When Disqus first launched, I was a little critical because I like to maintain control of comments, give commenters the benefit of Dofollow links, and ultimately retain control of their user generated content.
I now feel that 95% of bloggers should switch to using Disqus, though I have some reservations.
These are some of the reasons why:-
After my last post regarding Wide Circles I exchanged emails with one of their support representatives, with their message being…
We definitely do not tolerate any kind of SPAM at all
Unfortunately the evidence available to me at the time not just on my own blog but elsewhere, was in stark contrast.
Any legitimate service, if they wanted to get press coverage from an international news publication, might issue a press release, and contact a newspaper through legitimate channels directly, or maybe through their public relations company.
Wide Circles seem to have a different
Dave Naylor seems to think it is a good idea to nofollow blog comments.
In many ways he is right:-
It takes additional time to manage comments on your blog even when you set up Spam Karma effectively, but that is something you could outsource to compensate, or have managed by a more junior member of staff.
You also leak a little bit of extra juice, how much depends on your site structure, and how many comments you get. Some people prefer to have huge blogrolls of the people who buy them drinks at seminars.
I think the biggest gain is in community
There seems to be a new trend with internet marketers running some kind of mentorship or bonus program.
It runs something like this (though I haven't signed up to one to get exact details)
The backlinks are sometimes the link reserved for the comment author, or sometimes product mentions
It crops up occasionally that people want to leave a comment with a reference to a Google webpage or a Google search result.
Unfortunately on a daily basis my server is hit with comment spam with links pointing to Google redirects, or Google subdomains.
Here are some examples:-
Due to all the spam, Google.com ends up on my domain blacklist, and a single URL occurrence will still allow it to be visible within my standard settings for comment moderation, as long there is no other specific penalties imposed by Spam Karma.
Multiple occurrences will end up buried amongst the spam, which is not something
Honestly if you offer a service promoting professional SEO and SEM services, you don’t spam the comments of another blog in the SEO community trying to promote some WordPress themes of dubious quality.
Read more on Sam Casuncad – Unprofessional SEO?…
Spam Karma is one of my favorite plugins and despite rumours to the contrary, it is still being supported.
Dr Dave has just released a new version
New in 2.3 of Spam Karma:
Read more on Spam Karma 2.3 Still The Best Comment Spam System For Niche Websites…
Friday 13th – A Very Bad Day for Comment Spammers
Nice search engine friendly links are a great way to reward valuable members of the community of any blog, but they are certainly not a right, and still find myself deleting 50+ worthless comments every day.
Most disturbing of all though are the SEO consultants and agencies who I have caught commenting on behalf of their clients, or as themselves with a link through to a client’s site. Some of them are totally dumb about it.
I now have a new comments policy in force though most of it is just a clearer interpretation of what has been in place for the last 3+ years.