Facebook has updated its Comments Box plugin to improve functionality for mobile sites, the company announced today on its Facebook + Media page.

People who have already added the Comments Box to their website will find that it is now automatically optimized for mobile. The plugin recognizes when a user is on a mobile device and ignores the width parameter so that comments are displayed at 100 percent. Developers can turn this behavior off by setting the mobile parameter to false and control the width manually. Documentation details are available from Facebook’s developer site.

Previously, websites that integrate Facebook Comments had to resize the box for mobile browsers, but there was not a dedicated mobile version of the plugin. This makes implementation easier for developers, and for users the feature seems to load more quickly.

The social network is strongly promoting its comments plugin as a way for media sites and blogs to improve engagement and reduce spam. We use Facebook Comments on InsideFacebook.com and have written about how the feature can sort comments by relevance and affect a site’s Google search rankings.

Image credit: Facebook + Media