I’m noticing an increasing number of comments that say something like “Hey Great Post”.
While everyone likes to be praised, I am coming to the conclusion that some of these posts aren’t really praise, but merely self-serving flattery. Why? Because in the process of the commenter telling me what a great post I have done, they never seem to fail to place a URL back to a commercial product website.
Clever…(finger taps side of nose), but I think I am catching on.
Akismet (awesome wordpress plugin) does a great job of culling most of the comment SPAM but sometimes it misses these innocuous posts.
However I am tightening my definition of an acceptable comment post:
- It must have content that displays a good knowledge of the post it is attached to.
e.g. “I loved this post especially the part where you mentioned that the best approach is placing some sort of barrier between you and the food”… as opposed to “I love this post. Good work! Keep it up”. - If I Google a comment and it comes up at other sites it’s a goner
- Likewise the author email and website. If you are just into commenting to get a Google booster shot then it get’s deleted, unless it fulfills my comment caveats as posted here
- Unless you contribute to the value of my blog post with further information, adding to the knowledge of the post and thereby increasing the value of the post, then I am unlikely to allow a comment that has a URL pointing back to a commercial website.
( I am aware we all want an SEO leg-up but hey if I feel the comment reduces the value of my Technology & Things Blog then I won’t accept it ) - Drivel can be published in many other places on the internet
- I don’t believe in Evolution, so I’m unlikely to submit my Blog to hundreds of poor comments believing that somehow a good one will come crawling out of the slime of mediocrity. Ubuntu users especially know the pain of sifting through a help forum and having to read a dozen “Me too” posts before someone adds something helpful.
- Good, solid, well thought out comments, even ones containing criticism stay
- I blog to learn, and blog to retain that learning. Teach me something in a comment!
- I don’t always get the details right. Help me straighten them out and the comment stays
- English has never rightly been punctuated with crudity & swear words. Neither will my blog
- Humour is always appreciated. Entertain and the comment stays
- You can definately tell me about Speling errors & tiepo’s.
I don’t generally do what I call opinion blogging (that’s what newspaper columnists and talk back radio hosts are paid to do). However this is my opinion on blog comments. Enjoy!
Wah, harsh policy!
Yes, you are right, some people post just for the link. Perhaps not as bad are the people who wouldn’t bother to post without a link in return, but whom want to voice an opinion about your piece. Such people, myself sometimes included, have a million things to do and need to justify the time taken to post to your blog. So you might have to be a little lenient on some of us :-)
Ok. I take back the above comment.
For the last few weeks, I get multiple comments each day on my blog like:
“Thanks a million for this, I am grateful for the info”
After a while, it becomes obvious they are from some form of automated software tool. Geez its annoying. Some go to more effort to disguise it than others, but its still easy to tell.
So in regards to above policy, I mostly agree.
Thanks for the interesting content James.
That’s why I use a combination of akismet and hashcash to filter most of the SPAM.
If Google is trying to rank your site by subject relevance and all your comment links point to online gambling and flea brained get rich quick sites then you could do your content harm, and devalue it by allowing these aforementioned “We love you man + Link To Rubbish” comments.
As far as I am aware getting listed in page 1 of the search results comes from good content and industry specific link referrals embedded within the context of meaningful content.