One of the new topics I missed while on vacation, that’s been picked up by a lot of bloggers is a company offering to make comments on your behalf for a fee. Going through my feeds, I first saw it here on Problogger, but quite a few others have posted on it, and none have been complementary.
The idea is basically summarised as:
- Many blogs (including this one) offer ‘DoFollow’ on comments, meaning you receive a small benefit from leaving a comment with a link to your site in your name.
- Leaving a sufficient number of comments on a large number of DoFollow enabled blogs, will benefit your SERPS (Search Engine Ranking Position).
- To save you the trouble of making these hundreds of comments, and to avoid getting caught in spam filters, this company will make relevant comments on blog posts using your chosen anchor text.
- It will cost from $19.99 for 100 comments up to $199.99 for a thousand comments left on your behalf.
Classy.
This is quite troubling, as it makes the job of spotting spammy comments almost impossible - indeed, if they are relevant to your blog post, are they actually spam? If they contribute to discussion, does the fact that they were bought and paid for, and not actually written by the stated author make them legitimate?
The consensus is ‘no’ and I’m happy to go with that, simply because they are not reflecting anyone’s true opinion, and I have already removed dozens of ‘human-generated spam’ comments in the past, where they were obviously written by a person and based upon my post, but were transparently left to provide a link to a product.
Paranoia
If this service takes off in anyway, it will certainly cast suspicion over a lot of comments left on blogs: since the DoFollow movement was started, more people are using anchor text within their comments, which I’m generally happy with, as I want my comment leavers to get the link benefit, and if it improves their SERPS for a particular phrase, all the better. However, I prefer text like: “david airey :: graphic designer“, as it tells me who it’s from, as well as using their preferred text to the likes of ‘MAKE MONEY ONLINE!!!’ which does sound rather spammy. If I recognise the blogger who left the comment, I’ll leave it be, but I would prefer something like ‘Make Money Online-with John Doe’ as it is a little more personable.
Given the level of paranoia this new ’service’ may engender, people will have to be more careful with their chosen anchor text.
Value For Money?
The big question for those willing to pay for these comments though, is ‘is it worth it?’. There has to be finite time span for leaving these comments, and you have to wonder at the level of quality your 1000 comments will contain. Lets be honest, if I gave you $200 to leave 1000 comments on at least 500 blogs within a week, could you do it without falling into vacuous one liners? And just what value will your SERPs get from 1000 blog comments anyway? To be honest if I had $200 to spend on blog promotion, I’d much rather give $130 to Andy Beard for this kind of quality review and use the remainder on adsense, TLA or some more Paid Posts from decent bloggers.
The man behind this scheme is Jon Waraas, who in his own words is ‘not very ethical’ which really tells you all you need to know.
I don’t need to ask whether or not you would pay for comments, but I’d love to hear what you think of this scheme, and what (if anything) can be done to identify these comments.
Blogging can be hard work sometimes…..
19 users commented in " Just Why Would You Buy Blog Comments? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback[...] Just Why Would You Buy Blog Comments? Leaving a sufficient number of comments on a large number of DoFollow enabled blogs, will benefit your SERPS (Search Engine Ranking Position). To save you the trouble of making these hundreds of comments, and to avoid getting caught in … [...]
I’ve recently seen an increase in comments of this sort on my own sites, and I tend to mark them as spam. I love to get comments, and want to encourage people to post, but posting on my site with links to sites that either a) are clearly not yours or b) are not the sort of thing I want to link to, just isn’t on.
I would think the search engines would be able to figure something out if all of a sudden you have 1000 new links in less then a week. I would never use this product because there is no way to know what they are going to post. They could post something on topic to the post, but could be actually the opposite of what you have posted in the past. The comments left are a reflection onto you and your site. In the blogosphere, your reputation is all you have!
While I could see why someone would be tempted to use the service, I would be wary precisely because I would doubt the quality of the comments. Chester makes a valid point as well: If I paid someone to leave more in-depth comments on my behalf, would they respond to posts the same way I would?
And if other bloggers find out that you’ve been paying someone to comment on their blogs, how does that affect your reputation? Doesn’t bode well all the way around.
Hi Chris,
I’m glad that you don’t mind my comment signature, and thanks for the extra link in your article text.
I’ve changed the name of my site from David Airey :: Creative Design :: to David Airey :: Graphic Designer, so my comment signature is as relevant as possible. I do sometimes wonder what people think when I use it.
Your idea for a review by Andy is a good one. With the amount of depth he goes into it’s money well spent.
I for one am sick and tired of them.
Yes, the comment is relevant to the post, but the link is to some weight loss site or credit cards, etc.
They are working off of the ‘do follow’ lists that legitimate bloggers have published.
I delete them as soon as they come to my inbox. It is getting to be a royal pain.
I guess those people who buy comments just don’t get it, why buy when you can using software traceback all the blog if you really what to cheat? Oops, did i just say that.
Anyway, dofollow really leave a big hole for spam there, i prefer top commentators. And you can’t buy building relationship using blog comments, can you?
I’m in the process of writing a better dofollow plugin. I showed the admin panel for the one I wrote over the weekend which I’m testing and solicited comments & suggestions. Lucia’s Linky Love
Andy Beard, Anna, Tricia and I discussed the issue of “names” in the comment box at some length. It seems everyone has a different point of view.
Like you, I do want to see the name of an actual human being in the box. The SEO term and nothing else really bugs me.
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At the rates they’re talking about, I have the feeling that English may not be the primary language of the paid commentors. Not only are blog comments up for sale, but so are stumbles.
I think we’ll be able to spot these comments because they will not add anything of value to the conversation, much like the comment spam we have now. They will be too short, too disjointed, and contain wildly inappropriate links. I also bet they will be fawning and flattering, rather than substantive, counting on how people love to have their egos fed.
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Everyone above have pretty much said it all. I do have a mixed feelings about people leaving comments with the seo word and it is hard to actually identify the person unless they are a regular.
But, if it helps the SERPs, Chris your suggestion and Michaels name above are the way to go.
I for one cant wait to see where this idea leads us. It should be interesting!
Thanks all
If you follow Andy Beards pingback above, he makes some good points on how paid comments can be a good thing depending on how it’s done. That’s true as the same can be said about paid posts.
The problem I say with low value services like the one I’ve written about is that it can spoil the party for everyone - it can spread paranoia, and make people begin to question the comments they receive, and could lead to genuine commenters who like using an anchor phrase being tagged as spammers.
If in doubt, I tend to leave comments as I wouldn’t want to delete a genuine one, but these services could alter that.
[...] Just Why Would You Buy Blog Comments? [...]
you can buy comments! thats new to me -_-
Why would you buy blog comments?
I think if people blatantly advertise, for example by putting in their name as ‘Cheap Vi agra’ that is a spam post, even if their comment was relevant and to the point. And also if I don’t want a reader to click on that link then the comment would have to go.
I don’t see the value in these mass commenting as whoever is marketing this way will probably just end up getting their site sandboxed anyway.
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