What are the pros and cons of having comments posted on your blog?
-
I get a lot of spammy comment comments to my blog which I trash, but I'm also particular about the comments I allow.
How do the search engines regard these comments, should I allow more to be posted as it looks like I'm getting more traffic.And by posting these comments, who benefits from the backlinks?
-
It all depends on what you want to achieve with the blog. I run 2 sites that get lots of comments. For one site, the comments become part of the content of the site (it essentially sets a scenario for people to debate over) so for that example, it adds to the uniqueness f the site.
For another site that I run, I have to spend a lot of time monitoring the comments since many people are there to just drop a link. Like everything on the web, you need to decide what's going to make your site stand out from the rest.
Allowing "junk" comments won't add any value.
-
I think that it is important to be a critical judge. Are those comments relevant to your topic? That is the first test.
Then, where to do those links go? If they are not going to high quality relevant pages then the people who are placing them are using your website (and your visitors) to promote their own interests.
If your website has links going out to trashy sites it will not be good for your image in the eyes of your visitors but the search engines can detect that and lower your rankings.
I have tried allowing comments but the amount of spam and the amount of junk links were too high. So, I turned comments off. I lost good interaction but I don't have time to do that work and paying someone to do it would not produce a positive return.... and I don't want to depend upon volunteers.
If your site has a small amount of traffic then keeping the comments clean and relevant might not be too hard. But once your traffic gets high it can be an overwhelming task.
WordPress (and other content systems) have filters that you can install. They will block the worst of the comment spam.
Finally, a lot of these comments are not placed by humans. They are placed by robots that crawl the web, find open comment forms and deposit a comment with links. So when you see comments like... "Great information, nice" (link)... that is probably a robot.
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
-
Backlinks embedded in posts or backlinks in sidebar?
What's better? A backlink to my site, embedded into a blog post/article? Or a hardlink in the sidebar? The problem with links embedded inside articles, is that when the blog linking to me, gets updated, the articles disappear from first page and I lose the link from home page. How do you deal with this? I also read this: "The best link you can get is from a site ranking #1 for the keyword you want to rank for. It would be great to have the #1 site for a desired keyword linking me even if they are a PR 0 site." Is this right? Thx in advance.
Link Building | | BloggerGuy0 -
Will feeding a blog through a widget onto a wix site help rankings?
I have a client I am writing blog content for, however his site was recently redesigned on wix html5. They offer no native blog. I have used a widget to embed blog from another site, however does this help seo in any way? When people share on social media, etc., it is linking the embedded page, not the clients site, right? So it would not be giving any link juice to site. It also doesn't help for organic search of content if it is embedded, is that right? I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to overcome this issue. Would creating a "faux" blog on the Wix site work (as in multiple pages that I would then categorize and link to each other to navigate like a blog myself)? Wix looks like it has page length maximums too, so I'm not sure how I would get around that. It is also clunky to share on social media without a "share" button for viewer, but perhaps I am mistaken. Is that a ridiculous solution? What have other people done to deal with this issue and get better rankings with Wix platform? Thanks in advance for any input! I'm feeling a little frustrated with what to do.
Link Building | | Quill_Quotient0 -
Reposting Blog posts on 3rd party sites
We have a few informational blog posts that are valuable to some readers. We have posted them in our blog but were contemplating posting them on 3rd party blogging websites such as Blogger, Squidoo, etc.. Ideally we would continue to maintain these accounts with multiple blog posts, but would all be reposts of the original blog. These are not half english blog posts just hoping to gain a better Google rank. They will provide value to the readers who might not be finding their way to our website directly. Is posting these blog posts on the 3rd party websites, linking back to the original article and maybe some products that are related to the specific document going to negatively affect our rankings due to the duplication of the content?
Link Building | | wishmedia0 -
Any good site for Blog Submission (without any waiting/approval) ??
Is there any good blog submission site which does not have long waiting period before article is published and which allows followed link from blog? I have a list of such blog submission sites but they all either need weeks delay till it gets approved or never gets approved. So I would really appreciate If you can tell me some of such sites that you are aware of..
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
What is the Optimal Guest Post Byline?
Hi Moz Community! What do you think is the optimal guest post byline or bio paragraph at the end of a guest post. Is it better to link to your homepage with your site name as anchor text AND a deep page with a target keyword phrase? Or is it better to just use one link to a deep/money page on your site with a keyword phrase?
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
Blogspot blog on sub domain
Hi, I have a blog on the blogger platform from Google and it currently sits on a sub domain which can be added into the settings. But I got a feeling Google wont see this as part of the website because when I add the sub domain into the main websites sitemap it kicks an error for it. So basically what I got is a website and an external blog. The external blog gets a post a day with an anchor text link back to the most relevant page on the main website but I have read on the SEOMOZ website that smashing one external blog is not anywhere near as effective as syndicating the content across a range of blogs. So I have an external blog with pr4 and 100 backlinks, I have to say I did not set this up it was handed over like this and I cant move the blog onsite either. I'm thinking it would have been better to have 10 blogs with pr2 with 10 backlinks on each instead. I need to double check this before I action this from now on.
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Find High Ranking Blogs?
Ok, after the panda change, everyone is telling to me to ask to be a guest blogger on other people's blogs. So, how do I find the highest ranking (most popular) blogs in my industry? I own a real estate brokerage. Thanks for your help!
Link Building | | DanManCastro0 -
How do I distribute blog content?
Morning Mozzers! I work for an online wedding retailer and we add new, unique, high quality content to our blogs on a daily basis. After adding the new content we Tweet it and mention it on our Facebbok page. My question is this: how can I distribute the content to generate back links? Any example sites or case studies of things you guys have done in the past would be great! Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | Confetti_Wedding0