Value of Newspaper Comment Links

[phogan]

Although most newspaper comment sections are a no-follow zone, I have noticed that some comments I have posted with links end up being followed.  The comments are participatory and the links relevant and even add to the conversation.  My theory is that some comments are monitored and if the editors are looking to encourage discussion and don't feel like your spamming, why not take the no follow off.  I do plan on doing some testing with poor, spammy comments on the same papers but am encouraged and would like to know what other people have found.

[TriviaChicken]

Please do post your findings!

What I expect you will find is that each website is set up a little differently - many as a matter of practice drop a 'nofollow' on entire sections of their site.  Some don't.  Some (take SEOMOZ.org as an example) have a more intricate process that determines whether comment links are nofollow'd or not.

I understand that there are some companies out there that do linkbuilding campaigns by linking from forums that don't seem to have the nofollow dropped on them (not that anyone here would do such a dastardly deed as to buy links...).  One that was on their list is Adobe forums -- on my list of things-to-do is to post there and see if some link juice comes out of it.

Another unlikely source of a link that I got one time was from Craigslist.org, when I was bringing an intern onboard.  Not exactly my idea of a high-value link, but hey...

[EGOL]

why not take the no follow off?

That will put you on every spammer's "dofollow blog" list.  And the bigger problem is when your site gets on the blogspamming program database.

[TriviaChicken]

EGOL,

Interesting point.

Do you see that as only an issue for the site with the comment section, or also a cascading problem for the folk using this as a means to drum up links?

[KeriMorgret]

I know regular people who have seriously considered shutting down their blog or turning off comments because they got on a "dofollow blog" list and kept getting spammed because of that.

[EGOL]

I see it as mainly a webmaster's problem.... once the programmers start sending robots to spam your blog then you will be hit with a lot of comments to clean up.

For the person who uses blog comments as a linkbuilding strategy, I think that google can recognize blog comment links and probably counts them as very very low value links.  If the link profile of your site consists almost entirely of blog and forum comments then that might put an unpleasant odor on your site.  (I have no proof for this, just sayin' how I would treat the links if I was google and my confidence that they can recognize them if they want to.)

[EGOL]

Comments are turned off on my blog because of this.

Also, since I link out to lots of sites from my blog (within the posts) I have a heavy rain of email from people who are trying to weasel a "mention".

[Thos003]

Interesting thought on the follow, nofollow and the editorial approval or disapproval. Would love to hear your follow up.

Regardless of the do follow or no follow and the link value, I have found that traffic value is still a huge bonus. One quality comment on a high traffic article can produce a lot of visitors.

[TriviaChicken]

Thanks for the perspective - I guess after all is said and done, everything we need to know about tech is summed up "Garbage in, garbage out..."

[AlanBleiweiss]

Lets go beyond the excellent input EGOL has provided for a moment.

How relevant are the articles you're dropping links in the comment area of to the site you're linking to?  How relevant is the topic to the target topic?  How much of your link building energy is focused on this as a link building tactic?

Comment links offer such little value even when all conditions are ideal that it's really not a prudent use of time and resources.  At least not from an SEO best practices perspective.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Thomas that's an important distinction.  The quality of the article to target page relationship is critical, and mostly for attracting new visitors regardless of primary SEO value.  Even though visitor clicks do add to SEO as well, there's so much more to the process that if comment links are an intentional and significant part of an SEO campaign it's really more likely to be a timesuck.

[EGOL]

Alan, I should post your comment on my blog to discourage the link spammers.  lol

Thumbs up!

[AlanBleiweiss]

EGOL, I was just thinking today out of all the people who answer questions in Pro Q&A, you're at the top of my "pay attention to" list.  So thanks for the compliment. 

[phogan]

My theory is that many comment sections start off no-follow as default specifically to avoid spamming but if a human reads it and determines it adds to the conversation, they turn it into a follow.  I'm sure Google is able to determine the sites that screen comments from a human.

[Thos003]

Thanks Alan. And yes, staying relevant is always a quality factor.

[EGOL]

You are welcome!