Comments are one of the most important parts of any blog. If you have loads of comments, it usually shows that you run a popular website and you’re therefore good at what you do. If you own a blog that has no comments, you’re doing something wrong, and it also has a negative impact because it will be less inviting for more people to comment. This article will discuss different things you should consider when you think about the comments section of your blog.
What is a spam comment?
OK, there are some REALLY obvious spam commentators out there. For example, when they put their links in the comment section and nothing else… not even a short comment! The cheek! There are also more discreet spammers. These are the people that will post the ‘good post’ comments that don’t really add anything to the blog. Yes, they might still be nice to receive every now and again, but usually these people are only in it for the advertising, thus making it spammy.
Comment Policies – Yes or no?
- Positives – You should see an improvement in the quality of comments you get. A quality comment is one that helps your blog – whether it’s constructive criticism or a question/comment that will spark further discussion.
- Negatives – Let’s be completely honest here… no one likes rules, although people will usually follow them. The problem is, the people who were probably going to do spammy/generally bad comments will probably not read your comment policy anyway, so is there really that much point?
Replying to comments?
There are some bloggers out there that will reply to every comment left on their blog – I used to do it! Nowadays I will only reply to the quality comments (which I have to say is most – thanks guys!), and I feel that this is a better system. Replying to comments is a great way to increase the comment count on your blog as it shows that you’re a down-to-earth person, that you enjoy the people commenting, and also that you respect the people that are taking the time to comment on your blog. Remember, they’re doing you a favour – not the other way round!
Anything else?
Yes, there are lots more I could go on about that are related to comments (and there will be a pretty cool on the matter soon), but I don’t have time to list them all, so here are a few more tips:
- Install ‘threaded comments’ – This is where your reply shows up right below the commentator you’re replying to. I have it installed on this blog, the threaded comments (replies) are the ones that are indented.
- Highlight author comments – This is a great way to identify yourself (the author) from the other commentators, and is a great thing to install if you get loads of comments as people will always stop skimming to read your reply.
- Use gravatars – having a theme with gravatars enabled is vital in my opinion. It just gives the commentators a bit more individuality and also looks pretty.
Leave a comment!
Yeah, that’s right, please feel free to leave a quality comment below, and I’ll reply so that you can see what a threaded comment is. Lol!
I have to say, this is one of your best posts. You have gone over some really good things in it. I like the comment policy or not. You make an interesting point.
I actually reply to low quality comments, but I give them a low quality one back such as “your welcome
teenwebguru’s last blog post..Two New Link Bait Ideas
Glad you enjoyed the post
I think the things you need to remember when replying to one liners are: (a) they’re unlikely to check back to see any reply you leave, and (b), as Alex says, you’re effectively spamming your own blog!
I believe that rules need to be set, even if no one reads the book. That way, people will know what you allow and what you don’t on your site. Keeping things clear will help avoid any misunderstandings with others.
Héctor | SEO Blog’s last blog post..Comment Policy Updated – Keywords In The Name Field
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment, Hector, nice to see you over here
Yeah, but at the end of the day rules are there to be broken (
), and personally I can’t help thinking that on something like a blog they’re usually not there for a reason. But then I suppose it is a personal choice 
Lately, I have only been responding to the quality comments only instead of the stupid one-liner stuff. But I can’t just leave a “thanks for commenting” to every comment I get that us crap, as I find that I am stooping to their level and spamming my own blog with constant a “thank you”. I will usually thank them, and ask them as a question relating to the article.
Of course 100% of them never get back to me, but it makes me feel better than just saying ‘thank you.”
Alex | Blogussion.com’s last blog post..Blog Optimization Series: Search Engine Optimzation (1/3)
Good point Alex. I like the way you think, dude, very nice way of dealing with those spammy style comments. That said, does it not look bad that you ask them a question and they never reply?
Good advice Simon! You really putting out the good info lately! Keep up the great job. I always enjoy reading your articles.
Keith’s last blog post..Why Not Now?
Thanks Keith, glad you’re enjoying the posts
Very nice Post. I take comments as one of the fundamentals for the blog. Its really necessary to monetize them and deal with the correct comment correctly !
Enk.’s last blog post..Optimize your blog Images for Google Image Search
Agreed! All these blog owners that just ignore their comments or reply to every single one with a ‘thanks for the comment’ are, IMO, slowly ruining their blog.
As far as my personal experience is concerned, when your starts becoming popular enough then your blog will really be loaded with lots of spam comments. I get lots of spammers commenting. Great thanks to akismet. By the way as you mentioned replying to every comments is one of the best way to gain comments. But if the comment is ” Great post ” or something like “good article” its waste of replying to them. Awesome post Simon.
Harish’s last blog post..5 Things That Indicate A Successful Blog And Blogger
Yeah, but the spam I was on about was the more subtle spammers
I do agree that the blogger is wasting their time by replying to ‘good post’ comments though 
Awesome post, Teenius
When I get my blog up I’ll only reply to the good comments. I kind of want to put a comment policy page on it somewhere though… do you recommend this? And, if yes, what shall I put in it?
Personally I’m not too keen on comment policies, but it is a personal decision and if you want one, you should put them up
I think the general thing to say is “no spam” and “no useless comments”, but again it’s a personal thing.
Kewl post Simon!
I would just like to stress on this- Threaded comments now are a must.
I feel comment policies are really not needed tbh.
And I always reply to all the comments. It is the least I can do for the people who spent time commenting.
Farrhad A | The Dollar Diary’s last blog post..Ways To Make Money On Youtube
I agree with the threaded comments point, Farrhad. But, surely it’s a waste of time replying to the “good post” comments as surely they won’t usually check back?
Good points there, Simon. But how could you highlight author comments? Is there a plugin or something?
Not that I know of. The technique is extremely simple though, see here:
http://www.dullest.com/blog/highlight-author-comments-wordpress/
Installing akismet may help reduce some spams. There are many kind of spammers out there. And a hell lot of bots.
Threaded comments is a good feature, I think wp 2.7 has it by default, right?
getadviced’s last blog post..Books for OSI reference Model
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there is an option in ‘Discussion’ where you can set it.
I agree about Askimet. Spam has been a growing problem on this blog so I installed Askimet and now it’s fine. Sometimes it puts legitimate comments in the spam queue, but I can usually retrieve them
Highlighted Author comments is what I am missing very much in my recent blog design. .. :/ because I really like to be distinctive in my comments section as an author of the blog.
Hami’s last blog post..Your Own Simple Twitter Profile Rank Checker
Agreed. I think on smaller blogs (like this) it’s better to not highlight the author comments as it looks better if you interact with the readers (and I feel you can’t do that when you are so different). However, on bigger blogs it’s better to draw attention to yourself as people will usually just flick through the comments
hey bro need help a bit, why my gravatar is not appearing ?? What I am missing !!
Hami’s last blog post..Speedup Defragmenting With Defraggler
- Sign up at gravatar.com
- Add the picture you want to use as your gravatar
- When you comment, use the email you signed up to Gravatar.com with. So, for example, if you signed up with example@google.com, when you comment you need to put that email address in the box
Hope that helped
Well thanks for the quick reply. You rock. Let me see results when this comment get approved. But hey, WIll it update the avatar on my previous comments too ?
Hami’s last blog post..LG KM900 Arena Review
As long as you’re using the same email as before, it’ll update, just give it a few minutes
If you are using a different email to before, I’ll change your previous comments to this new email so that you keep your gravatar and stay on the top commentators list
Glad I could help.
hey teenius, it worked thanks for the help. It really worked.
p.s. looking forward to a post on keywords importance in an article, or I should say how to implement them to get SEO juice. Is it possible ?
Hami’s last blog post..Yappler, Directory of iPhone Applications
SEO isn’t my strong point so it’d be a bit hypocrital of me to post something related to SEO, but I’ll try and find a guest poster who can write on that topic.
Glad you’re please with the gravatar. It looks really cool
Nice post.
Well i see that you guys of word press can play around a lot more then I can at blogger, and its good to see someone like you utilizing all the things at your disposal.
Nobody really comments at my blog, so the question of commenting back is really a moot one.
Cheers,
Velu
i have read this post.
But, yet I have bookmarked, bcoz I want to put it into practise when I start a blog.
Lets check, to what extent you are right