User generated content (Comments) - What impact do they have?

[idg-sweden]

Hello MOZ stars!

I have a question regarding user comments on article pages. I know that user generated content is good for SEO, but how much impact does it really have?

For your information:
1 - All comments appears in source code and is crawled by spiders.
2 - A visitor can comment a page for up to 60 days.
3 - The amount of comments depends on the topic, we usually gets between 3-40 comments.

My question:
1 - If we were to remove comments completely, what impact would it have from seo perspective? (I know you cant be certain - but please make an educated guess if possible)
2 - If it has a negative and-/or positive impact please specify why!

If anything is unclear or you want certain information don't hesitate to ask and I'll try to specify.

Best regards,
Danne

[Keszi]

Hi Danne,

I remember reading a post about this from Barry Schwartz on seroundtable.com: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-ser-hurt-comments-19652.html

Read it through, it quite describes the effect of user generated content (specially comments).

This is one specific case, I am sure that it is not a general rule for this.

Gr., Keszi

[MonicaOConnor]

User generated content in my opinion is extremely useful. It is unique, it is informative most of the time and it is valuable to future searches. In this instance I would be more concerned about the value to the searchers and to user experience than the SEO effects.

[Keszi]

Like I have mentioned in my response, that is one case.

But I must agree with Monica, you should place the value to the searchers&User Experience.

[David-Kley]

I also read that article. Barry seemed to think that the comments were hurting the site, rather than helping. Comments can get off topic, or stray away from the original article. If I remember correctly, Barry made the comments viewable, but not readable by Google as a result.

For return traffic, I think comments are great. After seeing the results that Barry shared, I'm not sure if it is still a good idea to have them included in the page crawl.

Here is the article that he spoke about this: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-ser-poll-19675.html

IMO, I would leave the comments on the pages, but block them from being indexed/use javascript for showing the comments if possible.

[Keszi]

Additional to what David said, I would still consider leaving the comments option open (until there is no "over-usage").

Also a factor to consider (especially in Barry's case), what kind of comments do people post. Do they have a positive or a negative annotation? Are they on-topic or not?

If you have a community, like Moz has IMO, where I see a lot of good, complementing comments, responses to each of the posts, I'd consider indexing the comments.

What do you think? David, Monica?

[MonicaOConnor]

I do think that negative comments hurt UX and eventually the bottom line. No one wants to work with a company that has ton of negative feedback. Which is exactly why user generated content is so important to the searchers. It is a candid review of a company or product. There can be in the middle reviews, like a 3 star rating because customer service was great but the product stinks. I think those kinds of comments and reviews are necessary and overall good for UX.

In my opinion as a consumer, I want to see the bad comments. I always use the example of shoes and clothes. I don't want to find out when I get a pair of shoes in the mail that the sizes run a little small. If I see that in the comments or reviews ahead of time I will know to buy a size bigger and save myself the trouble of returning the product. These kinds of "negative" reviews are useful to a searcher and I wouldn't remove them.

[SID560]

Not what you asked, but other than SEO I would say comments do have an effect.   I have heard advertisers say they were looking for sites with comments.  Their thinking was they wanted popular sites with followers and they is how they judged it.