Changing commenting platforms...will deleting old comments hurt SEO?
-
Hi everyone,
We've decided to move away from Disqus and use Facebook comments on one of our blogs. Our users prefer it, and we saw traffic increase when we did it on another site. My question is, will removing old comments (we have hundreds of them per post) hurt my seo? I've scoured the internet for an answer but can't find anything up to date. Old best practices said to keep old comments. What do you think?
Thanks!
-
Is you current commenting system allowing FB logins?
Because in my experience what users like about FB commenting is just the ability of commenting without first need to signup.
I would stick with your current commenting system and just allow social logins, if you don't have already.
-
TL;DR - It dependents.
Main answer is - how you get traffic? If this is traditional way - "write great content and they will follow" this also bring comments. And comments create new content with new traffic. Because Google/Bing/Yahoo can index content and comments too. Moz uses this way in their blog section for example. This is organic way.
But in new way - comments in social networks bring traffic. Because more people seeing that person comment/share/like something and they do "curiosity driven research" what is this content. But this bring only social network traffic since not all of Facebook comments can be indexed from search machines. This is social way.
This is theory about traffic and i describe only two of them (they're much many but i simplify little bit things). Now turning things into practical. Disqus can have some issues with crawling comments from Google. This is well known and described many times: https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/762307-why-isn-t-google-indexing-my-comments-
Facebook comments can't be indexed at all too from Google. There are some articles from 2011 that they can but i can't find working example.That's why it's best if you can check - are your existing comments indexed? If they are you can leave both commenting systems. It's much better. If they wasn't indexed you can switch to Facebook commenting system. Also check on other site can you find some Facebook comment in Google.
And one suggestion "Don't Build Your House on Rented Land". If you can use your own commenting system this will be much better. Just like Moz.
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
-
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits?
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits? Example: loodgieter-aanhuis.nl -> loodgieters-ambacht.nl Does someone have any technical information on how to (root) redirect for best SEO practices?
On-Page Optimization | | hans-keeren0 -
Will shortening down the amount of text on my pages affect it's SEO performance?
My website has several pages with a lot of text that becomes pretty boring. I'm looking at shortening down the amount of copy on each page but then within the updated, shortened copy, integrating more target keywords naturally. Will shortening down the current copy have a negative effect on my SEO performance?
On-Page Optimization | | Liquid20150 -
Recommend platform for fashion/bridal store
We currently use Bigcommerce, can anyone recommend a good platform for a bridal fashion store. We use a lot of pictures and banners. Also looking for a platform that allows for good SEO We are looking for an updated look particularly with a responsive format for mobile phones and ipads.
On-Page Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Will changing my home page cause rankings to drop?
We are looking at doing a major change with our website. Upper management is wanting to have our home page be our store page, instead of just a landing page. So basically we would be eliminating our current home page, and replacing it with our store page. This is a very large site and our current home page gets a lot of traffic. Issues to deal with will be ranking of the current page content; Internal links to both pages; external links (backlinks) pointing to the two pages, and of course, a potential drop in rankings and traffic. Any ideas on how to best do this? Or not do it at all. 301 redirect? Thanks, Brad
On-Page Optimization | | tdawson090 -
Is Disqus as good for SEO as a built in comment system on your website?
Disqus is a simple tool you can use to easily get comments up and running on your website. Does it have the same value as a built in comment feature such as a Wordpress blog or does Google not attribute the Disqus comments to the websites content as it would for Wordpress?
On-Page Optimization | | Trellis0 -
SEO for Japan
Google and Yahoo are the two major search engines in Japan. You can search using Western characters, and you often see English language results with Japanese (Chinese) characters next to them. As I don't speak Japanese, how do I approach SEO for my Japanese-language site? would appreciate any experiences and educational sources on the topic.
On-Page Optimization | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
Seo'ing Sub domains for images
We are currently adding some performance improvement to our websites, to improve user experience. One of the things we are looking at is splitting of images over several sub-domains, to increase the number of images that can be downloaded at the same. We have seen that using key phrases within image names has an improvement in rankings. So, the question is should we create sub-domains as key-phrase.example.co.uk or as i1.example.co.uk? K
On-Page Optimization | | soltec0 -
Is an Overflow SEO friendly
Is an "overflow" (scrollbar) seo and Google friendly? I only ask because it hides part of the visible text.
On-Page Optimization | | BradBorst0