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Rae Gun Ramblings

I'm an auntie, crafter, philosopher (no really I've got a degree), lover of food and lots more. I love sharing the things that make me smile, my baby clothes, and my little fabric shop. I share my creative adventures, recipes, reviews and I even do giveaways.

Home » blogging » Please, Please Let Me Reply To Your Comments!

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Please, Please Let Me Reply To Your Comments!

Created On:   |  Updated:   |   39 Comments

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I feel like this at least 10 times a day and on Wednesdays after my link party even more. What happens is that I get an awesome comment so I go to reply to the comment and I can’t. The problem? The blogger who left the comment has their email, probably unknowingly so, hidden. They are what is called a no-reply blogger. If this is by choice by all means keep it that way but I know for many of you who are trying to grow your blogs probably don’t realize that you are closing off potential connections.

About 50% of all people who comment on my blog are no-reply bloggers. Are you one? If you haven’t taken the time to change your default settings you probably are.

I’ve noticed that every time I’ve had quality interactions with bloggers (especially bigger bloggers) it’s been through email. Often times I leave a comment and they reply to me directly through email and it’s easy and natural to have a back and forth. For me I rarely have time when a comment appears in my inbox to my blog, open the comments page, clicking on the commentator’s ID, click on their blog, search for an email or leave a totally unrelated comment on a random post because there is no where else. That’s way too hard. If it’s a direct question I try to make the time to answer it but I’m not going to lie sometimes in my business I forget even though I have full intentions of doing so.

In short, if you make your email visible you make life easier for all of us and you’ll probably start making more connections with other bloggers which is totally fun.  It’s super easy to do, and if you’re worried about spam, don’t. I have not had a problem with that at all.

First what you want to do is sign in and open your dashboard on blogger. Look in the upper right hand corner and click on your name.

 On the pop up that opens click on “Blogger profile”

 
From there click “Edit Profile”

Find the box that says “Show my email address” and make sure it’s checked. Easy right? Okay and as much as I love love love it when you pin my posts, don’t just pin this to deal with later. Just do it now, it takes less than a minute. 

update: I thought about this after  reading a few of the comments QUESTION: Do you think we should tell NRB if we have time? I wasn’t sure if that should be reserved to “real friends”. I feel like there’s a few stages 1. strangers 2. have commented multiple times and 3. real friends . What do you guys think, tell or just let the real friends tell?

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  5. Brooke says

    Yes seriously! I probably draft out a nice and long response to a comment once or twice a week, only to realize they’re a no-reply commenter. And I love that picture :)

    Reply

  7. SarahJane Miller says

    I finally figured this out last night! The problem for me was that i was on google + profile and I couldn’t figure out how to change it. So I had to revert everything back to a blogger profile and it took forever to figure it out. But I finally did :) Thanks for posting the tutorial for others too

    Reply

  9. marissa | Rae Gun Ramblings says

    Glad you guys appreciate my rediculous picture.

    QUESTION: do you think we should tell NRB if we have time? I wasn’t sure if that should be reserved to “real friends”. I feel like there’s a few stages 1. strangers 2. have commented multiple times and 3. real friends . What do you guys think, tell or just let the real friends tell?

    Reply

  15. marissa | Rae Gun Ramblings says

    Carissa there should be a way to switch it from going to your google+ page to your blogger profile page instead (if you want to) when I googled it it only showed how to do the other way around and I didn’t want to click on it in case I couldn’t figure out how to switch it back.

    I usually reply to comments directly through email when I can but when I can’t and/or I think other people will benefit besides the original commentator I reply in the comments page.

    Reply

  16. thethinkingcloset says

    Found you through Tip Junkie! As a new-ish blogger, I appreciate hearing this conversation. It does make such a difference to be able to communicate further with a commenter. Thx for articulating your argument so clearly.

    Reply

  22. marissa | Rae Gun Ramblings says

    I wish I had figured out the checking much sooner. I can’t tell how many times I typed out a super long response before I realized they’d never see it :(

    thanks for the encouragement!

    BY all means lets all get rid of that blasted captca, it’s the bane of my commenting existence haha!

    Reply

  23. Bonny Yokeley says

    Well, I don’t know if I am one, but I will be sure to follow your instructions and see. Then I’ll fix it if necessary because I certainly want people to be able to reply to my comments. :)
    Thanks,
    Bonny @ thedomesticatedprincess.com

    Reply

  24. Michelle G says

    Hey! Thanks! I never knew! Here I thought maybe no one was reading what I was commenting on…:) lol
    Thank you for the quick run through (including pics!!yay!!)

    Reply

  28. Marigold Haske says

    I changed mine.
    BUT! If you set your comments to “Embedded” instead of this pop-up window, Blogger now supports threaded comments. So you can reply directly to a commenter within your comments. In Blogger>Settings>Posts and Comments>Comments:
    Set Comment Location to Embedded.

    Reply

  29. With A Blast says

    I was fine until I linked my G+ to my blog, and also, if not for a caring bloggy friend, I would have thought all is still okay :-( but I unknowingly then became a no-reply ! Fortunately, I fixed that and the only (tiny) drawback is that I now have to manually link my posts to G+ – takes all of 2 minutes ;-)I hope everyone will take a minute to check, thanks for the post!

    Reply

  32. Pint Sized Baker says

    I hear ya. If someone asks a question, I’ll still leave an answer. You never know if they will return OR if someone else has the same question.
    Also, I have changed my profile over to Google+, do you know how to check it there? I get responses to post, but I think that’s because they use a different comment service. Hmmm….

    Reply

  34. Danni Baird @ Silo Hill Farm says

    Thank you! Thank You! I seriously think bloggers everywhere are thanking you. I hate not being able to reply to a blogger and when I have time, I do try to track them down and let them know, but I don’t always have time. Can I please send them the link to this post in the future?

    Reply

  35. Kim @ Too Much Time says

    You are so funny! This is awesome and thanks for sharing. I also hate when I write a nice long reply and then I get the darn word verification and I try it once…get it wrong, try it again…can’t read it….try it again….get it wrong….and then I just give up and a nice comment and connection is lost forever:(

    xxx
    Kim

    Reply

  37. Miranda @ Pressing On says

    I have this same problem and it’s really frustrating. I’m going to link this post up at my blog because I really want my readers to get a response from me since they took the time to comment.

    I’ve had a note on my comments area about them changing their no reply @ blogger, but it hasn’t seemed to help yet. Thanks for a great post!

    Reply

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