What are the pros and cons of having comments posted on your blog?
-
I get a lot of spammy comment comments to my blog which I trash, but I'm also particular about the comments I allow.
How do the search engines regard these comments, should I allow more to be posted as it looks like I'm getting more traffic.And by posting these comments, who benefits from the backlinks?
-
It all depends on what you want to achieve with the blog. I run 2 sites that get lots of comments. For one site, the comments become part of the content of the site (it essentially sets a scenario for people to debate over) so for that example, it adds to the uniqueness f the site.
For another site that I run, I have to spend a lot of time monitoring the comments since many people are there to just drop a link. Like everything on the web, you need to decide what's going to make your site stand out from the rest.
Allowing "junk" comments won't add any value.
-
I think that it is important to be a critical judge. Are those comments relevant to your topic? That is the first test.
Then, where to do those links go? If they are not going to high quality relevant pages then the people who are placing them are using your website (and your visitors) to promote their own interests.
If your website has links going out to trashy sites it will not be good for your image in the eyes of your visitors but the search engines can detect that and lower your rankings.
I have tried allowing comments but the amount of spam and the amount of junk links were too high. So, I turned comments off. I lost good interaction but I don't have time to do that work and paying someone to do it would not produce a positive return.... and I don't want to depend upon volunteers.
If your site has a small amount of traffic then keeping the comments clean and relevant might not be too hard. But once your traffic gets high it can be an overwhelming task.
WordPress (and other content systems) have filters that you can install. They will block the worst of the comment spam.
Finally, a lot of these comments are not placed by humans. They are placed by robots that crawl the web, find open comment forms and deposit a comment with links. So when you see comments like... "Great information, nice" (link)... that is probably a robot.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What are the possible effects of a small blog migration on an existing link profile?
Hi all, We're in the process of a small migration of blog content, and I'm interested to know how the change will affect our link profile. We currently have a small blog on a separate domain from our main business website. This small blog (with around 248 pages and a 14 DA) was originally set up many years ago to support the main business site, however we've reviewed our content strategy to start incorporating the posts from this site to our main business domain. As this small blog was set up as a support to the main domain, it contains many links to our main domain which will essentially disappear once the content has been migrated. We're following all best practices in this migration, however there is one questions which is still unclear with this process. Will this small migration of content and loss of hundreds of links from one domain have a negative effect on our existing link profile of our main business site?
Link Building | | JordanMcFadyen0 -
Blog articles on website vs submitting to article submission sites
I had some articles created for a client. The site is on WordPress. I'm wondering if it is best to add the articles to the blog page of the website or if it is better to submit the articles to ezine articles. Or can I submit the same article to both places? Is there a strategy that should be followed generally speaking when creating content for the blog vs article submission sites? The goal is to increase the ranking for target keywords. I realize that the answers could take a lot of different directions. But generally speaking I would like to know, If I have an article where is the best place to add it to achieve better rankings for target keywords? Thanks for the help.
Link Building | | rwaynick111 -
Posts and Page linking
Can I link from the post to page? I read on semoz that in order to avoid crazy linking I should not link from a post everywhere. Is it ok to link from some post which is in a category to a page?
Link Building | | VillasDiani0 -
Can personal name anchors from blog commenting be a risk?
Hello, I've created a new site early this year. In an effort to stay on Googles good side I decided not to do any link building. Everything you create yourself is pretty much frowned upon by Google, right? I have been doing a fair bit of blog commenting where that would add value. As a result my link profile shows about 50% anchors with my name in it. Can this be dangerous? Thanks!
Link Building | | andersvin0 -
What holds more SEOweight, posts or blogrolls?
Was just wondering what hold more SEO weight: a post or blogroll? Additionally, are static html pages better to have links from or blogs? Thanks, Jimmy
Link Building | | jimmy02250 -
How to link blog posts to web pages
In past I would write blog posts and link to a static web page. The link from the blog post to the static web page would be the same keyword(s) as the web page was optimized around. With the latest Google updates, it seems like the keywords linking to the web page need to be varied, but I'm not sure what the ideal system would be?
Link Building | | Doug_Hay0 -
Google and low quality guest posts
In the aftermath of the Penguin and Panda monsters a lot of blog networks seem to have been devalued by Google. It seems logical that spammers will flock to low quality guest posting next. How do you think Google will determine which guest post links to devalue? Thanks!
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Should you guest post on a site with no quality links?
Suppose a site is related to your industry and has a relatively good domain authority of 49. However when you look at their link profile it is mostly directories and they don't seem to have any natural links from quality sites. Would you still take the link if they offered to publish your guest post?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs1