Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for sharing, Ewan.  I completely agree that number of comments is a very important indicator of site quality.

There is a lot of debate as whether or not having comments on your blog is helpful from an SEO perspective.

Proponents believe that more comments (1) creates more content, which search engines love, (2) creates more relevant keywords that can be searched, and (3) helps with "freshness" of the site/content leading to greater site authority.

Others like Joost de Valk believe that comments can actually hurt SEO because keyword density cannot be controlled.  He argues that his top SEO content are pages not posts for this very reason.

What is your opinion?

Thanks for sharing, Ewan.  I completely agree that number of comments is a very important indicator of site quality.