subject: Is there Value in proper blog commenting? [print this page] Is there Value in proper blog commenting?
First off, it is important to understand why we should comment on blogs
Because, in many ways, commenting on blogs is a way to create awareness of your presence within the same niche market as the blog your commenting on. Think of it as a first impression, and being so, your comments should be thoughtful and insightful. And show that your opinion adds value to the topic. This is not only a first impression for the readers of the other blog, but for the blog owner itself. Not only do you have the chance of generating new readers interested in your topics, but you are also opening a door to a possible business partnership with the other blogs' author.
There are a lot of people out there who are only commenting on blog in order to generate a large quantity of backlinks. But there is a big flaw in this behavior. Most blogs implement a NoFollow commenting system, and this means that this form of backlink does not impress search engines. You will not reap search engine rewards from NoFollow commenting. While it does offer the search engines a way to crawl your link, you are not given any benefits from NoFollow links
Quickly, lets cover exactly what NoFollow and DoFollow links are.
NoFollow links are backlinks that are coded in a way that tells the search engines not to follow them, while most search engines will still follow the link and index the site the link points to. The NoFollow link does not pass any of the link juice, or Page Rank value from the site the link is posted. You will not see a boost in your own PageRank, no matter how many NoFollow comments you make. They are hollow from a search engines standpoint.
DoFollow links however, are not like that. DoFollow links are crawled by search engines just the same as the NoFollow link, but they come with the added bonus of passing some of the link juice from the originating site, on to your own page rank. This means, a DoFollow backlink from a high page ranked site (in your niche of course) is going to carry more weight when calculating your own page rank, than a DoFollow from a lower Page Ranked site.
And this is all for a very good reason. Back in the day, all backlinks were DoFollow. And all Backlinks passed on some of their own link juice to the site it was linked to. And this was all well and fine, but what happened was spam. Lots and Lots of spam commenting in order to generate huge numbers of backlinks. This means that even the worst site out there could rank very well in search engines, as long as the owner took the time to comment on blogs. In fact, the blog commenting system was the main culprit in the backlink spam. And thus, NoFollow was implemented.
So, what should you consider "Proper Blog Commenting"?
Bottom line is there is no real rule as to what proper blog commenting is. Other than telling you that a proper comment would consist of a well thought out opinion of the blog or the blog article. Something that shows you took the time to read some of the blog and to form an opinion about what you read. And then took the time to inform others what you feel about the article.
Writing "Nice Article", or something of that nature serves no real value. All it tells the readers and blog author is, you really have nothing at all to add to the conversation, and in turn, why should they bother taking any time out of their schedules to visit your blog? You have already shown that you don't have anything to add. Nobody is interested in that, and nobody will be interested in your blog. So, now not only have you wasted your time creating a link that will most likely add no Page ranking value, but you have also shown the readers of the blog that they do not need to bother visiting your blog.
Another thing that proper blog commenting means is, you are commenting on blogs that are related back to your own personal blog that you are creating a link for. Creating a link for a car audio website on a blog about fish is irrelevant and down right useless. Many blog owners would moderate this type of comment. And even if it is not moderated, search engines have no interest in this at all. There is no relevance to your blog. It comes off as a very unnatural link and has just about the least amount of value a backlink can have. The readers of the blog have no interest; they are there to learn about fish, not car audio. Very few people will take the time to follow your link.
And that really should be your primary goal when blog commenting. Not the search engines, not unless you are out to comment on DoFollow blogs. Your main objective here is to tap into a new group of readers who may be interested in your blog.
So, I hope this helps you in understanding why it is important to practice proper blog commenting. And while you may not be able to increase your page ranking by much using blog commenting, you do have a great opportunity to generate new, focused traffic to you blog through the link you create with commenting.
