Keywords as your name in blog comments, spam or sensible?

Hey,

I can’t stand this rule. Sure, I get it when they keyword is “Viagra” or something just as dumb, but often they are more like “Orlando Vacations” or something. Big deal!

When people show that they take the time to read ya, and they leave a nice, helpful comment, why not let them get something out of it too? Does it hurt anyone to see a signature like “Disney Fan”???? No!!!!! And these rules are being slung out by folks advertising DOFOLLOW. Come on!

Thanks for making my blood pressure rise. lol

:O)

The reason “Hank” that your keyword loaded comments might get deleted is because blogs have what are known as a “comment policy”.

If I follow a link to your site and discover it doesn’t tell me who your are, or anything about you, that it isn’t a blog etc, I am just going to delete your comment most of the time unless it is extremely valuable content.

I clicked through to your site, saw a bunch of lyrics (possible copyright infringement) no clear author details… all in 10 seconds is all it takes, and just hit the spam link.

Stuart, the best way to be is tough but fair - I am pretty sure the first 2 or 3 comments Shawn from Hobo left on my blog I deleted the link but left the comment, because though it was a legitimate link, he was linking through to a company site with what I could determine multiple employees.

It would be like Matt Cutts leaving a comment with “Search Engine” in the comment field, and a link to Google.

Then you get the guys who ask “How do you see nofollow links when leaving a comment” or something similar, on a post you know is on a dofollow list, yet the idiots are linking through to an SEO blog. I think any SEO would have encountered either SEO for Firefox or SearchStatus by now - thus it is automated spam.

Then there are the underlings hired to namedrop their employer’s or mentors blog (yeah I know one guru who gets his students to comment spam for him as part of their free training)

Then you see the search traffic coming in for Dofollow custom search engines - you see their keyword, and their landing page, where they leave a comment.
They are leaving a comment to get the link, they are not leaving a comment and gaining a link as a bonus. I don’t need that kind of visitor

@ Hank - So I’m to assume you don’t have a problem with this?

@ Andy - Great comment! That’s the kind of comment where I wouldn’t care (within reason) what you’d used as your anchor text.

I’m interested in forming a “comment policy”, but not sure which direction I should head with it, which is why I asked for feedback. I think it needs to be a case by case thing. If I think if the commenter is genuinely trying to interact, or has obviously read the post and has an opinion, it stays. (Which is why I’ll leave the Hank’s comment. At least he’s obviously read the post and has an opinion.)

I think very few bloggers leave comments on other blogs purely for altruistic reasons, or for reasons of getting involved in the conversation. How many comments would we leave if blogging platforms didn’t allow us a link? Dofollow or nofollow, we’re all hoping to get something for that comment, be it link juice, traffic, brand awareness, or whatever, there’s always some kind of personal motive involved. Why do you think so many people leave comments on Darren’s blog? He rarely responds to comments, his links are nofollowed, but there’s still a shitload of people reading those comments, and there’s a chance for a little exposure.

I’m particularly interested in your last par. So if you see someone come from a dofollow search engine, they drop an insightful, educated comment, but they use keywords as their anchor text and link to a crappy landing page, you delete the comment anyway?

I always use my name to comment, as I always link to my blog. I don’t mind my regular commentators linking to their various sites from my blog (within reason) but when I see names such as ‘Hair Loss Removal’ as the commentator’s name it makes me cringe just a little (I mean on other people’s sites). Personally I’ll usually change the name used. I don’t want names like that used on my site. I seem to have the shoe seller site owners commenting and so some can pass some can’t. But I also use the dofollow plugin where you can set nofollow for selected commentators, so I’ll use that on comments I feel have been made for the link back and not the comment itself.

I should add a comment policy somewhere I guess. One day..

Hi Stuart,

I strongly agree with your point. Yes, if you use keywords in the Name you should sign the comment with your own name instead.

Why? Blog is a place where people communicate. It’s a Web 2.0 thingy as we know and everyone should respect that. Who would say “Hi SEO Service”?

I myself wanted to insert keyword as Name too. At least that should give me some rank. How many people would search for the name “Binh Nguyen”. Instead they search for “Blogging Help”, “SEO advices” etc keywords” right?

Anyway, the comment policy should be clear and that’s how it works. I think I will need some more time to get through this issue and enforce on my blog too.

For me if I need keyword, I would rather link to the post and get a trackback link which have the full title. This is not very effective because many dofollow blogs don’t return favour to trackback. This is another issue but I say it sucks, trackback should always have some PR value big or little.

Since your opinion on this is same as mine and your blog do follow, can I from now on use some keyword name and sign the comment with my name with a link to my blog?

Let’s see how you go.

Regards,
Binh Nguyen

BTW Stuart,

Why don’t you use “Subscribe to Comments” so I can get update to my comments? If it’s your decision then I have no choice.

But I go back and forth too many blogs a day and can’t keep track of what is up after I comment. So could you do a favour by sending me a short email when my question is answered? Just a link to the post I commented on is fine. Thanks

Regards,
Binh

Stuart I am actually tempted to do something slightly different with people coming from dofollow search engines, playing around with cookies etc.

I am all for people using Dofollow search to find blogs within their topical community with which to interact, but just because you mention Paris Hilton once doesn’t mean you want 100 people visiting your site just to comment on one post to help their celebrity blog rank.

Over the last year I have had 2000 visitors who used dofollow as one of their search terms, but only a fraction ended up as subscribers.

There have also been lots of visitors from Dofollow lists

I have seen a decrease in traffic on the term over the last few months because my blog is no longer listed as highly when sorted by PageRank in the various comment tools, though regulars know that is just a false value.

I see more traffic from the CSE based search engines because that is based upon internal Google data - for those searches I rank highly

Hi Stuart!

I think allowing key works gives readers an incentive to read your posts and definitely encourages feedback. It’s proven a % of these readers will come back and continue reading and commenting. Thanks. David

@ Sarah - I like your idea of nofollowing links you’re not sure about. I might consider that.

@ Binh - You raise an interesting point - maybe after people have left a certain amount of comments, they can then drop a keyword (Although this would be a nightmare to administer). Maybe we need to use our name in the name part, but can use a linked keyword in a signature, like forums?

@Andy - I haven’t seen in action what you refer to in your comment about Paris Hilton. I rank highly for a few good terms, quite be accident. I haven’t seen people come here and comment on those posts in particular.

@ Cuban Cigars - Make hay while the sun shines, dude!

True. The fact that someone takes time to read and interact with what I am writing, he or she is worth of my time. Some may get paid for reading posts and commenting on them but for as long as its relevant and helpful, informative and make sense, why not. What’s in a name anyway.

Interesting Meg.

I think the quality of comments seems to be much higher in smaller blogs as well.

It may be due to the fact that smaller bloggers have more time to moderate their comments more closely, or people who leave them are there for the interaction, rather than seeing their name on a “big time” blog.

Stu, this is the plugin I use - http://www.gregboser.com/dofollow-plugin/. If you’re on WP 2.3+ then you may need to find my comment lower down which has the fix for it.

Well to be honest I always used my name till I read on Courtney Tuttle’s blog about Dofollow blogs and using anchor text as my name being good for SEO. Sure it may be a little shady, and if the blog owner doesn’t like it then they should fully moderate the comments.

Scott