Tuesday 17 November 2015

Comments on Blogs

Whilst researching ideas for a client blog post, recently, I came across an interesting post and commented on it. I added some brief information about my interest, including the url of the client's site which hosts the blog I was working on.

The initial response to my comment was negative, suggesting that the url was a spammy 'plant' for a website link. I can understand this, as I manage several blogs for clients and I think one comment in approximately 200 is genuine. We resolved the misunderstanding amicably, I'm pleased to report, as it's a blog that I now enjoy following, as it has some humorous posts.
"a spammy plant"

All comments on blogs that I manage, whether WordPress or Google Blogger, require approval before publishing. I will sometimes approve comments that are 'planted' as long as they are personal responses that add value to the post subject and do not promote products or services that compete with a client's products or services in the same targeted sales area.

For example, if a client specialises in repairing vintage cars in the UK, there is no problem in a single link to a similar service in New Zealand - or a service in the UK that specialises in supplying (say) tyres for vintage cars - or a service that repairs newer sports cars.

In fact, good comments are to be encouraged, as they demonstrate that the blog is active and is valued by readers. Mass produced spammy comments are usually easy to spot...
  • they often don't make sense;
  • they are usually generic "hey, great blog, I'm looking forward to more..."
  • if you copy/paste a phrase from the comment into a search box, there are often several identical results on other blogs; they are not specific to your post.

Blog writers generally love genuine feed-back, even if it states a contrary viewpoint. Please feel free to leave an individual comment on this or any of The BPc's blogs:


Thank you!