Is Disqus SEO friendly?

[andywozhere]

I like the look of Disqus for handling comments but I'm not sure if it is really SEO friendly. Any other more SEO friendly alternatives out there (other than blogging software)?

[MarieHaynes]

I recently wrote to Disqus to ask how I could make comments on my site indexable.  There is an API that you can use and you can set up a mysql database to store comments on your site.  However, it's not straightforward.  I want to figure it out, but for now I'm waiting for someone else to do the work for me.  

However, if you have Disqus on a Wordpress blog then the comments are stored in your database and they are part of your site and as such are indexable and searchable.

I would disagree with the statement that comments are not helpful for SEO purposes.  I get a number of searches that were delivered to my site because of content in the comments section.

[JamesNorquay]

I believe the standard version of Disqus is not SEO friendly yet the version SE Roundtable has made is a good way to fix the issues, same with with Facebook comments they are not SEO freidnly yet you can hack them up to make them SEO freindly.

Furthermore I disagree with William comments can be a great source of extra content I mean take a look at the blog we are on here SEOmoz, the content adds to the page count like crazy Some posts have 100 x 100-200 character posts, some are a few words.

[andywozhere]

Hi William,

Thanks for the reply. As far as I can see comments only come out in HTML if you use their plugin in Wordpress (possibly other blogging software too). If you are not using blogging software the results are in javascript and hence probably not very SEO friendly. That said, I have seen possible suggestions of ways of making Disqus comments indexable using data synchronization.

Facebook comments are definitely another option.

[WilliamBay]

Can you explain what you mean by SEO friendly? I think I might be confused.

Disqus comments are searchable. The comments are really hidden behind an iFrame or anything, they actually come out in regular HTML. Similar to your regular comments.

But as far as comments go, you may get some Longtail Search results, but comments typically aren't a huge source of targeted keyword traffic.

What they are great at is developing a sense of community and sharing which could help your traffic to the site. And depending on the nature of your site, Facebook Comments are great at leveraging an already connected user base to the content that you have on your blog. 
i incorporated Facebook Comments on the Flaunt Your Site blog, and when someone comments, I notice a big bump in traffic immediately afterwards.

I hope I took the right direction for your question, but if you provide what it is you want to achieve, I can do a better job.