Value of Newspaper Comment Links
-
Although most newspaper comment sections are a no-follow zone, I have noticed that some comments I have posted with links end up being followed. The comments are participatory and the links relevant and even add to the conversation. My theory is that some comments are monitored and if the editors are looking to encourage discussion and don't feel like your spamming, why not take the no follow off. I do plan on doing some testing with poor, spammy comments on the same papers but am encouraged and would like to know what other people have found.
-
You are welcome!
-
Thanks Alan. And yes, staying relevant is always a quality factor.
-
My theory is that many comment sections start off no-follow as default specifically to avoid spamming but if a human reads it and determines it adds to the conversation, they turn it into a follow. I'm sure Google is able to determine the sites that screen comments from a human.
-
EGOL, I was just thinking today out of all the people who answer questions in Pro Q&A, you're at the top of my "pay attention to" list. So thanks for the compliment.
-
Alan, I should post your comment on my blog to discourage the link spammers. lol
Thumbs up!
-
Thomas that's an important distinction. The quality of the article to target page relationship is critical, and mostly for attracting new visitors regardless of primary SEO value. Even though visitor clicks do add to SEO as well, there's so much more to the process that if comment links are an intentional and significant part of an SEO campaign it's really more likely to be a timesuck.
-
Lets go beyond the excellent input EGOL has provided for a moment.
How relevant are the articles you're dropping links in the comment area of to the site you're linking to? How relevant is the topic to the target topic? How much of your link building energy is focused on this as a link building tactic?
Comment links offer such little value even when all conditions are ideal that it's really not a prudent use of time and resources. At least not from an SEO best practices perspective.
-
Thanks for the perspective - I guess after all is said and done, everything we need to know about tech is summed up "Garbage in, garbage out..."
-
Interesting thought on the follow, nofollow and the editorial approval or disapproval. Would love to hear your follow up.
Regardless of the do follow or no follow and the link value, I have found that traffic value is still a huge bonus. One quality comment on a high traffic article can produce a lot of visitors.
-
Comments are turned off on my blog because of this.
Also, since I link out to lots of sites from my blog (within the posts) I have a heavy rain of email from people who are trying to weasel a "mention".
-
I see it as mainly a webmaster's problem.... once the programmers start sending robots to spam your blog then you will be hit with a lot of comments to clean up.
For the person who uses blog comments as a linkbuilding strategy, I think that google can recognize blog comment links and probably counts them as very very low value links. If the link profile of your site consists almost entirely of blog and forum comments then that might put an unpleasant odor on your site. (I have no proof for this, just sayin' how I would treat the links if I was google and my confidence that they can recognize them if they want to.)
-
I know regular people who have seriously considered shutting down their blog or turning off comments because they got on a "dofollow blog" list and kept getting spammed because of that.
-
EGOL,
Interesting point.
Do you see that as only an issue for the site with the comment section, or also a cascading problem for the folk using this as a means to drum up links?
-
why not take the no follow off?
That will put you on every spammer's "dofollow blog" list. And the bigger problem is when your site gets on the blogspamming program database.
-
Please do post your findings!
What I expect you will find is that each website is set up a little differently - many as a matter of practice drop a 'nofollow' on entire sections of their site. Some don't. Some (take SEOMOZ.org as an example) have a more intricate process that determines whether comment links are nofollow'd or not.
I understand that there are some companies out there that do linkbuilding campaigns by linking from forums that don't seem to have the nofollow dropped on them (not that anyone here would do such a dastardly deed as to buy links...). One that was on their list is Adobe forums -- on my list of things-to-do is to post there and see if some link juice comes out of it.
Another unlikely source of a link that I got one time was from Craigslist.org, when I was bringing an intern onboard. Not exactly my idea of a high-value link, but hey...
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
-
Paid Links on Credible Sites
Hi people. I'm wondering, what would be the effects of having a paid link on a credible site. The site would feature a brand page about my site and link to it. The site has a good domain authority and they are credible with quality content. Ultimately though the link would be paid. Would Google treat this negatively? Or would they pick up on it at all? Thanks, Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kevinliao0 -
How can i stop such links being indexed
Hi, How can i stop such links being indexed The first link is what i want to stop indexed. We have 1,000's of people writing articles and the below URl shows how many articles each did http://www.somename.com/article/15633 But this is the URl which shows the exact articlehttp://www.Somename.com/article/step-step-installation-ibm-lotus-notesAs both start as thishttp://www.Somename.com/article/How can i set noindex? Should we set for each URL manually one by oneThanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page
If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
Links from new sites with no link juice
Hi Guys, Do backlinks from a bunch of new sites pass any value to our site? I've heard a lot from some "SEO experts" say that it is an effective link building strategy to build a bunch of new sites and link them to our main site. I highly doubt that... To me, a new site is a new site, which means it won't have any backlinks in the beginning (most likely), so a backlink from this site won't pass too much link juice. Right? In my humble opinion this is not a good strategy any more...if you build new sites for the sake of getting links. This is just wrong. But, if you do have some unique content and you want to share with others on that particular topic, then you can definitely create a blog and write content and start getting links. And over time, the domain authority will increase, then a backlink from this site will become more valuable? I am not a SEO expert myself, so I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | witmartmarketing0 -
How to link my websites with each other - to avoid google penalities and get some value
I have good high DA PA websites hosted on same IP, added in same google analytics and GWT account. So i think google knows that owner is the same. How should we link them with each other to get some value? Put nofollow? With what anchor (Money keyword or domain name)? But whats the point? We cannot make natural link building profile with our own website nofollow links, i assume they will not count. What can you suggest? Maybe it is better not to link at all?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0 -
Internal linking between categories
Is it necessary to do internal links between the same categories of a website ( Let's say Ihave a category about shoes and in the category I have a page about boots and one about sandals ( should the page boots be accessible from the page sandals and the other way round or is the back button going back to the section shoes enough ) ? If internal links between the same category ( sandals to boots ) are needed/recommended is it also a good practice to do site wide links between categories ( shoes and and bags for example ) Because by reading google recommendations "Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link" I am not sure if they are talking about breadcrumbs or text links i am kind of lost ... Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Alternative links in the search results.
Hello, This is a short question Please look at this SERP screenshot: http://imgur.com/1EMen Who do they get the other links under their results. Cornel
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornel_Ilea0 -
Outgoing affiliate links and link juice
I have some affiliate websites which have loads of outgoing affiliate links. I've discussed this with a SEO friend and talked about the effect of the link juice going out to the affiliate sites. To minimize this I've put "no follows" on the affiliate links but my friend says that even if you have no follow Google still then diminishes the amount of juice that goes to internal pages, for example if the page has 10 links, 9 are affiliate with no follow - Google will only give 10% of the juice to the 1 internal page. Does anyone know if this is the case? and whether there are any good techniques to keep as much link juice on the site as possible without transferring to affiliate links? Appreciate any thoughts on this! Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ventura0