s last post and tacks it on after comments. I utterly adore it, as does thousands of other successful bloggers online as well.

But! Did you know if you use CommentLuv AND Feedburner TOGETHER…all of your CommentLuv links do NOT go back to your site?

Instead, they point back to your Feedburner link (thus stealing any backlinks you might be able to develop)?

I first learned about this when I began my blogging journey from ShanKri-la’s post of Turn off FeedBurner Redirect in RSS feeds. I implemented the solution myself and went about my merry way.

This morning one of my lead sites ran into a huuuuuuugely agonizing problem that I’ll blog about later on (when it’s resolved)). During my debugging, I checked out my redirects (fine!) and then examined some of the redirects from other super popular blogs I follow. Much to my surprise, without an except, ALL of them were losing their backlinking ability when they incorporated both CommentLuv and Feedburner. Here’s what I mean:

Check out my feed page when all the links go back to BarbaraLing.com (the way I want them too):

See how the link at the bottom of the browser points BACK to BarbaraLing.com?

I had to specify that in my Feedburner account. The default looks like:

Thus, if I comment at a site that uses CommentLuv, the last post it will pull from me will be directed to feeds.feedburner.com … and not my own site. Bye bye backlink!

Lukcily, this is easily fixable. Hence this post - I always love sharing what I learn! So here goes.

Step 1.) Realize the following.

When you sign up for Feedburner (an excellent service, btw), the free, PRO default is to track all clickthrus. To do so, obviously Feedburner has to redirect your permalinks thru its site.

Now, if you live for this data, you can certain keep this option on. I myself use Google Analytics and other things for site tracking, so it’s not a necessity for me.

Step 2.) Log onto your Feedburner Account and select your feed.

You’ll be on the Analyze Tab. Scroll down and look for

Feedburner Stats Pro

You’ll find that under “Services.” Click on that.

Step 3.) Turn OFF Item link clicks.

Here’s what that looks like:

Turn off item links

Once you turn that off, all of your RSS and feed links will be automatically re-directed back to your site…and not Feedburner.

This is of great importance if you value generating backlinks to your site via well thought-out commenting.

Hope the above has been useful!

Enjoy,

Barbara

#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:

Beginners blogging tips: Commentluv is a great plugin - use it! But make sure to redirect your feeds.

Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips: Make sure you can still analyze your blog via other methods as well.

#END highlights of this blog writing post

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4 Comments

Wendy Piersall (1 comments.) on 06.05.2008 at 13:07 (Reply)

Thanks for your note Barbara! If you turn off that FB feature, you can get the backlink, but then you also lose the click-through tracking in your FB stats.

Too bad it has to be a tradeoff.

Velveteen Mind - Megan (3 comments.) on 10.05.2008 at 07:44 (Reply)

I never use FeedBurner to check my stats, so this was very valuable to me.

Actually, I’m not entirely sure what “backlinks” are and why I want them, but I’m sure I do want them and I’m now going to hunt around your site to find out why.

I use TypePad so I can’t install CommentLuv, but I always enjoy seeing it on others’ sites so that I can tempt their readers with my snazzy titles.

Thank you again! Before I forget, must now TwitThis!

Velveteen Mind - Megan’s last blog post..I Am Your Very Own Dichotomy.
Louise (2 comments.) on 02.07.2008 at 12:52 (Reply)

I am still on the fence as to whether to use Feedburner to serve my feeds. I like the control I have right now without it but I know I am losing the ability to really know what is happening with my feed subscriptions. Have you seen any SEO or SERPs benefit to using Feedburner?

Louise’s last blog post..Charleston Grill Shrimp and Grits
1. Barbara on 02.07.2008 at 13:09 (Reply)
  
  I make certain to maintain my original backlinks (ie, all feedburner links evaluate from BarbaraLing.com instead of feedburner.com). So I really can’t say if I’ve noticed any SEO benefits…..
  
  Thanks for your comment, Barbara