The value of leaving blog comments
Posted December 9th, 2008.
If you’ve spent a little time researching the various methods of promoting your website you’ve probably found that leaving comments on high page-rank blogs no longer directly benefits your sites rank.
With the introduction of Googles nofollow tag, gone are the days when posting a simple ” thanks for writing a good post ” scored you a quick back-link.
This isn’t to say that leaving comments is no longer useful for your own promotion. Many people view blog commenting as a link building exercise only but there is much more to be gained than a single back-link.
Comments left on popular blogs may be read by hundreds or more likely thousands of people, especially if your comment is near/at the top. If your comment adds to the discussion at hand, perhaps you’ve written a blog post of your own that people can glean some information from, you’re bound to receive some traffic from it.
If you frequent the same blogs, quality comments can also help build a rapport with the blog author, potentially paving the way for some joint ventures in the future.
Comments are a permanent fixture on blogs and should be treated as such, write your comments for the long run, not just a quick link.
How often do you comment?
If you’ve got something to say, do you take the time to say it?
I’ve been noticing a recent surge in bloggers removing the nofollow tag. I for one dofollow my comments. At least the ones that have something interesting to say.
Travis,
I’m nofollowing my links at this point to ( in theory ) cut down on spam. I don’t mind rewarding someone for commenting, I have the CommentLuv plugin for that.
Having said that I still delete 60+ spam some day, obviously a lot of that is automated but who knows how much spam the nofollow actually prevents.