Blog Commenting Question Off Page

[pulseseo]

While blog commenting, many people tend to use their 'anchor text' when asked to provide with their name. Hyperlinking anchor text inside the blog comment is perfectly understandable for me but using anchor text when asked to provide your name is something that I see as spam and something that totally confuses a normal user who reads the blog comment and sees a weird name in the name section. Search engines too must be perfectly aware of this and thus I am of the opinion that such anchor texts don't care much weightage in the eyes of search engine.

However many of my fellow SEO colleagues tend to differ. They say you should use anchor text when asked to provide with a name. And I am totally against this form of promotion That's why I wish to ask the opinion of  experts in SEO MOZ on this topic.

Awaiting your feedbacks

[StoresDirect]

When I comment on blogs I try to contribute to the conversation and look at it as an opportunity to make contact with potential customers as well as expanding our link profile. I would feel really uncomfortable entering anything other than a name - depending on circumstances either the brand name or a personal id - in the name field as I think this would be repellent to the people I want to connect with.

In terms of link acquisition, blog comments are a low effort, low value option. I don't see why people would expect using exact match anchor text to give a huge boost to the value of the link - of course the search engines are aware that user generated content is a magnet for spammers and I'm sure they have ways of discounting those links.

I think the best approach to blog commenting is contribute to a community and form real relationships. That way you have the immediate benefits of engaging with your market, with the added bonus that people who trust you and value your contribution are more likely to link to you. I've spent too much time deleting comment spam on our blogs to think much of anyone using that tactic - it's a good way to guarantee I won't check your site out!