How To: Remove "0 Comments" from Blogger

A lot of people still come to this page and the process of removing "0 Comments" from Blogger has changed so I thought it might be time for an update. Please note the below is relevant to the new Blogger templates which are editable through the drag-n-drop template editing interface.

Note: This post has been updated March 2014.

I've been thinking recently about what it is that makes people interested in a blog and what it is makes them leave never to return again. After reading a couple of interesting articles on the internet I've concluded that a lack of comments on a particular blog is one of the main reasons readers leave a particular blog and never come back. And you know what they say "one loyal reader is worth thousands of one time visitors".

Think about it for a second. Who is it that leaves comments, links to you on their own blogs, talks about you to their friends and eventually Diggs and Stumbles your latest posts?

It’s the loyal guys. It isn't the thousands of mindless drones who just sit there clicking Stumble, Stumble, Stumble, all day long and not interacting with the pages they land on. It’s your loyal readers. Sure, there are some exceptions like affiliate and product websites where you’re just sending super-targeted traffic to the landing page. But we’re talking about blogs, and on blogs, it’s the community that matters.

Having a blog hosted on blogger I decided to digg around and find a way to change one of the most horrid default texts "0 Comments". Instead of leaving users with the impression that there have been no comments posted for a particular article it always reads better when you have something along the lines of "Post a Comment...".

To change this text on your blog, open the HTML editor for your blog template; Dashboard - Layout - Edit HTML, and find this section of code:

Update from March 2014

<b:if cond='data:post.commentSource == 0'>
  <!-- <span class='cmt_count_iframe_holder' expr:data-count='data:post.numComments' expr:data-onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick' expr:data-post-url='data:post.url' expr:data-url='data:post.canonicalUrl'></span>-->
<b:else/>
  <a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
  <!-- <data:post.commentLabelFull/>:-->Post a Comment...</a>
</b:if>

The part highlighted in red tells Blogger to write "Comment" beside the number one if the number of comments is equal to one, else write "Comments"s plural and n the number of comments (the plural form). If you add the part highlighted in green to above code what you're essentially doing is commenting out the part highlighted in red and replacing it with "Post a Comment..." which will read much nicer on your blog and attract more loyal readers.