Is allowing comments a good idea?
-
One (in fact a couple) of my sites is built using Wordpress so I could take advantage of things like Related Posts widgets, etc. However, the layout and navigation of the site is set up more like a traditional website rather than a blog and from the beginning I removed the comment box from the template.
I am wondering now whether allowing comments would actually be a good idea for SEO, or if I should leave it as it is. The content of the site doesn't really offer opinions (aside from a few product reviews) so to my mind comments dont really fit.
Thoughts or opinions readily welcomed...
-
My content is pretty uncontroversial, so hopefully allowing comments will just allow a bit of useful discussion to happen on each page (fingers crossed...)
Being spammed to death was/is one of my main concerns. I will of course use spam filters but, as EGOL suggests, this will still require moderation and therefore my time (which is already in short supply...)
I think I will give it a try and see how things go. Thanks for your input guys
-
Phooey... I knew that this would happen as soon as I tried to pick a mellow topic.
-
LOL...I do blog about kittens sometimes. And this is still a problem!
-
I think comments are great as long as you have a thick enough skin.
This made me laugh... Thanks! It's very true!
-
From an SEO perspective and from a webmaster's perspective I would love to have comments on my website and blog. I would enjoy seeing the search engines get all of that content and I would enjoy the community of friends that would develop around the topics that I publish.
However, I don't have comments turned on for the following reasons:
-
Comment spammers would stink up my site with linkdrops, product mentions, beggings and trollings. I know that there is software to guard aginst these but some will still get through and it will make your site a target for the underworld of the web. The more successful your blog becomes the bigger this problem gets and it can easily get to a point where you can't scale it with enjoyment or profit.
-
A blog or a website on almost any topic will require a certain amount of moderation as there will be a small number of errors, petty disagreement, and other problems that require attention. Again the busier your blog the greater these minor problems become. Volunteer moderators could help a lot with these problems.
-
Saved for last is the one that in my opinion can be the greatest problem - people who have a personal jihad against the topic or the industry that you cover. If you blog is about kittens this will probably not be too big of a problem, however, if it is about one of the more controversial political, social, environmental or religious issues your blog, email, telephone and more could be placed under heavy attack. If you like this type of challenge it could be a great way to get links and traffic - it might scale profitably. But if you don't care for this type of engagement you better turn the comments - you will still get some of this but it will be at a much lower level.
-
-
I think comments are great as long as you have a thick enough skin.
If you use comments be sure to have Askimet installed. It works well to combat a good amount of spam.
Also make sure that you have it set so that you have to approve each comment. This is where the thick skin comes in. I have some pages where I have 10 comments singing the praises of my article and then I get a comment that says, "What on earth are you talking about? You don't have a clue about this subject". Those don't get published.
Each of the comments you get adds keywords to your content, so this is good.
If you find that you are spending too much time moderating comments and you're not enjoying it then you can always turn comments off afterwards.
-
most of the time comments are good if you are willing to moderate them as it draws users into your site more by providing a means for interaction.
It really depends on the purpose of your website: if it was an informational site or review site then comments would be great. If it was a business's website then comments may not be a good idea as they may take off the professional edge unless they are constrained to a blog section.
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
-
Disqus Comment is help Ntaifitness seo?
We use Disqus on our blog https://www.fitness-china.com/diy-dip-station Is it helpful for SEO? I found a few comments. Is our blog content not good enough, or use this? Few plugins
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
How many hyphens are allowed in page titles or image names?
When I was going through certification, I was told it should be limited to one or two. I was curious if there is a change.
On-Page Optimization | | SeobyKP0 -
Indexed Link Removal request in GWT, good idea?
Hello, I used a plugin to no-index a lot of pages on my website, and its been couple months and they never disappeared from serps, so i used the google webmaster tool "remove urls" to ask google to remove them. Is that a good idea? Or does it look bad in googles eyes? any thoughts would help a lot. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Rank-and-Grow0 -
Content on ecommerce categories - good or bad?
We have a case with a client where they previously had content on top of their most important ecommerce categories. The content was well integrated and should in my opinion enhance the category experience, but after doing some A/B testing they proved to only decrease the conversion rates when sending traffic directly to those categories. Around that topic I have two questions: Is it a bad thing to put the content BELOW the categories? I need examples of categories where content and products are very well integrated and enhances the category experience - any tips?
On-Page Optimization | | Inevo0 -
Is this type of Internal Linking Bad or Good for my Site????
A while back we were schooled on "Link Silos" a reputable SEO source.... and one suggestion was to create links from our product pages (bottom of link silo), back up to it's higher category page. So for example... Home > Tools > Hair Dryers > "Product" On the subject product... we chose to link back to "Hair Dryers" and then "Andis" (that product's brand page. You can see this at the below product page. We added the links below "Related Categories" in the product description. http://www.beautystoponline.com/Andis-Colorwaves-Tourmaline-Hair-Dryer-Blue-Green-p/an1dry0295.htm We are now thinking this may be just too much as there is already a "bread crumb" trail at the top of the product page. These are in essence links back up to higher categories. Any input on these types of links would be appreciated.. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BeautyStop1 -
Would I be safe canonicalizing comments pages on the first page?
We are building comment pages for an article site that live on a separate URL from the article (I know this is not ideal, but it is necessary). Each comments page will have a summary of the article at the top. Would I be safe using the first page of comments as the canonical URL for all subsequent comment pages? Or could I get away with using the actual article page as the canonical URL for all comment pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0 -
Footer copyright year statement. good or bad
Hi, I see a lot of sites with a year copyright statment in the footer like Copyright 2011 - DomainName.com or Copyright 2002 - 2012 - Domainname.com since new year a lot of sites (founded before 2011) still have 2011 instead of 2012 in the footer. Do you think the date gives any signals to google? Should someone update the date or remove it completely? I would tend to remove it completely since the page date for google is submitted in the HTTP header. But maybe the info could be of any use for the user. Any best practices?
On-Page Optimization | | Autoschieber0 -
Is it good to have dashes in url's
When using keywords in url's for internal pages, isn't it a good idea to use dashes or underscores in the url between the keywords?
On-Page Optimization | | BradBorst0