Blogging Ethics 101b – Commenting

Feb 20, 2008
12 Comments

Ethical

Commenting is a great way to drive traffic back to your blog and network with other bloggers. In fact, that is ALL it does. Links in comments do not affect your search engine rankings, as 99.99% of them will not be seen by Google (it’s called “no-follow” and it’s code your blog automatically adds into links placed into the comments). By commenting, I have met many wonderful people online, and I’ve been hired as a blog consultant by people who read my comments on other blogs.

Commenting on other blogs causes comments on your blog, too. If your comment really stands out, people get curious about who you are and they visit your blog. This is ethical and how it’s supposed to go. It’s a great way to meet people online. Before all this social media stuff started happening, blogs were (and are) a form of social media because of comments. You have to approach commenting like you do blogging: be real, say something worthwhile, provide value.

Unethical

Automated spamming of comments is the bane of the blogosphere. Paying people to leave comments for your blog on other blogs is unethical. Search keywords in the name box of comments is a hallmark of comment spam, which means that you shouldn’t use them that way, either. Just use your name. If your comment is interesting enough, people will click to see who you are. You don’t want to do anything that even appears similar to spam tactics. Another tactic that will make you look like a spammer is leaving lots of short, worthless comments that aren’t interesting just to get your link out there. If your comment isn’t interesting, nobody’s going to click on your link, so what’s the point of that? Spammers leave comments like “Nice Post, I’ll read it for later saving thanks!” Your comments should not sound anything like that.

Links in Comments?

Is it okay to ever leave links in a comment? Yes! But… HARDLY EVER. On the slim chance that your link would add to what’s going on with the post and the comments, and if you can do it so that you don’t look like you’re just using someone else’s blog as your own personal advertising space, then go for it. Do it and be bold about it. Otherwise, JUST DON’T. If you have any doubt, don’t do it. Just leave the best comment you can that adds value to the conversation and gets people curious about you. That’s all you need to do.

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  • Hello guys!

    I do use the SezWho on my site: http://cij.inspiriting.com.

    Why did I use it? It's a long story:

    1. As in "Links in Comments?", I do leave links to my site on comments. *MOST* blogs do not mind and have no problems with it. On my part, I do make sure I do contribute positively. But there's *ONE* site (a commercial investment newsletter) who do not like what I did. Was I spamming? According to the feedback of my readers, the answer is *NO*. My readers appreciate the comments *AND* links that I placed on that site.

    2. To cut the long story short, that site behaved rather unprofessionally, which is ironic because they're a commercial business and I am just a blog.

    3. So, I decided to use SezWho to lead by example. If someone posts worthless comments on my blog, then I'll let the community censure that person.

    How do I find SezWho?
    So far, I like it. Everyone, including myself have a score that reflects the value of my comments. Those with higher scores will be given higher weight in their vote of other people's comments. For example, if I have high aggregate score for my comments, then my vote for other people's comments will carry greater weight. The good thing is, SezWho is smart enough not to let anyone vote for their own comments!

    Personally, I would encourage blogs to use SezWho. You can register a SezWho profile which is valid across all blogs that uses SezWho. This is good because if you consistently give good comments, you'll be rewarded with higher score. But that will work if every blog uses SezWho.

    Just my 2 cents worth of opinion...
  • @ Eric - The only regulation I feel that I need is Akismet for spam protection. I like for comments to be as personal as possible (not in the intimate sense, mind you!). I also like to have control over my own stuff.

    In some cases, I trust other companies enough, like Google for analytics and FeedBurner for feed redirection and tracking. But none of the third-party commenting services seem strong enough to be trustworthy. I wouldn't want one going under and taking all my readers' precious comments with it.

    Now, having said all that, I have no experience with SezWho, so if anyone does, your take on this is welcome: please let us know what your experience has been.
  • Have you considered using those commenting web apps like SezWho? They are supposed to help regulate comments and stuff on a blog. I've never actually used them before though, because I have never encountered a commenting problem before.
  • @ Dave - Yes, how about that? I've started using a teleprompter, so I just write what I'm going to say anyway.

    I grew up in Northwest Indiana, the home of perfect accent-less anchorperson English.
  • Ooohhh check it! Dude! You went up about 12 notches in my books today.

    Here I am, with a video. Oh god, I hate videos. Text all the way. Okay, well, there's text, so I can get at least some of the story. Maybe half if I'm lucky.

    Then I'm thinking, alright. I'll break. Just this once. Does Michael Martine have an accent? I had to know.

    I was thrilled to learn that I didn't miss a *thing* by not watching the video (this is good, wait, it's coming...) and that there was no itty bitty secret bit of vital information or hoop jumping that I had to do to connect on your blog.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you for offering TWO mediums for people to enjoy - WITHOUT cutting either of them short.

    (And no. No funky cool U.S. accent. Drat.)
  • This could be called, "The Definitive Guide To Commenting"
  • @ marti -
    so in the end, it defeats their purpose anyways


    Exactly. BTW, I dig Chris Brogan. Great stuff from that man.
  • Hi Michael, that's an excellent mini tutorial on commenting. I look at comments as a way to interact with people I respect and admire on the net or as Chris Brogan might say... to interact with the blogging Rockstars, people I'm trying to learn from.

    It's not that difficult to get attention if you're contributing positively to the conversation or adding something of value to the discussion but...

    It's just as easy to make a total a--hole of yourself with comment spam or pointless comments(i.e. nice post).

    The thing is, most people learn to ignore the "social networking a--holes"(we're all too busy) so in the end, it defeats their purpose anyways. Later...
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