How To Find Out Last Month’s Top Commentators – Run This SQL Query

You might have seen the post coming up on this blog again in last week after I come back from the hospital, everything went well and I am enjoying bed rest since last couple of days until all next week. Due to the blogging break for surgery, there were three pending actions for me here. I could not get couple of my regular posts up like link love to top commentators that I started last month, regular monthly earnings report for May month and the blog anniversary contest announcement.

Commentators being one of the most important aspect of any active blog, I would like to give them the love they deserve. This time with little twist! I would not just link back to your blog guys [if you have one] but I would link to your post that I liked the most from last month. For website owners, it would be link love to their homepage only.

But one moment, I am stuck. I missed to note down the top commentator names from last month and now the list is vanished! Oh Damn, now what???

I was stuck for couple of minutes, but nothing to worry if you face similar situation. You just need to have little knowledge of SQL and database and you are there. I ran this SQL query on my blog’s database

SELECT COUNT(comment_author) AS comment_comments, comment_author
FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_date > ’2008-04-30 23:59:59′
AND comment_date < ’2008-06-01 00:00:01′
AND comment_author != ”
AND comment_author != ‘Life is Colourful’
AND comment_type != ‘pingback’
AND comment_approved = ’1′
GROUP BY comment_author
ORDER BY comment_comments DESC LIMIT 5

and I could fetch the list I wanted. I had to remove my name from authors as it was fetching my name as well considering my own comments. It’s little bit techie stuff, but if you are not a technical webmaster and want to know what this query is all about, feel free to contact me or comment here and I would explain.

So here are my top 5 commentators for May month

Chetan from thewwwblog.com is a new entrant in the list this month. Rather he has been active here since April but he just missed the bus at last moment. I was sure that he would be in the list in May. He is one of the bloggers I am watching lately. He is kind of upcoming star blogger in short, and you would like his thought process when you read about his tips on how to get more comments on your blog

I never could know his real name, but Mauritius has been very regular to this blog and has topped the list again this month. He has a website on Mauritius tourism and it’s pretty like the country itself. Keep in mind bro, I would just drop by your home anytime in next few months.

Ralph has again topped the list after he just came out of the blue in April month . As I pointed out last time, I think he has been reading the blog regularly now. By the way, he has a beautiful web design niche website for UK market, check it out.

The computer repair guy and Paul, joined the gang along with Ralph and Mauritius this month as well. As I said last time, computer repair guy as the name suggests running an online business, so you need it ever, don’t forget him. Paul who runs a real estate website, is also participating as sponsor in my blog anniversary contest that I would soon announce about.

So are you guys ready to top June month’s list! As I announced before about weekly change in top commentator list, I might not be going ahead with it and continue keeping it monthly as it might give a hard time to commentators to stay on top and it will kind of injustice to regular people.

We might see a tough competition this month, as my post on H1b 2009 visa process has been a hit and people who are visiting this blog are actually using this post as a forum. You would know it when you see the comment count almost touching to 400 now. It has been not only bringing this blog tons of traffic but also providing good help to needy people.