A site that is interactive is more interesting to surfers. Taking a cue from blogs and many other sites, a comment section is one  way to make a site interactive. A visitor that posts a comment is more likely to return to the site to see other comments. Comments also add content to the site. Frequently updated sites are favored by some search engine algorithms.

I have been using a simple guestbook script, but this is a separate page and has not been as effective as it could be. I ran into a site called HotScripts in my travels around the ‘Net. Last evening I searched the site for a php based comment system. I found one, a freeware script, that looks good and I plan to implement it on a few of my sites. I will let you know how it goes and post a link if this works as advertised.

One of the advantages to this system is that it is global. It appears that I will be able to install the script one time and use it on all of my sites that share the hosting account. The guestbook that I have been using requires a separate installation for each instance of the guestbook. While I could do what I want to do in this way, it would take a great deal of extra work and would also add unnecessary bulk to the site. The script will also send a notification email when there is a comment posted. It has an anti-spam plan and an admin panel that allows admins to delete inappropriate posts. I was thinking of trying to add an email notifier to the guestbook script that I use.

So now I am off on another adventure in Web Development. I will let you know how this all turns out. Subscribe to the RSS feed so that you will know when the site is updated. What ways are you making your sites interactive? Do you use comments or poles? Leave a comment here to let me know what you are doing!!