In continuation to our earlier blog post on The Art Of Commenting On Blogs we would like to share our perspective on the The Purpose Behind Commenting On Blogs.The user generated content in the form of comments is something that every blogger looks forward to when a blog post is published. As this content is the indication that the post has been read by the visitor and the visitor has found it compelling enough to share his opinion about it.
The main purpose of sharing your views or opinion in the form of a comment is to voice your thoughts about the topic which will carry the discussion further and enrich the post with more knowledgeable information which you may be able to add because of your experience and knowledge about the subject matter.
Each value- added comment adds to the info. about the topic of the post and every reply takes the discussion further. It also indicates the popularity and readership of the blog to a great extent. This mode of interacting with the people in your niche industry and sharing knowledge has been the prevalent even before the people started using social media sites like face and twitter for sharing and interacting with each other.
Comments on the blog give an idea to the blogger about his style of writing and encourages the blogger as blogging is not only putting forward your opinion but also being open about listening to other people’s opinion all over the globe which may generate fresh perspectives and ideas about a certain topic by initiating conversations and discussions by way of comments and replies. This can be between the blogger and the readers or the readers amongst themselves.
Each valuable comment is a contribution and shows respect for the blogger as it proves that the visitor to your blog who may have reached the blog via whatever media, whether he is a new or a repeat visitor he has spent time in adding to the content and proving that he has read the post. Hence the metrics like the no. of comments on the blog, no. of visits (new and repeat – as more no. of repeat visits to the blog indicates that people want to come back to the site again to read more about what is the latest being shared by the blogger on his blog) are important in judging the popularity and acceptability of the blog in that niche industry .
But just like every coin has two sides, people instead of these objectives behind commenting are resorting to comment spamming just like we had the keyword spam and the link spam.
What is comment spam and how can the blogger help to avoid such a spam?
According to Google on http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=81749
Comments are a great way for webmasters to build community and readership. Unfortunately, they're often abused by spammers and nogoodniks, many of whom use scripts or other software to generate and post spam.
If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam.
Here are some ideas for reducing or preventing comment spam on your website.
· Turn on comment moderation
· Use "nofollow" tags
· Disallow hyperlinks in comments (Or have a Link Policy)
· Block comment pages using robots.txt or META tags
· Think twice about enabling a guestbook or comments
· Use a blacklist to prevent repetitive spamming attempts.
· Add a "report spam" feature to user profiles and friend invitations.
· Monitor your site for spammy pages.
Blogs are usually created for sharing , expressing and voicing certain thoughts, opinions and information to reach out to more and more people , comments on the blog prove that this exercise has been fruitful and has a multiplier effect on the outreach. Every valuable comment benefits the blogger and commentor but only if the true purpose of blogging and commenting is kept in mind while commenting.
