Stop blog commenting for backlinks!
If you’re doing that, your blog might be hit by the next Google update.
Take my words with an open mind and think a little into what I am to say in this blog post about blog commenting.
This blog post is an open discussion with all my readers about the fact that is blog commenting for backlinks or for relationships and I am waiting to hear all your opinions in the comments section below.
Many people think that by leaving a comment on a blog with an URL linking to their website, they are getting a backlink and they’ll get a boost in their rankings.
They’re so wrong!
Back in the days, it was possible – leave a comment on some high PR blogs and rank within few months on the search engines.
But this isn’t possible anymore!
Why?
Most blogs do not allow keywords in the name section; they just dismiss the comment as spam if you do so. Also, with the introduction of no-follow tag, ranking a site with just commenting has become very difficult.
The Difference in HTML Structure between Do-Follow and No-Follow
Now, before I further proceed to the discussion, let’s understand how a do-follow or rather a hyperlink looks like:
<a href=”Your URL”>Your Text Goes Here</a>
However, with a no-follow attribute, the hyperlink looks like this:
<a href=”URL” rel=”nofollow”>Your Text Goes Here</a>
From SEO point of view, this kind of link with no-follow tags is not useful to increase page rank.
The main purpose of creating such type of tag was to prevent people from commenting solely for backlinks and increase rankings in Google. People generally used these types of no-follow tags for outbound links.
BUT, COMMENTING IS USEFUL (IN FACT VERY USEFUL) IN OTHER WAYS.
If I Can’t Build Backlinks, Then How Is Blog Commenting Useful?
Despite the fact these links coming from blog commenting aren’t useful directly, they are still useful.
Why?
To build relationships with other bloggers and build more targeted traffic.
Relationship is a very small word to hear but it takes long time to build it.
If you’ve been blogging for a long time, you’ll understand what I mean to say. However, if you’re a beginner and still don’t understand the importance of blog commenting for relationships, read what Adrienne says – she explains so clearly how relationships win over traffic and how you can benefit from it in the long-term.
When you’re commenting on a blog providing something useful to the discussion and the blogger takes time to respond to your comment, you certainly feel special. You get the feeling that he or she has at least taken the time to reply, even though he or she is a busy blogger.
So, when he or she posts the next day again, you’ll certainly want to contribute your valuable opinions through blog comments, of course only if you have something to say.
Following this method, if you are really contributing something valuable through the comments or joining the discussion, you’ll slowly come to the notice of other commentators and they might take the time to visit your blog some day.
So, even though you don’t get any benefit of backlink, you’re getting traffic.
Read: How to Get More Website Traffic?
Now, when these visitors come to your blog, it’s in your hands to turn them into your regular readers. If you don’t have the information they are looking for and that solves their problems, they’ll leave and never return.
Besides, driving traffic to your blog through blog commenting, you’re also building a slow and steady relationship with the blogger of the blog to which you are leaving valuable comments.
You’re turning into friends and becoming a part of their community.
However, if your sole intention is to drive traffic or build backlinks through blog commenting, then it’s difficult.
Getting traffic to your blog will happen eventually but if you keep your sole aim to communicate with other bloggers and build relationship, then success will come behind.
The same goes on your blog as well. When someone leaves a comment on your blog, you’ve to respond to the comment to build a relationship with your readers and make them feel special.
Traffic is one of the factors Google considers for ranking a site, so even if these backlinks for blog comments are no-follow and does not account for direct SEO such as increasing Page Rank, it accounts for increasing the number of incoming traffic, which ultimately leads to ranking in Google.
However, you have to make sure that you are leaving comments on relevant blogs because commenting on irrelevant blogs will not bring in targeted traffic to your niche and it’ll be a waste of time.
How I Benefited with Blog Commenting?
When I started blogging, even though I read at many sites that blog comments is one of the ways to build backlinks, yet I did not resort to that step.
I started commenting on other blogs simply to form relationships with the bloggers and make friends with them. In fact, I have made friends with many – Sherryl @KeepUpWeb, @harleenas, @JupiterJimFLA, @Lisapatb and many others.
I comment with my real name, so the backlink that I get is with my real name “Mainak Halder” as the anchor text. So, if I were to assume that blog comments would rank me high, then I would be ranking high for my name, not any other keyword.
But will anyone search for my name when they are looking for information?
They will type their specific query, i.e., few words, which we say keywords.
So, if I am to rank high for those keywords, I need to build few backlinks from authoritative sites with the keyword as the anchor text to rank high.
On the other hand, with blog comments, you’re building links with name as your anchor text.
So, I say that you won’t be directly benefitted but ultimately you gain some valuable long-lasting relationships and some valuable readers to your site.
Why you should not leave a comment with keyword in the name field?
You should use keywords as your name to leave comments because Google considers this spammy.
Let’s consider this.
You have a blog and someone comes and leaves a comment using “Dog Foods” as the name.
What will be your reaction?
You will consider it as spam because you aren’t able to connect with the person and identify him or her.
Matt Cutts has confirmed that using name in your real name to leave a blog comment will not be a penalty but it should not be a strategy that you have to leave a certain number of comments every day. This will be then considered as link scheme.
So, what do you think?
Are you blog commenting for backlinks or for relationships? How much have you been successful in building relationships? Have you faced any penalty for building backlinks with blog commenting?
Hi Mainak,
You know my answer to your question in the end- don’t you? 🙂
I am a HUGE believer in building relationships with fellow bloggers, and this is what I learnt right from the start of my blogging career – nothing works better for me. And this happens only when we visit each others blogs, read them, comment and share the posts with others – you build a relationship with the blog owner, which over time turns into a beautiful friendship. This is exactly how I’ve met all my blogging friends – all online.
It’s sad to see so many bloggers leave their backlinks and that’s the reason they comment, and you can make out from their 1-2 line comment about what their intention is. Though I don’t remove their links because everyone is welcome on my blog, but this is certainly not the right way and the sooner they learn the right way, the better it is for them.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Yes, I indeed know your answer and you already knew before that I was about to publish such a post 🙂 but your post on “Are Blog Comments Really Required” and Adrienne’s another post also inspired me a lot and I had to update many parts of this post.
Relationships indeed form a large part of our life in blogging and I know that you started your blog out of just passion which now has turned beautifully into creating many friends.
You’re right, sometimes we get one liner comments which don’t really add value or discussion to the post but they are also welcome. Sometimes, I understand not all may have the words to express but understanding a short one-liner comment from a low expressive people and a spammy comment is understandable.
Good week to you too! 🙂
Mainak.
I selfishly try to build relationships through commenting… With the goal of driving traffic back to my site. :).
Nice post dude.
Well, still that’s nice. Everyone is a little selfish when it comes to competitors and business. 🙂 After all, we all need targeted traffic and reach our goals to survive.
Hi Mainak,
Why thank you for the mention here and you definitely know my thoughts about this topic.
Things are constantly changing all the time pretty much everywhere, definitely here on the internet. So what you said about backlinks not having the juice they once did when commenting is so true. I think it was last year that Google announced that you would have to comment on one particular blog 100 times in order to get the same value from your link that it would take if that blogger mentioned you and linked to your blog in their post.
So if you start building a relationship with that blogger instead of worrying about the darn links then 1) they’ll start commenting on your blog 2) sharing your posts with their friends and possibly 3) mentioning you in one of their posts. Don’t you think that outcome is much better all around?
I had a guy I believe it was last year email me and tell me that his site had been penalized for keyword stuffing in the comment field and wanted me to remove any keywords from his name field in the comment section. First off I delete those anyway and don’t allow them on my blog so thank goodness there weren’t any because I would not have taken my time to delete them for his stupid mistake. Not sure if that really is the reason he was penalized but I had heard that Google frowned upon that.
I think that for the most part people are starting to finally catch on that it’s the relationships that you build with your readers, your prospects, your subscribers and your customers that are going to take you so much further then worrying about backlinks. If you have 100 loyal people supporting you then I think that’s better then thousands of people coming to your blog taking no action steps at all.
Relationships is what people should be focused on so at least you can tell them I told you so if they don’t listen to you now. 😉
Thanks again Mainak for the mention and you have a glorious week.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
Yes, I do know your thoughts and your post really inspired me a lot.
Keyword stuffing in comments is dead because if someone comments with a keyword, it’s difficult to identify with the persona. There are many other ways to get link juice, so why waste precious time in getting link juices with comments? We can all put that time to leaving a thoughtful comment and instigate a discussion with the bloggers and other readers. If the other readers and the bloggers like the comment, then they visit our blog, and if they like the content of our blog, then they are most likely to share it with their community. Getting the word out to a larger community counts a lot these days because Google now considers social signals too to rank a site. So, a Share or Tweet from an authority figure is 100 times better.
Yes, many people are getting into building relationships, but it’s really sad that still many don’t resort to this and are still just out to create backlinks, without a goal. And thanks for sharing a little true story, people should at least learn something from this comment of yours. 🙂
Yes Adrienne, if they don’t listen to me now, hope they do so in the future, but of course, they should listen to you… after all, you are more experienced with your years of hard work behind creating successful online relationships with clients. 🙂
May your week be enjoyable!
Mainak.
Initially I did commenting for Backlinks, as you have mentioned those comments didn’t help me rank higher for my keywords but instead those comments brought me some traffic that came to my blog again and again. You have a very good thought about this author. Keep Posting.
Yes Noor, how can commenting help you rank for keywords. That’s a wrong concept. It’s all about getting some traffic to your blog, but make sure they are targeted traffic.
Hello Mainak,
This is a very timely post for me -thank you. Actually I am a new blogger and Adrienne and Harleena have been instrumental in my growth so far. Just visiting their blogs and interacting with them has taught me so much. I can now add you to that list. I am learning as I go but what I have learned so far is commenting to build relationships do work. Now I make the effort to comment on a select few blogs every day. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Nathaniel,
Welcome to the blog and I am glad that you found this post useful and timely. 🙂
Yes, Harleena and Adrienne are both nice people and my good friends too. And thank for adding me to that list. 🙂
Commenting is indeed for relationships and you can grow a wide readerbase simply by building long-lasting relationships with other bloggers, and I believe every blog needs a loyal readership to exist.
Thank you for coming by. I hope to get to know you more. Have a nice evening..
Mainak.
Thanks Mainak for this article, Your writing technique is really awesome. You gave us a lot of information about blog commenting. Keep up the work