Remove comments or leave them be?
-
We're finding a lot of comments that were posted by a previous company - they've been using a keyword as the comment name (UGH) and then the comments are usually generic, like "great information, will definitely be back to read more form you" - you guys know what I mean...
Now, this site is ranking well and so are the keywords. My question is, should we work on removing those comments or just leave them be and now moving forward, use the proper process - since we are doing this ourselves now.
-
If the site is doing well, avoid panicking - lots of webmasters freak out and go on a rampage trying to remove every link, when they should just sit back and relax. If we're talking thousands and thousands of junk comments, it's something you might want to be concerned about. If it's a lower number, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it and would focus on building quality backlinks going forward. Contacting blog owners is a nightmarish task because the sort who have blogs that auto-approve junk comments are usually not the most tech-savvy and often don't even think to include their contact info anywhere. Lots of them don't own their own domain, so you can't get their whois info that way either. If it were me, I'd put my time and energy into building good, diverse backlinks rather than spending tons of time trying to remove these links that don't seem to have negatively affected you.
-
To further confirm your feelings I completly agree with this answer. Wait until the penalty comes and then be proactive. In the meantime build high quality links.
-
No, this site is doing very well, the site and the keywords. Our mistake was having this particular seo company help us with link building.
Thank you for your reply, much appreciated.
-
Thank you so much for confirming what I was feeling Just needed to hear it from another in the field. I appreciate your time, thank you for responding.
-
If a keyword is ranking for poor quality content..then it's not a keyword worth having.
So for this reason, I would remove the comments. If they haven't already been picked up by Google's Panda update, then expect it to happen shortly.
Even if you take a hit with rankings for these keywords, it's better disposing of the generic comments now, rather than them having a negative impact on your whole site in the future,
-
I think it's a very pertinent question and I think you need to be realistic about the time it would take to outreach to the webmasters about your comments and then how likely they are to be removed.
The answer to me would be "a long time" and "not very likely" - which would essentially be a waste of time considering that you could be building better links during that period.
It might make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but I'd ignore them until you get an unnatural links message - at which point, I'd outreach and get ready to disavow (so you could make a note of which comments you think might trigger this, those on unrelated sites with a lot of outbound links for instance). Until then, I'd spend your time more wisely by optimising your site and building better links. There is also evidence to suggest that Google might be going down the route of devaluing links on the fly, which may happen to you in the future (or may have already happens). Should it occur and you see a rankings drop (but nothing too serious and no link warning message), it's important to have a number of high quality links built or ready to be built to replace those links devalued.
That's where I'd spend my time.
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 should be done to remove Badlinks from my blog?
Dear community, I am new to blogging what should i do to remove the bad links and how can I get more comments in my blog. I have read few articles but was unable to understand. Warm Regards
Link Building | | Buddyantra0 -
Should I Pay For Link Removal?
Hi, I'm in the middle of a link removal campaign and getting a lot of replies from site owners asking for payment or directing me to a link which is effectively a payment page. The way I see it is my client is paying me to do their SEO. I'd rather be spending my time and their money building quality links, therefore the link removal process is in my way and requests for payment an insult. However, I am not without sympathy for site owners being expected to remove links free of charge. After all there's absolutely no incentive for them. So far I've had a zero tolerance attitude towards this and refused to pay, but just wondered what everyone else's opinion was. On the other hand, many site owners have been very helpful and removed the links at my request. Is it the right thing for me to remove these domains from my Disavow Links file? I'm finding it to be a bit of a moral conundrum to be honest!
Link Building | | Matt_Wilson0 -
Houzz Comment Links
A company I am working with has been posting pictures and links to their website in the comments section of Houzz articles. I notice many companies have been doing this in general. While it generates decent amounts of traffic, I am wondering if google sees 30 links coming from article comments that it will deem that as spam? My gut tells me to send these comment links to the Houzz member profile, then direct them to your own website. Thoughts? ***Anyone in home design, decor, etc. should really get involved there. Fantastic source of business for professional in that field.
Link Building | | RandyEpp0 -
Link Building: Just Great Content, Blog Comments, and Guest Blog Posts?
I love SEOMoz. It has motivated me to dive way more into SEO. I know all the shoulds. But what fascinates me about SEO is that shoulds don't always match up to what works. I'm looking at Open Site Explorer, specifically my site. I see a lot of links I got naturally. By having awesome content. So is there any point in emailing people asking htem to add my link? Or do I spend my time writing awesome content, sharing it on social media, and hoping someone comes across it and shares it? I know blog commenting, when relevant, can bring me new visitors. I'm sure it helps SEO too. Maybe I just need to reach out and write guest blog posts for grabbing some links? Its just as Google wants it! OMG, how white hat. Is that it? or should I be even more active? I.E. emailing people and saying "hey, I have this awesome website, your readers would find it useful" sort of thing? Love to hear your opinion!
Link Building | | endlessrange0 -
Remove links or change anchor text?
I am currently in the process of cleaning up the link profile for a website that has been hit by Penguin thanks to loads of links from free directories with exact match keyword anchor texts (about 200 root domains from total of 300 root domains). I was wondering whether it's best to remove these un-natrual keyword anchor text links altogether, or change the anchor texts to brand (domain name, domainname.com, www.domainname.com, http://www.domainname.com)? I am currently trying to remove these links but was thinking it would be quicker to get to a healthier link profile (in terms of brand/commercial anchor text split) by altering the anchor texts and not removing them. Some of these directories are the worst of the worst on the other hand. Also note that I'm only really getting about a 30% response rate from the owners of these directories. Any thoughts? Many thanks in advance.
Link Building | | ec9awp0 -
Blog Commenting good or bad?
I spend a good amount of time on SEO forums and I found a thread about building links within comments.. I personally don't see how putting my keyword in my name place and linking it to my site will benefit me, I feel like google is already on to this and no one is going to click on it. Is this a waste of time?
Link Building | | SEODinosaur1 -
Too many links in my blog post created by comments. Should I worry?
Every year, we do a popular "Favourite pictures of the year" contest where people vote on the best picture (i.e: their mate's) in order to win something. But I just found that I'm going way over the "Too many links" limit and I think it's because of all the comments. 1. Is it a problem 2. Is there a way to de-activate the links? Thank you! 🙂 Ioan
Link Building | | IoanSaid0 -
Dofollow Blog Comments
I wanna buy dofollow comments, can be there any negative effects? I understand that is a kind of a black hat seo, but i saw many sites who used this type of service and get boosted in the search engine ranking.
Link Building | | Alexsmenaru0