comments

Automatically getting Subscribed to Comments, Good or Bad?

by Melvin · Mar 9, 2010

For the past few years I have been quite a bit critical and open on tackling blog comments. In fact, there’s even a dedicated category of it here just with that topic. Anyways today I would like to touch on something that I know people have mixed opinion with and that is comment subscription.

One of the guys I really look up into named Neil Patel has this enabled in his blog QuickSprout. What he basically has done is automatically have people commenting on his blog subscribed to their own comments. What happens is that if Neil (or some dude) replies to my comment, I would be notified vial email that someone has replied to my comment. 88 replies to my comment would then mean 88 notification emails (I know its unrealistic).

I’ve first seen that tactic on Gyutae Park’s blog at Winning the Web where the check box is automatically checked. To be honest with you, as a blogger myself, I find this tactic insidious and annoying. Why? Because of uhm, uhm, getting added emails and probably just really not caring to know if the guy replied or not. Both of which are lame reasons as well.

I was checking my subscription to comment plugin stats and I was surprised to learn that I’ve actually had a good number of audience here subscribing to comments. I was like wow. Over the past few years I’ve realized a couple of handful things on blogging generally. Maybe replying to majority of comments is not silly at all, or maybe this, maybe that.

So since we are talking about this topic, I am going to ask your opinion about. I would also like to say that by now, I’m discerning on following that tactic where each and every one of you who will comment will automatically be subscribed to comments. I’ve realized it’s not really annoying at all! But again thats just me…

[poll id=”5″]

Please let me know what you think by voting in the poll and also interacting in the comment forms below. Your feedback about this topic will largely affect my decision on whether to use that or not.

This Thing Pisses Me Off With Bloggers

by Melvin · Jul 11, 2009

Bloggers can either be amiable or despicable, no doubt about it. In my 2+ years in blogging I can say I have seen all types of bloggers. While most of them are really nice and great to be with, there are certain portion of bloggers (or qualities of them) that really make me pissed off. What is it? read on…

For some reasons, some bloggers piss me by commenting on posts while not reading it. Ok, we all know that most ‘guru’ bloggers would suggest you to comment on as many blogs as you can for two things, 1). to get traction and traffic and 2). for backlink purposes. I don’t oppose that. What I do oppose is the fact that a lot of bloggers overdo that and the result is that they actually don’t really read the content of the post and their comment is totally unrelated. That is what pisses me off.

I know that ‘maybe’ I, myself have somehow done that but I think I have never ever commented on a post w/o understanding (worst, reading) it. Most of the times I skim the content but then i always grasp the concept first before actually putting my piece into it. If you’re a serious reader of my blog then probably you might have found some totally douchebag unrelated comments. Much more if you’re an avid reader of famous blogs in the industry like johnchow.com, shoemoney and etc. A lot of comments there are just junk comments (different from spam ones), ones that were created for the sake of futility. 🙂 It even pisses me more to learn that those comments are actually legit and not trolls, just totally unrelated…

Oh well, just my opinion about it. Again its your own blog and there is a whole lot of freedom of expression within the blogosphere. Just make sure you don’t hurt yourself and the image of your blog by being a douche. Remember, the real value of comments in blogs is not about the quantity or the proper use of anchor text, it’s the quality and image that can make your blog standout.

Do Comments Justify the Success Of a Blog?

by Melvin · Jan 7, 2009

Most people and friends who just have recently started a blog normally ask me “why is my blog not getting comments? I look at my Analytics and I see the traffic but no comments” I responded then “time will come and just be patient”. But then at the back of my mind there are a lot of things going on so I decided I need to post my thoughts here. Ok, getting in into the number of comments into blogs, most people, I think are so wrong into thinking that the number of comments to blogs justify how successful a blog is. Although comments are for sure one of the things to look at when analyzing a blog, I think it only plays a very small percentage on it. I am now blogging for almost a year overall and about 7 months with a blog kinda related to internet marketing and make money online and I really have seen it all with this niche.

I used to have a basketball blog and it drives traffic like crazy before and it only receives 5-6 comments a day. Now I got this Melvin Blog that gets an average number of traffic and yet I almost always get 10+ comments per post. Does it mean its a successful blog? No way! How about blogs getting 20-50 comments per post? Not either!

Blog comments can pretty much be gamed and by saying gamed, I don’t really mean blackhat. Sure I have 150-250 good friends and only 5-6 of them knows I blog. Only 3-4 of them read this blog. So you see, it really depends. Now if you have 200 close friends that are addicted to blogging as well, then chances are you’re going to get nice number of comments.

Most people reply to each and every comment in their blog, some comments always on a blog that comments on them and so. But the thing is that it really just plays a small role on determining a blog’s success. Don’t get me wrong, sure it’s nice to have people that always care to say something or people that share their stand.

It also works well on the eyes of advertisers and so. Maybe we can also add the fact the maybe the blog’s content isn’t as great as others that’s why its not returning the expected number of comments. It’s all true but the main point is you cannot take a look at the other blogs who get 100 comments and say they are an established blog! You can’t say I’m a smaller blog because I get fewer comments.

I know you also know a lot of blogs that are getting thousand uniques a day and do not get much comments but certainly there are a number of factors to look with how commenting really works, why people comment on posts/blogs, and if it really makes a blog successful or just makes it look successful.

I Forgot The Top Commenters!

by Melvin · Jul 2, 2008

Everyone in the blogosphere seems to be talking about the launch of Blogging Idol. Of course I know everyone is getting themselves ready to launch their attacks to gain rss subscribers. I’m not gonna talk about the competition. Today I am giving something away to the top commentators last month. As you may have remembered I told you that I’m giving something for those people who have commented even w/an almost unseen comment form. So I just feel they deserve to get credited for doing so. So here are the top commenters for last month

As you can see, the criteria of top commenters is based per month. BUT it isn’t just end there. I have an algorithm done by a friend that detects people who are just running up their comments. As I have said before I’m not strict in comments but of course I don’t tolerate trolls. Another thing to add is that I have the editorial decision to remove a commentator who is sporting a spammy keyword. That’s why I always believe that when you put a comment, then you might as well want your name to get credited for it. For winners to claim your prizes shoot me a mail or a comment stating you’re email address. Don’t forget to put [@] to avoid spam on your inbox.

And before I forgot of course, everyone is doing it so do I. I’m not forcing you but see I can say I have something to be proud of my content. You can say I’m great, I’m sloppy, I’m lazy, I’m not ugly, but the best thing you can do is say nothing and subscribe to my feed. 😉

What I Think About Comments

by Melvin · Jun 26, 2008

Another busy week for me. I had to rush everything because I feel so behind with all the projects that we we’re doing and the affiliate products this month had a pretty bad ROI and some mistakes about Adwords. This month by far is the worst month as far as affiliate marketing is concern. So now I am going to share with you what I think about Comments.

As you can see, my blog has been getting some decent number of comments (even though the form was all white before). But what many people do not know is that comments are not usually like the number shown. Oftentimes I reply two to three times to other comments so to say I got 6 comments on a post, the real number only is three. So being a blogger for not so long time I have seen comments that are pretty ugly. Many are just lame, Some look spammy, and few make sense. I don’t really have anything against those comments in fact I am even accepting comments that contain 2-4 words only. But of course I don’t tolerate trolls.

So what about the comments? Most of the time people are forgetting that the real value of comments reflect on the person and/or site itself. Let’s say about 85% of your comments say “nice post”. The common effect here is that you just comment because you want to get commented to and that’s awful! Most bloggers will see it and despise it. And because they don’t like it, the IMAGE of your blog will not be good to those 85% of the blogs you commented! Maybe for others, it’s ok but I’m sure a large percentage will not like it. You are giving your blog a bad name around the blogoshpere. Sure it’s not wrong to say “nice post” but if you do it all the time, then wtf! I see a lot of blogs these days complaining about lame comments and this is just a message that I want to get across everyone. Comments = Your Blog = You!

How about you? Have you established a great presence in the blogging world because of you adding value to other blogs? I want to get your view about this.