Comments on Blogs

[orion_joel]

Hi All,

I know for bloggers, comments on others blogs can be a great benefit for building traffic. However i read an article in the last day or two that mentioned not offering the ability to comment on your blog can give you more credibility initially, with more tech savvy visitors who may look to the number of comments you receive as a indication to how good your blog is.

What are some of your thoughts in regards to this?

[vangogh]

The only reason I can think of for not allowing comments on a blog is if you don't want them. I can't speak for others, but it's never come across as more professional to me to have comments off. The argument about people judging your blog by its lack of comments makes sense, but turning them off doesn't really solve that problem.

Better to work toward building a community around your blog so it can generate comments.

[Marcomguy]

Not allowing comments implies one of two things: either the blogger got so many comments that it became ridiculous, or the blogger doesn't care for the opinions of the riff-raff. :mad:

Unless the blogger is a media superstar, nobody will believe the former scenario applies to him/her.

[vangogh]

That's how I'd look at it too Marcom. I understand why someone like Seth Godin has comments turned off. He'd get so many that he wouldn't be able to keep up with them. For most of us though it would likely come across as not wanting to hear the opinions of others.

I can see turning off comments on specific posts for a variety of reasons, but if you're going to turn them off on your blog it seems to me it's more an article than a blog post.

[KristineS]

I'm not fond of blogs that don't allow comments. I might still read them, but they'll be the first to go if I have to cut down my reading time. Part of the fun of reading a blog is being able to interact.

[orion_joel]

Some good points here. I think it really is a doubled edged sword with benefits and problems on both sides of the blade. The issue i see in either direction is that you either lose and gain at the same time. Without either being a clear benefit.

[vangogh]

What's the downside of having comments? Are you meaning if you allow comments and don't have a lot people might be turned away?

I don't think that's true. All blogs start out with no readers or comments. Instead of turning them off you should do what you can to get more. Ask friends to comment. Find another blogger who can also us some comments and offer an exchange where you each comment on the others blog for awhile. Do that with 2 or 3 people and you'll have a couple comments on every post and also start getting your name out there on other sites.

[bizcard]

Comments on your blog posts allows you to see what other people think whether they agree or disagree to your post. I normally look at people who disagree on my blog post and answer them as much as possible.

[Harold Mansfield]

I have comments turned off on my music blog for many reasons:

1. I post a lot of promotions and I would rather people follow the links for more information, rather than post questions. My goal is to provide information and refer traffic to the main site or affiliate link which are posted at the bottom of every post..

2. Got tired of bloggers and webmasters leaving standard "nice post, good information" comments for the backlink.

3. I would rather people interact with me on Facebook, Twitter, and My Space to build up those communities...and they do.

4. I want it to appear more like a magazine than a blog.

5. My blog doesn't inspire discussion...on posts that are more like articles, about certain people or events, like reviews....I turn the comments on.

My posts are not personal in nature and I don't exactly talk to my readers. I am trying to make it a source of information, not a blog about music, so turning off comments works for me.

On other blogs that I have, or have had, I have always left the comments on.

[vangogh]

On that particular blog it makes sense to keep the comments off then. In general I think they should be on, but there are certainly cases where turning them off makes sense. In your situation you don't want comments so why would have them on. You have other things in place to interact with your community too.

I still disagree with the idea that you should turn them off because you don't want to show how few comments you get.

[Harold Mansfield]

I still disagree with the idea that you should turn them off because you don't want to show how few comments you get.

Yep, I do agree there, although it is very tempting to do that with a new blog..but what you are really doing is actually hindering your ability to grow.

[vangogh]

what you are really doing is actually hindering your ability to grow.

Yep. If the problem is you don't have enough comments, turning the comments off isn't going to help. That just insure you'll never have comments. What I did in the beginning was find a few bloggers who wrote about similar things and were also lacking comments and suggested we comment on each others blogs. Do that with 2 or 3 people and you'll have a few comments on every post and also start getting your name out there on other blogs. Once you start getting a few comments the rest start to follow.

Show of hands. Who here is having trouble getting comments on their posts?

Good. Now that you know each other start commenting on each others blogs.

[KristineS]

I also think there's something to be said for having a few substantive comments rather than a lot of "nice post" type comments.

Comments can add so much to the discussion. I'd rather have a few good ones that further the topic than a lot of inane stuff that leads nowhere.

[Harold Mansfield]

I also think there's something to be said for having a few substantive comments rather than a lot of "nice post" type comments.

Comments can add so much to the discussion. I'd rather have a few good ones that further the topic than a lot of inane stuff that leads nowhere.

Those are just webmasters looking for back links. I hate those, I'd rather delete them and have no comments than let 3 or 4 of those sit there and make my post look boring to other readers.

[Harold Mansfield]

Well ladies and gentleman, here is one time that disabling comments bit me in the ass. Sunday night I caught wind of an altercation at the WMC (Big Dance Music Convention in Miami every year), and posted the blow by blow and commentary on my blog, beating out a lot of other sources.

I woke up the next morning to find that it was becoming the top post on my blog of all time...over 2k views on it alone, with general traffic through the roof. (It's now on it's second day with equal numbers).

Although I picked up some great traffic links, I can't imagine how many comments I missed out on since there are some very strong opinions about the incident.

The Good : Good ad and affiliate link clicks, Lots of links from industry forums, other websites, Facebook, and My Space and a few more Twitter and My Space followers...and a big boost in general traffic. I also noticed a crap load of emails asking for promotion on the blog the last 2 days..which is always a good thing (less work for me:))

The Bad: Although I have engaged in discussion about the incident on Twitter and other forums, I missed an opportunity to interact with readers.

Overall: I still gained, and still got great comments on other sites about the post. the other 365 days of the year, no comments is just fine, but I missed out on a couple of big days.

Oh well.

[vangogh]

Live and learn right. Sorry you missed out on the possible comments, but as long as you learned from it there's no big loss.

[Harold Mansfield]

Live and learn right. Sorry you missed out on the possible comments, but as long as you learned from it there's no big loss.

Yep. I probably still won't go back to comments, since normally I post promotions and events and not "sensationalism", but I can never pass up an opportunity to "pound sand" on her specifically, and she stepped right into my line of sight this time.

BTW, traffic today on that post is even bigger than yesterday:(, oh well, I'll take the traffic and still remain in the shadows, just how I like it.

[vangogh]

You do know you can turn comments on and off on specific posts. Why not turn them on for that one post and see what happens. You can always turn them off again later.

[Harold Mansfield]

You do know you can turn comments on and off on specific posts. Why not turn them on for that one post and see what happens. You can always turn them off again later.

Cause I already stripped out the code that displays the comment box to make room for the affiliate auctions at the bottom of the posts, that's where most of my clicks come from. Did that months ago.:o.

Just went back and stuck it in.

I didn't expect the second day to be busier than the first. I did notice a few new incoming links to the post today, Maybe I'll still salvage a few just for "S's and G's".

Probably screwed the pooch on that one.

Funny, the first thing I thought about when I saw the stats was this post, and all I could think to myself was "Oops".

[vangogh]

Oh. You turned them off in the code. Yeah not quite the same is clicking the checkbox. Do you know how to run a conditional for a specific post? You could do something like this:


<?php
if (is_single('17') ){
comments_template();
}
?>

where 17 is the id of that particular post. That way you can show comments on that post, but not have them show on any other posts.

You can also do


is_single('17', 'post-slug', 245)

Lot's of other conditional tags (http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags) you can use to control what gets displayed where

[Harold Mansfield]

For now I just stuck the original comments code back in the theme files. I like the way that looks though, thanks for that, I didn't know you could do it that way.

[vangogh]

There are a lot of conditionals to allow you to do all sorts of things. Good to look at if you're up for it.

[orion_joel]

eborg, you thought of just "opps" Is one of my very common thoughts. So often when someone tells me about a large mistake or something, my first and often only comment is "opps". Surprisingly it gets so much more feedback then if you go really.

[Harold Mansfield]

Well I learned a lesson. Everything doesn't have to be absolute. I will leave the code in place and turn comments on should I ever write another post like that. Normally I don't.

Removing it was more a tactical move to insure that the auction ads below the post start immediately and that has been working just fine.

Overall it still worked out great, and it was worth the traffic boost which I am still getting today.

[vangogh]

Why not move the ads above the comments then and still leave the comments on?

[Harold Mansfield]

Why not move the ads above the comments then and still leave the comments on?

Honestly, I really don't want comments on that blog. I like it when people email me, use the contact form, or hit My Space or Facebook (and now Twitter of course).

I don't write thought provoking posts, or post that require a discussion, nor insert my opinion into them. This one time was a fluke.

That blog is mainly a source of information and some entertainment. I want them to click the links for more info, which they do.

It's just my preference on that one.

[janiels]

If we really wanted to improve our blogging styles something on our writing, we really need to know the opinion of other people as well and be ready for critics to come for we will surely learn from it, shutting comments off is just like hiding our flaws which doesn't really helps.