Are You A Comment Whore?
Filed in Building Traffic (Blogging 201)
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We all know that commenting at other blogs is a great way to get to know fellow bloggers. Those kind of contacts often turn into quality incoming links to our content as well as our blog’s front page.
Participating in the comment section on some blogs often produces a steady stream of traffic as other readers grow curious about what else you have to say. This is doubly true for those blogs using the CommentLuv plugin, which displays the title of your most recent blog entry beneath your comment.
But there’s a point — and I have one commenter on my various blogs who’s about to reach it — where it becomes obvious that a person’s not leaving comments in order to participate in the conversation. They’re whoring for traffic, and like any uninvited whore who shows up in search of business, they’re annoying… if not downright repugnant.
Most times, you can tell comments of that sort in a glance: they say very little in response to the actual entry, and more often than not they reference something they wrote on their own blog. As in: “Oh, I know how you feel. I blog about that all the time, too”… or “I’ve gone through this too. That’s why I wrote about it on my blog the other day.” (Sometimes they’re even rude enough to drop a link to their entry in the comment section, too.)
If you’ve got CommentLuv installed you might even notice that they often time their comments to coincide with a traffic-enticing title on their most recent blog post: “Enter my contest!” or “Giveway To Commenters!” or some reference to their body parts.
So, is it a good traffic-generation procedure? I don’t personally know, being one who doesn’t engage in the practice. I can only assume that it must work, otherwise the commenting blogger wouldn’t continue such labor-intensive efforts to gain traffic, right?
But the real question is whether it’s a good thing to do, and I’d have to say that if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger, it’s a practice you should avoid. Why? Because every time I see a comment of that sort it stinks of desperation to me, and it turns me off to ever linking that particular blog in the future. After so many times, it also makes me inclined to simply remove the blogger from my list of links altogether, and to start removing their links from the comments they leave, too.
I know I’m not the only one who feels that way, too. How do I know? Because the comments about a blog don’t always occur in the comment section. Sometimes a blog’s reputation is made or broken in back-channel email conversations between one or more bloggers who are also sick of such practices.
Want to gain traffic by commenting at other blogs? Great, go ahead and do it. But do it in such a way that you’re contributing to the conversation at the other blogger’s site, not merely whoring for your own advantage. Anything else is likely to backfire on you because, really, no one likes getting ripped off by a whore.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Building Traffic (Blogging 201). Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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- Karen
Uh oh.
Ditto Lincoln.
Anne’s last blog post..Terry Pratchett Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
It wasn’t me!
Amanda’s last blog post..Horton, The Whos, and Us
I am terrible about commenting on other people’s blogs and responding to comments. Which is a great segway my response to comment you made on my blog. I really appreciated you taking the time to comment that was awesome and I hope that you will keep in touch.
Blueskelton’s last blog post..Chapter 27 Movie Trailer
You said whore on your blog. I’m telling! I don’t get this much, though I get the more common nonsense of just looking for a linkback. I’m beginning to get a little harder with those than I have been in the past, especially the keyword name that was left on the post right above where I ranted about that same thing.
And I did receive a magazine article length comment on a post yesterday, It was vaguely related, but I still haven’t decided what to do with it.
FTR, on one blog my latest post is a giveaway, so I am leaving the other blog’s address here, LOL!
Cass’s last blog post..Editor in Chief
I know, I know: this was supposed to be my one family-friendly blog. Doh!
I get annoyed with the comments from comment whores too! Luckily I have my comments set for me to approve them before they are published.
Stefani’s last blog post..Do You Hate Comments On Your Blog?
Well, I ain’t gonna lie, I’m a comment whore on 2 particular blogs because they send me huge surges of traffic.
I wouldn’t do that to you though Kate. I genuinely enjoy ALL your blogs! Sometimes my comments are short though since I usually have a toddler sitting in my lap trying to type the same time as I am.
Really, I don’t hardly comment on any blogs now that I think about it. I just don’t have time. Maybe when my little one goes to school in about 4 years!
Lori’s last blog post..What this ProBlogger Mom Does in One Day
Hey great post. Now if you would only visit my blog at http://www...
Just kidding. Anyway, I have to admit I am a bit of a comment whore but I always try to contribute something useful to the conversation. If I ever saw someone putting up a hollow comment, I seriously would consider deleting it or marking it as spam.
Andrew Ooi’s last blog post..Alexa redirects works!
I’m beginning to do just that, Andrew. I can’t stand blogs with moderated comments, so I’m not going to adopt that approach with mine. But you can bet that I’m deleting the comment whore stuff whenever I find one.
i never knew this kind of stuff existed. i’m sorry you’re dealing with crap like this!
i’m here by way of lori!!!!
It’s annoying, but yes, it exists. Fortunately it only takes one post like this every few months to get the madness to stop for a while.
Welcome, by the way!