It’s very common to get excited when you receive a lot comments on your blog. However, very less people are aware of the fact that all those sugar coated comments may not always prove helpful for you as a blogger. It may also be possible that those nice comments hurt your blog more than giving any kind of benefit. Though there are various advantages of getting comments on your blog but, there are also various disadvantages which remain unknown to most of the lot who write blogs or have their blog sites. If you know about all the merits and demerits of comments received on a blog, it can help you to earn profit by making certain modifications in your comment accepting policies.
Before discussing about the advantages and disadvantages related to the comments on a blog, it’s necessary to understand the significance of comments for any blogger.
Advantages
The primary importance of the comments is for gaining SEO benefits for one’s blog. Any useful comment posted on your blog increases the keyword variation which further makes your blog more accessible for long tail keywords. For example, if submit a blog on SEO guide and people comment on that blog giving description of the modern day SEO techniques like LSI, Social media promotion and Google authorship , it certainly helps the blogger in achieving better ranking for long tail keywords.
Other significance of the comments on a blog is to show that the blog is trustworthy which makes the readers share it. The social media share count of the blog creates a good impression on the new visitors who come to know about the popularity of the blog. However, one shouldn’t forget that the real boost comes to one’s blog only when meaningful comments related to the topic or adding to the information of the topic are posted. After submitting a well researched post on your blog, if you just get a one line comment, that’s just to pacify you or to just give you an acknowledgement. However, if you get a meaningful comment on your post, it certainly helps by starting a conversation or discussion on your blog post
By the selection of the appropriate comments on your blog and to be strict about the comment policy doesn’t mean that you should stop accepting comments.
Disadvantages
The biggest disadvantage of some of the inappropriate comments is the increase of spam. The fact can’t be denied that the addition of blog comments helps a blog in the long run. To take the advantage of this, many webmasters even purchase blog commenting services to increase the number of comments on their blog. However some comments like ‘Nice Post’ or ‘I like it’ don’t add any value to your blog and can lead to the disruption of your outbound link cycle.
To accept all the comments on your blog whether of any value or not are the biggest mistake committed by the bloggers in lure of more comments. So, you should follow a policy to accept only those comments which are posted with real names and not with names like ‘SEO China’ and other false names. If the commentator is genuine, he will certainly understand the significance of using one’s real name rather than opting for any superficial name to comment on a blog.
The presence of irrelevant comments also leads to the loss of genuine commentators on a post as they lose the interest to spend their time for putting a relevant comment on a blog which is already full of bogus comments.
The best solution to get rid of such bogus comments is to implement 3rd party services like Facebook commenting system. With this, the user comments using his Facebook comments and one would refrain from putting such bogus comments in order to maintain their social media reputation.
You can also implement the restriction of commenting by registration only as by this the chance o getting only genuine readers on a site increases to a large extent who add valuable comments on the post. This method has proved to be very effective for eradicating the spam comments as well as controlling the outbound links on a blog.
So, this is a brief description on how the comments posted on your blog can be useful as well as harmful with methods to control them and get only valuable comments on your blog.
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Mushfique says
I realised that I disapprove more than approve the comments in my blog. Of course I love comments, but hey, when some of them are totally off topic, i mean TOTALLY, there is simply NO WAY, i would approve it. I would rather keep my article comment-less than have 40 worthless comments.
( Gotta head back to previous posts to check the comments again :P )
Sanjib Saha says
Thank you Mushfique. Yes sometimes people drop a comment like “hey dude, great article” , well these kind of comments can be treated as spam and should not be approved. These are done just to get back links and nothing else. Thanks for dropping your valuable comment.
Michael says
Unless it’s complete spam, I almost always allow for a comment to be posted on my blog. Sometimes, blog comments help point out additional information and follow-ups for the author.
However, you need thick skin and to be ready to just take criticism from naysayers.
Sanjib Saha says
Hello Michael, Thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment. Sometimes you can make advantages of spam comments too. If your blog is all new i think approving spam comment may bring many visitors. They will take take time to read the content. And after your blog gets reputed you can filter those spams.
Tech84 says
Blog commenting is a great way to reach out to your fellow blogger and show your support, also answering comments on your blog is also a great way to build a community on your site and create some returning visitors.
For me Akismet is enough for filtering out spam, I get like 200 spam comments in 1 hour but thankfully Akismet does its job.
Sciatic Nerve Symptoms says
Blog comments are great and can add real value to your blog post, however as you say the problem with allowing comments is you open yourself up to spam, and i don’t see Google’s recent updates that penalize websites for blatant comment spamming will stop the spammers.I delete around 99% of the comments i receive to my many blogs, i also make use of quite a few spam comments, for example if the comment is related to my post, but is clearly spam as they like to place plenty of links in the comment, i simply remove all the links, change the name and publish the comment.
Sanjib Saha says
Hello
Thanks for stopping by and dropping a valuable comment.
Sanjib
sai krishna says
Very good explanation mate, some times we get tons of spam comments also, we can use akismet plugin to beware of this spam. Thank you for the share.
Sanjib Saha says
Yes Sai, akismet plugin is very useful in this case as this can filter the spams. Thank for sharing your thoughts with us.
Daniel says
Very nice informative article, but here is what I think about the Facebook commenting system.
If you must know, Facebook commenting system does not have a filed to put a website URL which I think may reduce blog comments. I also found lot of people not wanting to comment through their Facebook profile because of privacy concerns…
Social Media reputation ? No, I think its more of a privacy concern…
Daniel says
Typo I meant *field
MIT IT Recruitment says
Blog commenting is a great way to have a chance to read other people’s opinions online. It is a surefire way to get you noticed, and to have relevant backlinks. It is also a great way to form relationships with bloggers. Though there is a risk of spam, it all goes down to proper moderation to filter out relevant comments from bogus ones. Thanks for the great read!
Roy says
SEO’s important from our view but from the reader’s view the primary use of comments is to stimulate discussion, feedback and generate interest?
Depends on your site and type of reader but I avoid Facebook/registration as it puts privacy/obstacles in the way. I love Akismet and GASP which stop the spambots and some human spam.
Comments without a URL I leave alone even if it is just ‘nice post’ – some readers don’t want to write an essay but would be annoyed if you deleted their words of thanks.
Comments with a URL and/or made up name are deleted if not on topic or don’t add to the debate
SEO Reseller says
I do agree that comments need to contribute to the post and to the conversations for them to actually add value to whatever site they’re linking to, and add credibility to the persona that they’ve established. I look at blog comments as one of the effective ways of building a relationship with other bloggers, and a way to build ones reputation to become considered as an authority of a certain niche.= Gerald Martin =
Amit Shaw says
Hello Sanjib Blog commenting has ore advantages rather that disadvantages. So i find it useful. But yes spam part is surely a disadvantage. Amit
Web Design says
I have found this article very helpful, I was about to start a blog website to increase the website traffic. Can you suggest me what strategies I can consider for blog traffic..?
Pavan Somu says
At this point we need to consider only the advantages. Of course spam may be the most disgusting part part of it, we have many benefits mainly link building starts from here :)