Reply notifications

Connect lets a commenter opt in to be notified by email when someone replies.

How it works

When writing a comment, a reader who provides an email address can check Notify me of replies. When a reply to their comment is published (immediately in auto-publish, or after approval in the moderated modes), they receive one email with the reply and a link back to the page.

The box is never pre-checked, on a new comment as on a reply: being emailed is something a reader asks for, not something they have to decline. Once it is checked, a valid email address is required: the widget will not let the comment through with the box ticked and no address, because that combination silently promises a notification that can never be delivered.

The important details:

• Strictly opt-in. The checkbox is unchecked by default. A commenter who leaves it unchecked, or gives no email address, never receives anything.
• Publication-gated. Notifications are sent only when a reply is actually published. A reply sitting in your moderation queue, or rejected, or caught as spam, triggers nothing. Moderation decisions themselves are never communicated to anyone.
• Unsubscribe in one click. Every notification email contains an unsubscribe link, signed and specific to that comment thread subscription. It opens a page with a single button, because mailbox link scanners visit the URLs in a message and would otherwise unsubscribe people who never asked to be. No account or password is involved, because the commenter never had one, and the link never expires.
• Included on every plan. Reply notifications are part of the base product on all plans, free included, because without them threads go quiet.

What this is not

Connect does not send digests, marketing email, or "come back to the site" campaigns to your commenters. Their address is used for the notifications they asked for, and nothing else. Addresses attached to rejected or spam comments are deleted automatically after 30 days, see Privacy and data.