I hate to break this to you, I’m not sure how to say it nicely so I’ll just come out with it….BEING A TOP COMMENTER ON A WELL KNOWN BLOG HAS NO SEO BENEFIT AT ALL!
When I first started this blog I spent a lot of time commenting on other blogs to get that “valued” followed link. I’ve since stopped. What affect did you think losing all these links would have on my Google rankings? It’s made no difference, sweet FA. My rankings have held steady, many months with no negative effect, if anything I noticed an increase in my positions when I stopped commenting.
So what this tells me is that if you’ve got a blog with the top commenter plug-in enabled that it’s very easy for Google to identify it and discount outbound links. Lets face facts here, it’s hardly the greatest algorithmic challenge in the world to identify blogs that have the plug-in installed. If you can do a Google search to find blogs that have it do you really think that Google would let this simple gaming of their system continue? The fact that it’s a followed link that the page author hasn’t approved means that it’s ripe for Google penalisation.
Of course there are some benefits, you might get a little bit of referral traffic (if your comments are interesting enough) but is it an efficient way of using your time? I don’t think so. If you’re the sort of sad bast…. that spends hours replying to every comment on every post then this is a wake up call for you. Stop commenting on other people’s blogs and spend a little time writing GOOD content for your own instead.
4 Responses to “Top Commenting Doesn’t Work”
Internet Age
November 1, 2008
Very interesting post as you are right, Google would know of simple tactics like this. I used to post for the sake of top commentators now I just post where ever I find something interesting. Its not about the links its about the knowledge and the relationships that we build with others online. Enjoy.
|Frank Carr
December 17, 2008
Google gives less weight to site-wide sidebar and sequential links, such as Top Commentator and Blogrolls, as compared to contextual links in a body of keyword rich text.
Sidebar links are great for getting a new site indexed or to get a relatively small amount of link juice.
Frank Carr’s last blog post..Earn Online Cash by Understanding Search Visitors
|Patrick
August 7, 2010
Might be less about getting followed links and simply about getting extra eyeballs on your site. It is, after all, a very targeted audience.
|Patrick´s last ..WordPress Web Analytics
Paul B
August 8, 2010
Even from the very biggest blogs (Chow, Shoemoney) you are talking about 3-4 visitors a day, that’s if you are in the top couple of top commenter positions. If you think that’s worth you spending an hour or so every day leaving mindless comments then It’s a personal choice. I can do a lot in that hour…
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