With all due respect to SEO Specialists out there, I think blog commenting sucks. Period.
I used to utilise this link and traffic building method, but not anymore. Why? Because I myself is being bombarded by individuals and SEO experts alike with comments that successfully avoid my Akismet spam scanning, but contains, umm, useless and, sometimes, tasteless comments (How “Here are some dating tips for geeks” comment in my articles about web hosting sounds?)
I know there is a hint of “geekiness” in each of us webmasters and web developers – But, c’mon…
To worsen things, I have dozen of blogs, receiving dozens of comments (statistically, about 50% of them are spams – both blatant and subtle.)
I conclude that all the blog commenting for SEO and link building purposes are done for two purpose: traffic building (by trying to be among the firsts to comment on an authoritative blog post) and link building (especially on dofollow blogs.)
Abusing CommentLuv and similar WP Plugins
Blog commenting on Wordpress blogs, especially on those that use CommentLuv and similar plugins, is sucks, as well. It’s like slapping Andy Beard’s campaign of dofollowing blog comments. His campaign promotes quality commenting with genuine intention to offer opinions first, and link/traffic building second.
Abusing Top Commentator and similar WP Plugins
I used to utilise “Top Commentator” Wordpress plugins on top blogs in order to get my links on the Top 5 position, sitewide – With dofollow attribute. I suck and those who do just that suck, too.
Luckily, the Top Commentator plugin developer updates it regularly, so that it gives blog owners a power to customise the listing of top commentators, including the addition of every website owner’s life-saver vs. “malicious” blog commenters : nofollow tagging.
Abusing RSS subscription to be the first to know when your “target” blogs are posting articles
RSS readers and alerts are cool, but some use them to be the first commentator on the blog posts (a spoiler: This works wonder for me – Free, residual traffic to your blog, even weeks after the post date.) But you are not supposedly to do this by posting spam or junk comments!
How for us to avoid “suckiness” from artificial blog commentators
Learning from my own experience, I stop doing blog commenting for the sake of SEO/link building. Today, I comment on blogs because I enjoy the blog posts and want to tell the world what I think of the blog post.
I do still think about traffic and link building, but those fall deep, deep down in my SEO campaign checklist. I want people to pay a visit and link to my website/blog from the useful comments I write on other blogs. It’s probably the whitest hat SEO ever, but I enjoy and feel right doing it (just like the blog owners who do carbon offsetting to support a greener, environmentally friendly blogging practice.)
What’s your view about blog commenting?
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24 comment(s)
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Spam sucks, but it seems like a combination of Akismet and manual review is the only way to deal with it. I took nofollow off my comments because I’d rather help out contributors than destroy link juice, but there were a lot of “comments for SEO” before my comments were any good for SEO.
For commenting elsewhere, I’ll usually only subscribe if a blog is particularly interesting *and* there’s some sort of marginal benefit involved with commenting. I figure, there are just so many places to have a conversation, it may as well be at one that pays you back a little bit.
My view on blog commenting is this… those that are leaving low quality comments on other blogs for the purpose of abuse, will eventually be caught, and their efforts will be pointless. I know on my personal blog I have also experienced spam from those who leave pointless and out of context comments, but in the long run they do fade away, as the system catches on to them. I always make it an effort to leave quality comments on blogs.
Till then,
Jean
Hi! My name is David. Great post about leaving comments on peoples’ blogs for SEO purposes. Here’s my view: 1) The space on another webmaster’s webpage is their property so respect it and 2) If you’re going to leave a comment make sure you’ve at least gotten the main idea of what the webmaster’s post! I’d love to learn more of your SEO methods – it seems you have been blogging/making websites for a while. Thanks, David
I think that blog commenting is effective if you are going to be honest and genuine about it. I myself have to deal with a lot of strange spam on my blog, kind of like your dating tips for geeks example. That does suck that your spam ratio is 50% though, so I understand your frustration!
Well its all user opinon I guess, but if you think about it, any successfull blog will have tons of comments, and even though you make get users who just use the keywordluv to blatently spam your blog, those comments should be deleted, for those who are making a point somewhat or commenting according to the article , its a fair trade
Well. you may be right about spamming and making irrelevant comments on blogs by unscrupulous marketers but I still think that the majority will not comment at all without the benefit that comes with it-a back link
Liz, It's really a double-sided issue... But come to think again, it's just the same as the issue of dofollow or nofollow the text link ads / banner ad links on your site - Will people pay for your traffic or PageRank? In blog commenting case, will you comment for the sake of the backlink or the traffic... Neither is wrong - It's just personal preference... :)
djp, In the end it all about spending your precious time moderating those spams that only seek backlinks... Comments are nice, but way too much spams in them is really, really a time waster.
Bethany - Time is our most precious resource, IMO... Moderating comments through all the spams are really time-waster, even with the help of spam protection plugins.
Jean, Unfortunately, not all like you and me ;) I personally enjoy leaving useful comments as they will serve as double functions on dofollow blogs: backlinks and traffics. People do get attracted to useful comments way, way much more than just saying "Great post - thanks!"
John, I totally agree with you - there are a lot of comments for SEO these days (on this blog, too.) Unfortunately, some blog owners today are probably being fed up, that they close their comment sections - The blogs may be interesting, but my inability to comment on them is a bit frustrating, because leaving a comment is an inseparable part of blogging (What's more, IMO, blogs with no commenting capability are just websites with CMS...)
Thanks fro sharing this valid set of information with us.Thank you very much.Keep up the good work.
I agree, this is going to be a huge task considering that we get only weekends off from our work and in that time we post and we get to see our comments area, which is full of comments. To read them and differentiate them from spam is a tough job but I think if your blog gets a constructive comment so it’s not a bad idea to link it. We all are connected if we realize through Google. Hehe :d
Bill, Cheers! Grand task, indeed (e.g. today I have to approve 40+ comments on SWH - half of them are spams). Good comments will always worth linking - the ones like yours :) Thanks!
yes many people spam comments on my blog too, but i had installed plug ins to get rid of them. any how if they do so there loss their time and efforts.
i agree spam sucks but manual review is the only way to deal with them.we should use plugins to get rid of them.
Personally I enjoy commenting on blogs, and building backlinks and getting traffic is a nice bonus. I have actually found quite a few blogs via the keyword or commentluv plugin that I know have saved or RSS’d because I learn a lot from them.
I know these plugins can attract spammers but with akismet and moderating comments, you can nip that pretty easy, unless you are getting 100 a day or something. I think the overall benefit to the blogger receiving the comments, can outweigh the negatives of dealing with spam. Google likes good fresh content and that is what comments provide. Plus it gives the blogger an opportunity to interact with readers. If someone is going to take the time to leave a meaning full comment and provide fresh content to my post, then I am happy to reward them with a little google juice.
I just recently installed commentluv and keywordluv on my blog. It is too soon to see how bad the spam might get, but I am hopefully akismet will catch most of it. We shall see.
Monika, Yes - and that's what I'm doing right now on daily basis - dozens of spam comments :(
Personally I like to allow dofollow links on my blog. I do get spam and a lot of “human spammers”. I deal with these on a case to case basis. If a comment doesn’t meet my standards than I will remove it, but for the people that take the time to share a genuine opinion, I like to share the link love.
Im newbie wp user. Text very importance. But I want fast up up up ((: – - – Fail Fail Fail :’(
I love to comment on blogs that have interesting comments, I know its kinda disturbing when you see a lot of spamming bots there though these are successfully blocked by akismet but still people people tend to use bots which will practically won’t yield them any results. Leaving the spammers apart I think when you can make genuine comments on do-follow blogs which blog owners will appreciate still holds some value and in fact as a blogger myself I like it when someone makes a good comment on my articles and that takes away the pain which I have over spammers.
Blogs live and die by their comments so spam is a major issue. The more spam the less likely you are to build a real community. I’m pretty harsh with my moderation and I think that is the only way to go as the spammers are getting more sophisticated. However I think there is nothing wrong with blog commenting for seo purposes as long as you add something to the converstaion.
I agree that SEO techniques will continue to stay ahead of automated SPAM filters for blog comments. However, relevant blog commenting is still an effective way to gain link juice for your site, as well as send curious visitors who appreciate your insightful commentary.
Exactly - the key is to add value to the conversation :)
Any feedback from you?