Comments come in a variety of ways. Some comments are quality – they are filled with questions, facts/opinions, suggestions and a lot of other information. Then, there are other kinds of comments. Comments that aren’t so good. Those other comments really have no value to them and don’t offer any openings for conversations in your comments. They could most likely be considered as just barely spam too.
These comments I’m talking about with lesser value will end up on every blog, and there’s not much to do about it. I have heard about people who delete those comments, or never approve them. One thing that I don’t hear a lot of is people creating a page with rules on what you can and can’t do in comments.
I always thought it was an interesting idea – to make rules for your comments. It’s pretty much like how every forum has a rules/TOS page that says what people will and will not be able to post on the site, except it’s for a blog.
I think having a comment guidelines page can be either a great thing or a terrible thing for your blog. I have personally never made rules for my blog posts, but I have gave it some thought and have came up with some ideas on how you should make your rules (if you choose to) and what you should know when making them.
A comment of lesser quality
So before I get into the article, I should be more specific when I say “comments with less value/quality”. Here are a few comments I see as “lesser quality comments”.
- Thanks, nice post: Encouraging, and I’m glad you liked it. But that doesn’t leave much for a discussion.
- Thanks for sharing!: I always thought this was a weird one. I think the word “sharing” should be used when you comment on the post off of the blog (like on a forum).
- A lot of great information, thanks: That’s nice, but I bet that most people who say this couldn’t pick out a single piece of “good information” from an article.
So one-liner kind of comments are what I am talking about when I bring up poor quality comments.
Good to know: DoFollow blog = More comment spam
I’m not talking about the spam Akismet has to clean up, I’m talking about those comments of lesser value I mentioned in the first paragraph of the article. Bloggers get more of those “crappy” comments then they do quality comments. But when you decide to make your blog DoFollow, you will probably notice that you get more comments on your blog – of lesser quality.
So, with that being said it should be pointed out that the bloggers who have removed the NoFollow tag and made their blog DoFollow will usually be more likely to want to come up with rules for commenting. NoFollow blogs get less comment spam because they still have that dreaded NoFollow tag on, and the link to the person’s website isn’t valued by Google the same way it would if it were on a DoFollow blog.
It’s all about the wording
Rules are meant to create a line of things you can do and can’t do. When it comes to writing such rules, you have to be careful with your wording.
Things to watch out for while writing your rules
- Don’t sound too harsh and negative. Point out the negative things that you want to prevent, but also embrace the good things that relate to the negative (there’s always a positive side to something negative).
- Don’t set restrictions on everything. Don’t put a restriction/limit on every little thing that annoys you about what goes into comments. For example, unapproving comments with poor grammar/spelling isn’t something that you should include in your rules because not everyone has great grammar/spelling abilities.
- Keep it short and sweet. You will be lucky if anyone even reads your rules page in the first place, so you have to make sure you don’t overwhelm the ones who do actually read with too much information.
- Information is displayed in a good looking matter. Hold off writing large paragraphs. Break it up, and follow the same posting principles for a regular blog post.
Other useful pieces of advice
Some general tips for your comment rules.
1. Don’t craft your comments: Keep your rules light and simple.
Going back to the writing section, you have to take it easy with your rules. Pull out the biggest problem in your comments section and address them.
2. Only make rules when you get a lot of comments
You really shouldn’t have any rules on your blog if your blog is brand new anyways. But seriously, don’t freak out and overdo it with comment rules when you first start out. Chances are, you aren’t going to get many comments on your blog anyhow. Don’t scare off your potential first commentators.
3. Making your rules page visible
You can’t just expect people to know that you have a comment rules page, you have to show them the link to it. I would suggest you add a link right in the comment form somewhere. Make sure the link is easily noticeable, and PLEASE make sure to make the page open in a new window when they click the link. Sometimes when you click a link and go to it in the same window, whatever you filled out in a form will appear as blank. It will really prevent a lot of people from commenting, so make sure to add target="_blank", or some kind of code that will make this link open in a new window.
Question: Do you have rules for commenting?
Does your blog have a comment rules page? Is your blog even at the stage where you think it’s necessary because you keep getting those “crappy” comments? If it is, have you ever considered putting some rules into effect?
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Good post. Keep up the good work. Very informative! Thanks for sharing!
…Just couldn’t resist on that one. A comments rules page could be useful however I could only see it working on sites that are more geared as ‘community’ sites. Even blogs that have many commentors- if it’s more of fan service to the author or what the author is writing about compared to having a discussion wouldn’t be worth implementing such rules.
This post is giving me an idea though…
Stuart Conover’s last blog post..Friday 5 – Top 5 Blog Posts Of Week Ending On 03/13/09
Haha, you had me going for a couple of seconds there.
I agree with you Stuart, I think if you get like 1-3 comments per post and you set comment rules, then you would just seem like a hard ass blogger and you could very well lose possible comments. =/
Let me know if you make any use of that idea by the way!
Unfortunately amount of quality comments are really less and whenever they come we would love to see the blog of that commentator and try to reply with the perfect words with the same quality.
But getting such kind of comments are really very less … unless and otherwise you have the group of bloggers who love to read each other posts and giving suggestion and all. Seems to me that you have build such group …
and I am part of that …
The one thing people think when they see a dofollow comment form is that they will automatically get some benefits. While that is true, I think there are more benefits than just posting “Nice post” for you to get.
No one really reads or take seriously those short, meaningless comments and therefore get less attention from human visitor (the ones you want!). Opposed to a comment that has a lot of good points and information (pretty much like yours), which will bring in more attention to the link.
I think if you really want to be in our little “group”, you have to at least give us a better name than “????????”!
Seems to me that you blog is not supporting Japanese Text and that’s why this ?????? appeared.
My name is Korasava
Ah, I didn’t know that. Sorry!
Anyways, thanks for commenting Korasava. Hope to see some more commenting from you soon.
I dont think you should discourage anyone from commenting on your blog. They took the 15 seconds to leave a comment i should let it be shown but there link will be a no follow link. Some of the comments may be hit and run comments but it may be some just getting started on your blog community and you want them to stay.
Online Marketing Blog’s last blog post..Free Advertising for your Web site?
I do agree with you, any comment is a good comment (except spam). I am just relating those 15 second comments to how it will effect the discussions in your comments section.
But you bring up an incredibly valid point, these comments can definitely start your community out. But in the long run, are those the only comments you want on your blog?
Alex
I don’t have any comment rules and no intention of adding any. Frankly I think they’re a waste of time and space. I never read comment rules on the blogs I visit and would certainly ignore them even if I did. I’m sure the ‘nice post’ commenters would also ignore the rules.
But then I like to think I only ever make a comment where I have something to add. I enjoy many posts I read without leaving a comment because it would only be ‘I enjoyed the post’ and I’d prefer to find another way of communicating that than leaving a comment. But that’s just me.
It could also be the nature of my blog, but I very rarely get any comments that would fit into your category of ‘lesser quality’.Sure I get loads of spam, but Aksimet does a wonderful job cleaning those up. If it wasn’t for Aksimet I would probably given up blogging months ago!
Ian Peatey’s last blog post..Garbage dump of natural beauty
I see it like this. Most people barely read posts through all the way (if at all), so what makes you think a RULES page will get any more attention!? I just think people do funny stuff sometimes, haha.
Your comments here always have a lot of good stuff in them, and taking the extra minute or so to make your comment great is rewarding, but also respectful too in my opinion.
I have one which I’ll link too in a second.
Alex is right. The MAIN goal of leaving useful comments is NOT the backlink, that’s simply gravy. The main goal should always be to get other reader/commenters to look at your insightful comment and think, hmm that looks like a guy/gal who I should visit.
Blog commenting got me 98% of the 200+ subscribers I have now. The math is pretty simple.
In response to Ian, most won’t read it, that’s true. However simply having it to point to cuts down on many stale arguments over why I did what I did to someones comment. lol
As for my own policy, I thought about it for a long time but laziness won over every time. Once I started having my monthly top commenter contests (with sponsors), it was time. lol
It may be a little “long” for some
but you’ll notice it’s all merely common sense put to paper…so to speak.
http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com/comment-policy/
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Do You Charge For Blog Reviews?
Your case it totally different Dennis. I completely forgot about comment contests in the post. It would have made a good section in the article I bet!
Yeah, you want to have rules if you want comment contests. There are those that go will go through every post of your blog and give one liners just so they can inflate their comment count, kinda unfair in my opinion, haha.
Extra perhaps but not completely different. Like I said, I was thinking of it long before the contests; things just got worse is all.
As I mentioned though, if nothing else it provides a link to those that might get irked at getting deleted.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Do You Charge For Blog Reviews?
In my honest opinion, any comment that is nice and is not spamming a site I am happy to accept.
If they are checking out your site and genuinely leaving a nice comment, I feel no harm in accepting the comment even if it is one sentence or so.
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That’s how I feel, but I know of a few people who really don’t like those one-liners. I guess it’s personal taste, but unapproving comments that aren’t spam just generally isn’t a good thing to do.
Much like Daniel, I’ll approve any comment that is nice. I mean, even if it is a comment that doesn’t really add anything (like the one liners you mentioned), what’s the worst that could happen? Whilst they don’t make a huge impact, they still add one more comment to your blog that can encourage more readers to get involved (I don’t mean that in a ‘I-want-to-get-loads-of-comments-per-post’ way, but if people see others are commenting they’re more likely to leave a comment.
Regarding the point about low quality grammar or spelling… like you say, nobody’s perfect. Infact, if what they’re saying is a quality point that will really add to the blog, I’ll sometimes go through and just clean up their grammar a bit. Sounds a bit picky, but it makes your blog look more professional, and at their time makes their site look more appealing to visit… everyone wins!
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Non Native English Writers… How Can You Get Jobs?!
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