Is blog commenting still useful for SEO, post Panda and Penguin?
-
One website I checked is ranking well on Google. Upon checking its backlinks, I found that most of them are blog comments.
Is blog commenting still valuable? Anyone encountered any recent problem (ranks gone down, etc)? Are there any specific strategy to blog commenting these days?
Thanks!
-
I understand your despair. Site optimization has really gone a long way from just throwing links out there.
-
Thanks for the advice. I think a lot of marketers are still using this technique but they're just real careful on how they do it so they don't fall out of the good graces of Google.
-
I understand your despair Jeepster. But unless these sites have other valuable links and really have just been engaging in blog post spamming, just be patient: they will disappear. Even it blog comments may cause short-term rankings (which i doubt), it's definitely too risky as a long-term strategy. nothing comes easy...
-
I keep hearing that certain types of links (blog comments, low-rent directories, etc) are not worth the bother.
However, I'm with the original poster on this, in that infuriatingly I still see these sites ranking supremely well for very competitive keywords.
There is one particular site in niche where their ENTIRE link profile is exact-match blog comments and low-rent directories.
And there I am like a fool focusing on high-quality content.
I really despair.
-
To be fair, Google have never said they don't want to see just blog comments, so right now, people are making use of this and if you find blogs in your niche, form a good comment and a sensible link, then you can still benefit.
However, what will happen further down the line is anyone's guess. Google have said they want to see links back to sites that deserve to be there, so as a long term strategy, this is surely one that won't stand up to the test of time.
The best thing to do is write great content and publish it on your own blog and then seed this out to others in your industry and hopefully they will find it that good, that they will want to link back to it again.
Andy
-
I agree with Matt here. If you're using Blog comments for backlinks instead of actually commenting on the blogs content, you might hurt yourself. What with Penguin and other updated this (like forum spam) is increasingly devalued. All in all, it depends on your general link profile quite a lot. If you have dozens of blog comments to your site this might be bad. But if those dozens of comments make up only 2% of your link profile, it shouldn't be a problem. Blog comments carry no authority IMO, so you won't get a lot of value from those anyhow.
-
I would say it all depends on how natural your blog commenting is in terms of are you adding to the topic by adding a link and does a link on that blog in a related niche appear natural when it links back to you. In terms of using it purely as a link building tactic I think it is a low value and dangerous practice especially if you start adding links with keyword rich anchor text on any old blog. I have no doubt that there are some sites still using this tactic successfully but it will catch up with them eventually and they will end up dropping in the rankings. If the majority of their link profile is blog comments this will stick out like a sore thumb and eventually Google will notice...
So in conclusion a few links in a related blog are natural and will be fine but if you start adding loads, in a short space of time you are playing with fire in my opinion!
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
-
Exact match and Penguin
After penguin, exact match keywords are not supposed to be used too much, in case you are selling a product and you are backlinking for its product page. Does this mean that exact match keyword for that product should also not to be used much. Or its just about website. For example i have a product named as "Test Product" and for it i have a keyword "Test Keyword", should i always use Test keyword to provide backlink to this product or should i use brand name as well or variant ot this keyword in anchor text. What do you suggest?
Link Building | | MozAddict0 -
Ebay listing SEO
Hi, I am wondering if there is any point building backlinks etc.. to ebay listings? How do I improve them in terms of SEO apart from the listing titles?
Link Building | | Mediaowl0 -
Hit with Panda, but still confused
Back on March 24th I was hit with Panda. Pretty much all but my main keywords were hit and I was wiped off the board. Luckily I kept my rank with my main keyword which was part of my URL. I have been since trying to figure out what Google thought was spammy with my site. I made changes, but nothing changed except my main keyword. I have been confused as to why I still ranked well with my main keyword, but nothing else. I have read from several posts of others complaining about the same issue. Seeing some keyword rankings go down, but not all. I also have read that if Google thinks even one page is spammy it might effect my whole site. Today I found a couple pages that might have been contributing to the low rankings. I am a scrabble based site and I had several pages that listed many words related to things like 2 letter words, 3 letter words, words that end and start with. These pages would contain from hundreds to over a thousand words and I was linking them all to my dictionary look up portion of my site. I have some other sites that do the same thing but not nearly as much as my main site and they were still doing just fine. I had over 3500 pages giving me warnings in my Pro Account about to many links on a page, but I have been ignoring it because I felt I was helping my users by giving them a less step in having to type the word to search. I have removed all these links except I found a couple pages that were still doing it. I just removed them so hopefully that helps this time. My question is do I have to wait till the next panda refresh or just until the next time Google crawls my site to see the changes. UPDATE: it is not 1.24.2013 It's been a while since I asked this question and just wanted to fill in on the updates and things I have done since then to maybe give some hope to all you penguinizers. My site https://www.wordgamedictionary.com/ has changed quite a bit since I posted this original question. I was hit on April 24th with Penguin and just was racking my brain trying to figure out what I did to get there. Here is some advice I have learned since then. Be Patient - Its going to be a long road to recover from it (I am still recovering almost 1 year later, but I am recovering) Don't Freak Out - Yeah it sucks when you income drops 50% in a matter of overnight, but you can change that. Check your back links (Yes this is beating a dead horse with a stick, but it's true) On page anchor link text - Are they over miss used keywords? Change that. Make it look natural For goodness sake! check for spelling errors ADD FRESH CONTENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would say about something new at least once a week. 3 to 4 is good (unless you are Q and A then you will have much more). Think to yourself "What would keep me coming back to my site?" If you don't have it, they add it Back links are not going to come to you unless you are creative. Sitting there thinking they are going to fall on your lap is dreaming. Back linking is nessary to stay ontop, but you can get them naturally. Experiment a ton and take risks. The more risks you take, the better chance you will eventually succeed. Today I have almost fully recovered from Penguin, but what is awesome is that by taking the natural and pro active method to SEO I have actually increased my overall traffic to my site by double since April 24th. I am still recovering from the original keywords that I was hit at, but whats awesome is that I have gained so much traffic from other keywords that I ended up doubling my traffic. The next time you think you know everything there is about SEO, slap yourself...because you don't 😉 Some nice Link building articles I have found to be good http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml http://www.slideshare.net/RossHudgens/link-building-strategies-2013-edition-15477553 http://www.searchenginejournal.com/advanced-link-building-strategies/53439/
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
Blog comments good for SEO
Does anyone use/recommend the use of anchor text links in blog comments (on sites relevant to your sites market)? Thanks, Mark
Link Building | | DenverKelly0 -
Private Blogging Network
Is anyone interested in building a private blogging network of semi-related sites?
Link Building | | jenadams0 -
Importance of Wikipedia in SEO
We are thinking about authoring a number of articles for several newspapers around the country and hope that they will be published in both print and online editions. The purpose would be to gain a Wikipedia page about our business with established references. Has anyone seen any positive effects by implementing this type of strategy?
Link Building | | jenadams0 -
New Blog
Hello, We have an online soccer equipment retail store (http://www.soccerstop.com) that we have been working on to get higher ranking results in many different areas of specific product pages, as well as our general homepage for several years. SeoMoz has been an excellent addition for us to learn and analyze, etc. In addition to our current PPC, and SEO efforts, we are going to create a blog as we have many thoughts, opinions and interesting information for what hopefully will be a good sized audience of soccer enthusiasts! We currently have a person who goes on other soccer blogger websites and offers our thoughts and expressions, but we now want to give our own blog. My thought is to create a subdirectory of our domain something like: http://www.soccerstop.com/blog as that seems what is recommended in many posts here in this forum. I am also thinking of using wordpress blog as it also seems recommended. We have a lot of ideas about content, and feel we will bring people to our blog in various ways through our existing and coming customers at the retail online store. However, it seems to get the best backlink performance possible out of our new blog, we need to join blog networks to get our blogs posted on outside third party websites. Is this right, and where would I begin to understand and start this process? I understand the first step is to get our blog started, but I want to foundationally have an idea where we are going with this as we build. This way it is built in a sound way, ready to be as effective as possible! Please understand I am a builder and not the blogger, which is why the structure and initial setup of syndication is so important to me! Thanks for any advice.
Link Building | | SoccerStop
James0 -
Are press release sites useful?
Many of my clients release newsletters and other peices of content qualify as press releases. I have been wondering if people find that the press release sites such as PRleap or PRweb are useful and worthwhile? If so, which do you feel is the best? Is there any research on this? I am planning to record my results from these sites and perhaps make a Youmoz post in the future.
Link Building | | MarloSchneider6