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At what point to stop comments on a blog? Do too many comments hurt the page?
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I have a page that's ranking pretty well, and driving sales. That page is starting to get 10+ comments per day and is starting to get quite long. I was wondering if there is a point where I should disable the comments? My gut tells me that people interacting with the page, and Google seeing responses with the users SHOULD be a good thing not bad. But, then I think that a majority of the content of the page is no longer the article, but the comments.
All the comments are good, non spammy and directly related to the topic. People just asking questions, etc. Good engagement, I should be happy right?
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The only reason why I'd ever disable comments if I'm way to tired of getting them and having to approve them or I decided to stop replying to comments. I'll tell you why.
Your page is ranking well for many reasons. One of the reason is likely due to that its a great piece of content. If it still continues to rank well and drive sales, then the 10+ comments per day obviously aren't harming its ability to do that, so why change the process of accepting comments? In addition, if it is a great piece of content, people are more likely to share it and you'll get more visits. I've seen many blogs where they closed comments because it was already a year or two old and it just seems they don't want to bother with the comments anymore and I really want to provide additional insight and yadda yadda; my comments are not going to hurt your post especially if it adds more unique and fresh content to that page only to help it stay fresh in Google's eyes, right?
Unless you switch the position of your content and the comments around, the comments will have little effect on your page's rank and conversion rate.
If you're happy with the way things are, let the comments keep coming. Use your spam filter, make sure you have "external nofollows" on comment URLs and if you really want to keep the value of your content strong, only approve the really good comments, not just the five word comments like, "wow, what a great post".
Good engagement, you are correct. Fresh & unique content, Google likes. More social signals; a good thing.
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Yup! That sounds like a good interaction and a lively page that will keep presenting fresh, meaningful content each time it's updated. The only comments I'd worry about are spam (which you've screened) and really off-topic comments, but neither of those seem to be a problem. Since people are commenting under the same topic(s) as the article, it just adds to the page as a whole.
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