Easy Cash… Or Comment Trash

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If you’re one of the bloggers who’ve installed the “do_follow” plug-in (which passes PageRank to commenters URLs), you’ve probably seen a surge in the number of senseless comments left by people who obviously aren’t regular readers. Did you know those comments might actually be paid links?

That’s right: some people are making money via link-building services using blog comments, and they’re making anywhere from $1 to $15 per link. On your blog. The attraction is obvious: not only do the companies paying for such links get a “do_follow” link, but they get one that’s likely to be permanent.

The downside for bloggers is obvious, too: it might look to human readers like you have a popular blog thanks to the high number of comments your entries receive, but search engines may interpret those subsidized comments as paid entries and penalize you.

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3 Comments

Comment by pam

2008-05-22 16:13:05

Wow! I’m glad I don’t have that plugin! Hey, that’s a first….

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Comment by Don

2008-05-22 17:22:48

I don’t think SE wold do that; and i haven’t come across a scenario yet that has stated so.

Though as long as the comments are related to the post I don’t see why the SE will slap you or the commenter for it

Dons last blog post..Update - Mid May

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Comment by Kate

2008-05-23 15:41:23

As Matt Cutts explained back when Google began penalizing paid links, part of what they look for is an unnatural surge in backlinks for a site. If that’s the case then a link brokering campaign carried out in blog comments could very well harm a blogger.

Cutts has, however, also said that Google tries not to penalize links over which the blogger has no control. There are some who’d argue that the comment section would fall in this definition, while others would say that having the ability to moderate comments means the blogger can, in fact, control them.

So it really could go either way.

One thing I have little doubt about: if the links are to a site in a “bad neighborhood”, SE will penalize them.

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