Jul
Would you still comment?
This post is somewhat inspired by Jon’s new buy blog comments service. I already posted my opinion on the service on his blog and many one or two others, so I’m not going to get into it here.
But while I was sitting here reading the posts from other bloggers (Matt) about Jon’s service, it got me thinking. Would you still post comments if you got no recognition for it? Would you still post comments if there was no link field and all that was shown was your name? Would you still post comments if it just said Anonymous and no one even knew it was you?
I think that’s the true test to see if your commentators are truly telling you what they think, or if they’re just out there to self promote. I gets you thinking …Â would your volume of comments decrease by 50% ? Or maybe more..?
Throughout the life of my blog I’ve always noticed one commentator who has never left a link back to go with his name. Marc has always given me the best advice on my blog. He leaves thoughtful comments, not just one liners. He has given me a sense of direction and encouragement when things don’t go my way. And Marc doesn’t just do this on my blog. I’ve seen him post on others and never leave a link back.
Sometimes I wish he did so I could find out more about him? Maybe he does have a blog, and I just don’t know (so if you do… then tell me!!). But I think Marc is one of the perfect examples of a selfless commentator. He’s surely not doing it to promote himself. He comments because he has something to say.
Now, my blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic. Around 100 uniques/day + my 80 or so RSS subscribers. I have a lot of loyal readers here and I’m confident that most of you would still comment even if you didn’t get a link back. It’s not like my blog is going to send you tons of traffic through the comment field. Blogs like John Chow and Pro Blogger probably do get hit with a lot of self promoters. But that’s just something you have to deal with as your site grows.
So if you own a blog, or comment on this blog, stop and think for a minute… would you still comment, or would people still comment on your site if there was no recognition for it?
To be honest, yes, I will keep commenting on blogs like yours David.. But not at blogs like problogger or something..
Only at the blogs who I know and have a band with.
Same here. I would leave comments for bloggers who I have, and hope to, establish a relationship with.
Personally I think way and I mean way to much is being made over this. Some bloggers in the dofollow community are actually talking about going back to adding nofollow over this. That is just plain stupid. The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing†and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it. Who actually wrote the comment and what the “intent†was means absolutely nothing to me only that it meets the rules of my personal comment policy.
Everyone needs to realize that this is nothing but the latest topic du jour and just have a beer and rock on with life. Basically those saying nofollow is the solution to this are saying,
Comment spam gave birth to rel=”nofollow”, people realized it did nothing to solve the problem and screwed over posters. So the do-follow movement occurred which has led to people comment spamming, which means we might as well use nofollow again, which did not work in the first place.
Sound like a circle of insanity? There’s a reason, it is!
The simple facts are if the comments are relevant to your blog, who cares if the poster or the guy who hired him gets some link juice? Anyone who does can’t see the forest for the trees! The reality is comments make your blog better; they improve your search traffic as well.
I believe all they hype around this is being swelled underground by Google because they hate the dofollow movement! They are trying to kill any paid links or any links a user can easily create or hire someone else to create. Why? Because they can’t fix their own algorithms, that’s why.
This “war on paid links” has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with money, don’t be fooled and stop worrying. The Internet has done fine for a long time now and it keeps getting better, like us or not SEOs are a big part of why
David, finding the reasons for a users comments are certainly interesting. I’m a big fan of commenting on blogs that I read regularly…. but to a degree. Blogs like yours or Derrich’s i’m a big fan of. Something like ProBlogger there is ovbious comment spam. I think that meeting him when i was in NY was huge because it puts a face to a name when i do post on his blog.
I comment on here just because I like to comment. That’s why people comment on my blog, I assume. And that is why I don’t have the “top five/ten commentators” plug in on my blog. I want people to comment because they want to, not for some SEO purposes.
Very interesting article, I believe you get a mix of both. A lot of people have alternative motives and then some people are turly commenting on what you have to say. I guess it’s like with any there is always some bad with good.
- Richard
I like to post on smaller sites where I feel like my voice is really heard. Or at least I think it is. Plus, you may notice I don’t post links to my sites, so you can believe what I say.
sl - I definitely noticed you haven’t put links in your comments the last week or so.
I think it’s best to keep my sites private.
Btw, why is the URL field named URI in the comment form. I noticed that the other day, but never understood why it was like that… :S
Is it just placing a comments on any blog means people should need to recognize you?. I think this is not the only one reason to place comment on any blog infact according to me many bloggers are not at all interested in their identify but more often they are interested in traffic and backlink they will get for their website.
Thanks for the kind words David. I appreciate them. I really enjoy your blog and following your progress. I’ve been doing this a bit longer than you so on occasion I like to try and give back with what I think might be useful advice. One other thing I tried to do was to keep you encouraged. Through my own experience, I know how important this is. Especially when morale begins to flag a bit. Because if you quit then you have no chance at all. I’ve seen it happen a lot and it happened to me in the nineties. On a personal note, I don’t have a blog. If I decide to start one, I’ll let you know.