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
-
Ecommerce promotion: How many blog posts per week minimum for fast launch
Hello, We're trying to jumpstart our new Ecommerce site with a blog. We just launched and have 4 thorough blog posts which I'm working to refine to 10X content. Trying to make all content 10X. As you know, it's not easy. Our niche has little to no content written by competitors. We are hoping to get to about $5000/month sales with this site. How many blog posts should we launch a week (10X content) in order to take advantage of boosting our results in the rankings as fast as possible. Does it usually take 6 months? I know the more the better, but consider we only have so many resources, so I'm trying to decide if one 10X piece a week is enough, or 2 or 3. Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW1 -
Will links from startup/tech blogs help a site rank for *money* keywords?
If a startup has a tech blog (say, domain.com/tech) and a startup journey blog (on domain.com/journey — think groovehq.com/blog), will garnering high PA/DA links to those pages help the root domain rank for keywords related to the startup's services? For example, continuing the Groove example, will quality links to their aforementioned startup blog help them rank the homepage for Online Help Desk Software? Even when those links are from non-helpdesk content on non-helpdesk sites? My theory is that links from high DA sites won't be a bad thing — as long as they're not from spammy pages and done naturally. In some niches, where it's hard to get organic product-related links, this might be a worthwhile strategy. Am I right? Or sadly misguided...? 🙂 EDIT: BTW. The niche I have in mind is fairly uncompetitive, and it'd be easier to garner links from the startup/tech community than the niche community itself.
Link Building | | brandrsn1 -
Sponsored Posts
Hi I'm a little curious as to what the lastest guidelines are for sponsored posts by Google? The writer blurb at the bottom of an article is of course ok, but what about companies who pay money to another company to have a fantastic piece written "with a link" but with no evidence who the writer is?! Thanks Gary
Link Building | | GaryVictory2 -
Dead/Broken links on old blogs
Hi We are currently trying to update our blog page on our website but quickly realized there are numerous dead or broken 404 links after clicking on anchor text from past blog posts. Our blog is set up in WordPress and we recently installed an SEO plug in with it. Some of these anchor texts don't actually need links and I want to unlink them, is there a simple way to do this on WordPress? Other anchor text I would like to "301 redirect" to another page. Can i do this on WordPress or is this something my SEO plugin should be able to fix? Answers are much appreciated! Thanks
Link Building | | SapphireCo0 -
Can Off-Topic Guest Posts on Quality Sites Hurt You?
Based on recent changes in Google, do you think that an off-topic guest post on a high quality domain will help you or hurt you or have no effect. An example would be if you published a guest article on SEOMoz about SEO but your website sells basketball shoes.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs1 -
Good and Bad of Comment Hut?
Hi All, A new client in a competitive market (international car hire - Car Trawler affiliate) is using Comment Hut to gain links to his site. I have not used this service so am wondering, with the latest google stuff, what the good the bad and the ugly is on the comment hut service. Does it work? Should we avoid it? Thanks in advance Steve
Link Building | | stevecounsell0 -
Blogging best practice, tips, hints, advice etc (Wordpress-centric)
Hi guys, I have, for the first time, set up a Wordpress blog. I'm moulding the overall theme of it to relate to the industry we operate in. I'm new to this, so looking for any advice, help and info etc on how best to utilise it that you can offer. My initial plan is to write articles as often as possible on what's happening in the markets, and link back to our site where applicable. I'll also do content exchanges with other relevant sites (using My Blog Guest as one means to find relevant bloggers), and give access to contributors as well (felt a bit weird about doing it initially). Sound like a decent blogging strategy? Any and all ideas welcome. Thanks
Link Building | | Martin_S0 -
Linkbuilding on deep Blog pages
So I think I've got a good strategy going but wanted to get others feedback on it... I've been link building on a lot of blogs via reviews and giveaways. Frequently, these blogs give my posts limited exposure on the Home Page because the posts quickly get buried by new posts and eventually pushed off the home page to the "older posts" pages. Sometimes, reviews never even touche the home page because they live one level down on a "reviews" page which typically has 0 inbound links and low page authority. In these cases, I will use OSE to find the blog post with the strongest back link profile and request a link on that page instead. Typically, these posts are 2-3 years old so the bloggers are usually happy to give an old page some action. I'm a bit concerned though..Since these pages are frequently old, their content has not changed for years. Essentially, the pages have gone stale. Am I getting any benefit from these links? They typically have the 2nd best Page Authority on the Domain, but I'm wondering if the lack of fresh content kills all the value.
Link Building | | znotes0