Quick! Before anyone sees how sad and lonely your blog is.
I’ve just read an article on how to increase blog traffic, where one of the tips is to not allow comments until you have 100+ feed subscribers and 750 unique visitors a day.
O Rly?
So I should just delete the 2000 odd comments I’ve had on this blog, because they show it for the low traffic sad act that it is?
Now the blog that posted this has the stats to back up it’s status, and this advice will no doubt work in certain niche’s where community is less important than traffic, but this kind of blanket advice could spoil things for new bloggers before they even get started. Personally speaking, I very quickly get bored with blogs that don’t offer comments as there’s simply no interactivity-I don’t subscribe to them, and I rarely revisit. Maybe that’s just me?
When you see a blog with few comments, but half-decent content are you more likely to think:
a. ‘Ah, a new blogger, I’ll drop them off a few comments to get them started’.
b. ‘What a sad waste of space this is - I’m not leaving a comment here, nor ever coming back again.’
I’ll happily subscribe and comment on a new blog with few comments, if the subject interests me - I remember what it was like to be there. Additionally, a couple of blogs I posted on months ago when all was quiet, have gone on to bigger and better things, and in fact every blog I’ve been reading for any length of time has shown an increase in comments - and that’s what it’s about, giving it time.
Switch off comments? Don’t do it people…..
14 users commented in " Switch Off Your Comments! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI personally think comments should never be disabled, but people turn it off because of spam and hate comments. I guess if you have hate comments in the beginning, you get demotivated, maybe that’s why they recommend turning the comments off.
What’s a blog without comments? I’ve never had hate comments, if I did I’d just delete them and keep the nice ones - what’s the problem?
I must admit I’d just laugh at ‘hate’ comments and ban the losers. Life’s too short.
This article was actually coming at it from a traffic building point of view: Having few or no comments would put other people off, so don’t show how new you are….
Comments are important. Don’t switch it off! They not only create a community but increase traffic.
Comments tell me when I have said something interesting or provocative. If you don’t want comments just go private viewing. We gain our readers one at a time. Not everyone wants to join right away.
That is some strange advice. While there may be some decent reasons to not have comments on blogs, that certainly isn’t one of them.
Chris,
You’re not talking about SEOMoz’s 21 tactics, are you?
If so I think Rand was mainly talking about the optimization of corporate blogs.
Interaction between the customer and the company is useful but most corporate blogs seem to be only used for SEO or news-update purposes and very seldom for directly reaching out to customers.
I do also think that keeping comments open for anything other than a corporate blog is quite important for interaction, regardless of the traffic level..
Possibly Maki
I thought it would be a good conversation piece 
He may be right, but I don’t go for the explanation - a low comment level doesn’t put me off a blog, but I agree that there are some blog styles that don’t need comments.
Some blogs go well without comments - forces people to leave trackbacks - which in turn forces people to write on their blogs about you to start discussions.
I totally agree with you Chris . While starting a blog , they enable us to get the conservation or a debate going which can be quite useful .
I think comments are pertinent and if the comments are constructive, or offer other ways of looking at things - can only enhance the authors’ articles. I’m not put off when people don’t comment - my ego is just fine where it is.
I disagree with many who have commented here. While I had never before thought about switching off my comments, I realize that a few of my blogs do not lend themselves to comments, while others do. Whether this is a good idea or not depends on the nature of the blog.
Cheers guys, some good thoughts from both sides of the argument, which makes for good reading for me.
I do agree that some blogs can run without comments, but I wouldn’t like a brand new blogger to stumble across the tip and think it’s a hot one for generating traffic. You have to be a damn good writer for your posts alone to drive traffic without interaction, and 9/10 new bloggers aren’t that good-myself included.
Other than the companies that use their blogs as an announcement board, I don’t see why anyone should turn off comment in their blogs.
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