Blog comments and simple likes

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Blog comments and simple likes

Last updated March 07, 2023 20:11

Enable, customize, and moderate blog comments.

Visitors can interact with blog posts with comments and Simple Likes. In this guide, you'll learn how to enable or disable these features, customize how they'll work on your site, and moderate as visitors add them.

Tip: As an alternative to Squarespace's commenting system, you can add advanced commenting features to your site through our integration with Disqus.

Watch a video

Customize your comments in Comments Settings

To open Comments Settings:

Open the Blog preferences panel.
Click Comments Settings.
Choose the settings to enable comments, control permissions, and choose how they display.

Available comment settings

Learn more about each setting.

Setting	Use this to
Enable Comments Globally	Enable or disable comments across all blog pages. When checked or switched on, more settings appear below. If you want visitors to comment, you also need to enable Allow Anonymous Comments. Due to authentication protocols, it's not currently possible for visitors to log in to comment. Comments are disabled for any blog posts published before you enabled comments globally. You can enable comments for these posts in the blog post editor.
Allow Simple Comment Likes	Visitors can like individual comments.
Require Approval	Require that Admins or Comment Moderators approve comments before they appear on your site. You can also only require moderation after a certain number of flags. To set this: On a computer, scroll down to Comment Flags and set a number by dragging the slider. In the Squarespace app, set a number by tapping the + or - next to Moderate After.
Allow Anonymous Comments	Any visitor can post comments. If you want visitors to comment, you need to enable this option. Due to authentication protocols, it's not currently possible for visitors to log in to comment.
Threaded Comments	Visitors can respond directly to other comments and create nested threads.
Show Avatars	Display a unique profile picture next to comments.
Enable Comments by Default When Posting	Enable or disable comments by default for each individual post.
Comment Sort Order	Set the comments to order by Newest First, Oldest First, Most Liked, or Least Liked. This sets the default order, but visitors can also set their own comment order.
Auto-Disable Comments Default Value	Set the number of days after which comments for that blog post will be disabled. This is calculated from the date the post is published.
Comment Flags	Visitors can flag comments, which is a great way to fight spam, abusive language, and other commenting issues.

Manage comments

To manage comments:

Computer
Squarespace app

Open the Comments panel. This option only appears if you've enabled comments.

Comments are sorted as Unmoderated, Approved, or Flagged. If a visitor includes an email address with a comment, their email address appears next to their name.

Unmoderated

If you require comments to be approved before they're posted, they'll appear in the Unmoderated tab.

To approve the comment, click the checkmark icon.
To delete the comment or report it as spam, click the trash can icon. Deleted comments can't be recovered.

Approved

After a comment is approved, it appears in the Approved tab. Comments that don't require approval also appear here.

To reply, click the speech bubble icon. Your reply posts under your Display Name.
To delete the comment or report it as spam, click the trash can icon. Deleted comments can't be recovered.

Flagged

If a visitor flags a comment, it appears in the Flagged tab.

To reply to the comment, click the speech bubble icon. Your reply posts under your Display Name.
To delete the comment or report it as spam, click the trash can icon. Deleted comments can't be recovered.
Click Clear Flags to remove all flags from the selected comments.

Tap Pages, then tap the blog page with the comment you want to manage.
Tap the comment icon at the top of the screen.

Comments are sorted as Unmoderated, Approved, or Flagged. Tap the comment to choose an action:

Tap Reply to reply to the comment. Enter your text in the Reply To Comment field, then tap Send.
Tap Mark As Spam to mark the comment as spam and delete it.
Tap Delete to delete the comment, but not mark it as spam.
If the comment is Unmoderated, tap Approve to approve it.

Log into your site on a computer for all other comment actions, including:

Liking comments
Flagging comments without deleting them
Clearing flags from flagged comments
Subscribing to comments
Sorting comments

Tip: When you comment on your own blog post, the name and picture come from your contributor profile.

Simple Likes (version 7.0)

Simple Likes aren't supported for blog posts in version 7.1.

With Simple Likes, visitors can click a heart-shaped Like icon at the bottom of blog posts or on blog post comments. Depending on your template, the icon might appear on your main blog page or on individual post pages.

To enable Simple Likes:

Open the Blog preferences panel.
Check Use Simple Liking.

One visitor "like" per post

A visitor can like each blog post only once. We limit visitor likes per blog post in three ways:

When a visitor likes a post, the action is stored in their browser's local storage.
We log the visitor's IP address to prevent multiple likes from the same visitor.
If a visitor is logged into your site, they can't like the post again from any browser or IP while logged in.

Note: On templates with grid/stacked blog pages, the Simple Like icon won't display a counter if Share buttons are set to Style: Icon Only in site styles.

Exploding hearts

The templates below have a special "exploding hearts" animation for Simple Likes:

Avenue
Five
Galapagos
Ishimoto
Wells
Wexley

Next steps

With comments enabled, you can take more steps to customize your blog's commenting options:

Disable comments manually on individual posts - This is a great way to enable commenting on your site while limiting discussion on certain posts.
Unsubscribe from Comment Notifications - If you don't want to receive notification emails for every comment, you can disable Comment Notifications for your site.

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