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Visibility Of Google+ Comments Is Similar To Real Life

One of the more intriguing issues about Google+ Comments, as seen in in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, comes from people who can't see all of the comments, posted against their blog.
If the link below the post says "4 Comments", why can't I see all 4 comments?

These people don't understand that the caption ("4 Comments", in this example) refers to the total number of comments which refer to the blog.
  1. Comments published to "Public".
  2. Comments not published to "Public", by people in their Circles.
  3. Comments not published to "Public", by people not in their Circles.

The blog owner, and the various readers of the blog, can each see the caption "4 Comments".

Individual viewing of Google+ Comments is limited.

The individual ability, to see the comments themselves, is limited to comments which are part of Groups #1 and #2. Comments in Group #3 (or the names of the commenters) are not visible, for each person viewing the blog.

For any blog with significant reader population, there will always be readers who are unknown to the owner - and whose comments will be invisible to the owner (and to various readers).

Google+ Comments mimic real life conversation visibility.

Google+ Comments are based on Google+ Stream posts - and Google+ Stream posts are based on real life.

We, individually, hear about very few of the total world conversations.

There are millions of people in the world, and various conversations by those people. Some conversations we can hear (read about, see) - and others we cannot.
  1. We can hear (read about, see) conversations made in public (in “newspapers, on “televsion”, and in other media).
  2. We can hear (read about, see) conversations made in private, which are directed to us.
  3. We cannot hear (read about, see) conversations made in private, which are not directed to us.

We can't (shouldn't) hear conversations made by other people, which are not directed to us - even if the conversations are about us. Nor can we read comments, or see +1s or forwardings, by other people who we don't know (or are not in our Circles) - even if the comments reference our blogs.

Concentrate on conversations with your Followers (Circle members).

Concentrate on the relationships of which you are a part - people who listen to you - and speak to those who concern you. Don't obsess over relationships which don't concern you.

Comments

Johnny FD said…
So does this mean you will never get notified in any way regarding this comment I'm leaving you directly on your blog unless you happen to check all of your old posts manually?
Nitecruzr said…
Johnny,

That is one reason why I don't use Google+ hosted comments, on this blog.

If this blog did use G+ comments, and if you shared your comments Publicly, I would have to find your comments one post at a time. If this blog did use G+ comments, and you only shared your comments to a Circle (or even Extended Circles), I would never see your comments.

If Blogger provided an owner selected option "Only allow Public comments", that would be a good compromise.

But yes, with G+ comments, nobody sees the comments except by checking each post, one at a time. Or by reading them in Google+.
Melissa Sugar said…
I was always hesitant to switch my blogger profile to Google + and after reading this, I've found another reason I am glad I did not switch. This is ludicrous. I understand the theory behind ( We should only be privy to comments that are public or are directed to us much like conversations in real life), but that's in theory only.

If you are a blog owner, host, author or whatever the correct word is, and I stumble upon your interesting blog post either by accident, via a search engine topic, or someone on Twitter or other social media recommended your blog post and I find it. So, I find it, I read it and I enjoy it. Let's say I love your blog post and it helped me tremendously . Now, I want to leave you a comment thanking you for sharing it and I also want to add something or ask you a question about your post. If you are part of Google plus stream commenting and you don't know me ( and really why should you)? I found you or I found your post. There is no reason you would know me from the millions of other bloggers and readers. But, if I understand this correctly , even if I was moved and helped by your blog post and I leave a comment letting you know that - you STILL won't know me and thus since you dont know me, you are not privy to the comment I wrote for you, on your very own blog. I thought one of the basic goals of social media was to enable and encourage people to connect, network, get to know one another if they so choose. How can Google possibly justify not allowing a blog owner, author of a blog post - access to comments left by people - anyone , if that comment is a direct commnent on the person's written content . Seems counter- productive and useless to me . When a blog post resonates with me to the point of me taking the time to leave a comment - I damned sure want the author of the blog post to see my comment . That's my intended audience when I leave a commnet on a specific blog post written by a soecific person . I'm not commenting for the the sole benefit of only those who I happen to know . Leaving out the original author of the content rather defeats the entire purpose of leaving a blog comment - doesn't it? Crazy!!
Nitecruzr said…
Melissa,

That's a good point - but only to a limit.

Why?

If you read my blog, and believe that it's just what you've been looking for all of your life, and feel motivated to to leave me a comment thanking me for sharing it and you also want to add something or ask me a question about my post, you are most likely to Follow me - then, or later.

And as soon as you Follow me, I become part of your circle (one of them), I get a notification (if I enable notifications), and I have your name as a Follower. And I see every comment that you made and make, in my stream (and on the blog).

And the more people who read and Follow other blogs, the more community is developed - ability to immediately leave a comment to the blog owner, without Following, notwithstanding.

So you are right - a new Google+ user might become confused, with the first person that they comment, then Follow - but as soon as they Follow, the person Followed is Circled. And community is developed.
Chidalu Nwoke said…
So what's the point? should i switch back to blogger comments?
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Dalu,

Thanks for the question - even with it being one not easy to answer.

I would not switch back to Blogger, just because of comment visibility, no. Whether you have your blog use Blogger hosted - or Google+ hosted - comments, the comments from people who are not in your Circles will continue.

If you revert the blog to Blogger hosted comments, your readers who don't use Google+ will be able to comment, using their Blogger accounts (or anonymously, if you choose). If you keep the blog using Google+ hosted comments, only people with Google+ hosted comments will be able to comment.

In either case, people with Google+ hosted comments, who are not in your Circles, will be able to comment - you just won't see their comments.

Basically, the choice is based on what will serve your readers better.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/06/shall-i-move-my-blog-to-google-hosted.html
Chetan Chavan said…
gmVery nice explanation, i could understand now, why the number of comments differ,
have one question, if my blog is getting comments in some other Google+ groups, is it also means that those people visited my blog and my views are increasing?
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Chetan,

Thanks for the question - even if there may be no easy answer.

Your blog could be getting "comments" (Google+ stream posts) from people who you don't know and can't see, by people who don't visit the blog. This has always been a reality with Google+ - people will read and share a G+ post, without clicking on the link. I myself put G+ shares into my collections, to read later (and "later" comes seldom) - and that is a stream post, to my followers.

But even if people don't click on the blog link themselves, any of their followers may do so. And even if nobody clicks on the link, your blog is still getting an audience, ever increasing, in Google+. And the more people who see the stream posts (blog "comments"), the more chance that someone will read the blog.

And that's not bad, in the long run. The more people who read the shares about your blog, the more potential readers you get. And one day, one of the Google+ readers may decide to follow you, and comment on the blog - and then you will see the comment made by that person.

So yes, as your blog gets comments (that you don't see) your blog view counts will increase numerically (though not linearly). And your blog will be visible to more people.

And all of this should help us understand why Google+ share counts are so flaky - and why the counts were removed from the Blogger dashboard Posts pages.

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