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
-
Matt Cutts - Guest posts are dead comment
It seems like it was a while ago now that Matt Cutts made his announcement "that guest posts are dead", however, does anyone know if Google has acted on this? Most particularly, for those that are targeting guest posts on high-quality sites, what has so far been the effect since the announcement on rankings? Anyone seen a dip in rankings from their high-quality blog post strategy?
Link Building | | Gavo0 -
Need help for SEO
After Penguin 5 what are the major changes in onpage that is necessary and what are the best techniques for link building?
Link Building | | Chirag7530 -
Should I dicard them in my SEO estrategy?
Hi there! Some of you guys told me that I shouldn't concede too much priority to the directories in my linkbuilding stratregy. But should I incorpore it (In case it has a little impact in SERPs) or directly discard it as it has NO influence at all, what would it be more important quantity or quality? Could it have more impact a directory with PR 7 as 100 directories of PR 3 or below? Thanks
Link Building | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Does link from a blog in Blogger.com helps in SEO ?
Do you guys think that adding good quality blogs to blogger.com and then getting a link from those blogs will help ?
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Re april 5th post on over optimization - need clarification blogging
I mainly do content creation for clients .e.g. site and blog on word press - then link the blogs to the related static page. I have been just linking to the static page using keywords that match the title tag keywords. Is that correct?
Link Building | | Doug_Hay0 -
Blog Directories
Will links from blog directories to our subfolder-located blog within our website help the ranking of our overall site? In other words, will it just help the rankings of the main blog page (where the directory links are pointing to), or will it pass the link juice to the rest of the site? Thanks!
Link Building | | NiallTom0 -
Auto Blog Content
Hi i was thinking about to build auto blog website that will post about twice a day auto generated content related to my keywords that im trying to rank for. and for inbound linking, i will write original articles with a keyword anchor text, and will link to auto generated content for that keyword? so my question is: is it good idea to link from original content to auto generated?will it help my rankings ? Thanks
Link Building | | xverticle0 -
Blog Commenting Question Off Page
While blog commenting, many people tend to use their 'anchor text' when asked to provide with their name. Hyperlinking anchor text inside the blog comment is perfectly understandable for me but using anchor text when asked to provide your name is something that I see as spam and something that totally confuses a normal user who reads the blog comment and sees a weird name in the name section. Search engines too must be perfectly aware of this and thus I am of the opinion that such anchor texts don't care much weightage in the eyes of search engine. However many of my fellow SEO colleagues tend to differ. They say you should use anchor text when asked to provide with a name. And I am totally against this form of promotion That's why I wish to ask the opinion of experts in SEO MOZ on this topic. Awaiting your feedbacks
Link Building | | pulseseo0