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
-
Written a great guest post for another site. Can I post it on my own blog too?
So I've written this beautiful guest post for a site who've quite frankly done a bad job of promoting it and I'm a little disappointed. So I'm thinking: a) I could send it around to some other publishers and see if they want it. What would be the duplicate content problems here if any? b) Why not just publish it on my own site and promote it to other blogs and the world in the normal way. c) Is this just wrong and if I say I'm going to write for someone then I write for them and if they make a mess of it that's my problem and I should be more selective about who I give my talents away to in the future. Thanks in advance. I am fairly new to outreach and all the internet searching on this topic is returning stuff about 'allowing other people to post guest blogs on your site' which is not helpful. Rank Brain eh? Supposed to be smart. But it's really not. 🙂
Link Building | | Smileworks_Liverpool0 -
What outreach tools do you use?
I was wondering what an SEO with years of experience used to perform outreach campaigns? What software (Buzzstream, Inkybee), what email service (MailChimp), what prospecting tools (Buzzsumo)? What's the ultimate pairing of software and tools for maximum results (with the best client-facing KPIs)?
Link Building | | TinaMumm0 -
Blogs
I am thinking of starting a couple off site blogs for myself. 1 I might share some client information and link building and the other would be for me to rant. I was thinking about doing a wordpress or blogger blog, someone recommended Tumblr. Anyone have any suggestions?
Link Building | | ClickIt0 -
Are directories still an option for linkbuilding
I know that after the recent slate of Google updates, many free directories got taken down. We've typically used the list of directories placed on SEOmoz (www.seomoz.org/directories). Before adding a site to a directory, we always check to see if it is indexed by Google. Is this still a safe option or should directories be avoided?
Link Building | | TopFloor0 -
Link Building - Post Penguin
Hi, We have an eCommerce site that has recently been hit for some unnatural linking, resulting in a warning in our Google Webmaster Tools account. We weren't doing anything particularly underhand (and indeed before Penguin there wasn't a cause for concern) but nevertheless Google has picked up and penalised us. We've instantly removed the worst offending links and requested a resubmission. If this doesn't result in positive action from Google we're planning on employing the services of an Oracle member on SEOmoz who was kind enough to give us some fantastic free advice in order to go through and remove any further links that may be seen as questionable. Moving forward however I'm a little bit overwhelmed as to exactly what we should be doing in order to create a positive, natural link portfolio. I understand the emphasis is on ‘natural’ linking but we’ve been online for 8 years and I think it’s fairly safe to say that the number of links we have now is probably representative of about our ‘lot’ when it comes to 100% natural links. It would be nice to give our portfolio a nice gentle push in the right direction. I’ve checked through SEOmoz and the most up to date link building article they have appears to be http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links - This guide however does seem to suggest some things that are potentially frowned upon now (for example, highly optimised anchor text I understand is now a no-no). Obviously, in days gone by I could look at Open Site Explorer to try to emulate my competitors but, to be honest, most of them have what I would describe as a fairly poor link profile and if I'm going to invest real time in to this I want to make sure I'm heading off in the right direction. Does anybody on here know of a really high quality post penguin link building guide, either on SEOmoz or elsewhere that I can use as some bedtime reading? Our website is eCommerce in nature so an article tailored towards online selling would be ideal. Thanks for reading! Chris
Link Building | | ChrisHolgate0 -
Warrior Forum, Is it good for seo?
The Warrior Forum just changed there membership from free to paid. They have do follow attributes but I was wondering what peoples take is on joining them for both learning and seo purposes?
Link Building | | bronxpad0 -
New website start of SEO
I have a new domain name starting its SEO have added it to Pro Dashboard campaign of my ac. Started doing is Research with competitiors backlink analysis as well. 1. If i do i say 10-30 back link requests in a day for 1 domain name using research of the analaysis tools will it be ok or it will be high numbers to start with ? 2. Shall i in start itself of SEO start doing blog commenting or not recommended. 3. Having same email id and name for 3-5 blog comments day for new domain with same email di and same name cannot it hit to any spam issue ? Asking however i read blogs and then only do good post of comment to ensure that it also contribute something in name of fresh good content to the comment box area to get good approval rate as well. I want to know the basic numbers to start with SEO for fresh new domain and how shall it be progressive in numbers etc. Will wait for reply of the community members...
Link Building | | anand20100 -
Use of href=# or href=hash
I use links with href="#" to trigger ajax functions in order to filter/sort and refresh search results on page. Since several other html tags could potentially be used to bind a javascript event, (ie. span, img, div, etc), could there be a compelling reason to avoid using the anchor tag for this purpose? My concern is link juice dilution since many different pages will have the same links to: Sort by number of bedrooms or Filter by neighborhood. It is also common practice to use links with href="#" to submit ajax forms which are not html forms at all. I am just trying to rethink this practice and implement a best practice method. Thx
Link Building | | CeeBee-3049180