Pay for Comments..what's the big deal?

[ses5909]

Earlier this month, a lot of big bloggers were pretty bothered by a new service called Buy Blog Comments (http://www.buyblogcomments.com/).

The way it works is you buy X number of comments of a specified amount and the service will put relevant comments on your blog. These comments aren't spam comments, but instead comments that could enhance the dialogs.

It seems the dilemma is these aren't "real" comments from a genuine member of the community. But who would know? If you're reading a blog and there are several comments that are relevant to the post, how would you know if they were paid to put them there?

This isn't something I would do, and not because I'm against it, but I just don't have the need for it.

What are your thoughts on this. Where do your views lie on this ethical dilemma?

[Dan Schulz]

Waste of time, waste of money, waste of effort, waste of... well, pretty much everything.

You know what they say about parting fools from their money. :(

[3plus3]

So this company doesn't hire people to literally go to your blog check it out and then comment? Or do they? I am so confused. sorry

[ses5909]

So this company doesn't hire people to literally go to your blog check it out and then comment? Or do they? I am so confused. sorry

No basically, they hire people to read blog posts and make relevant comments. They aren't spammy comments at all but instead relate to the actual topic and could definitely fuel more discussion.

[Jeremy]

I don't see anything terribly "wrong" with it, but I don't see it as much of a help either. Sure it may look nice to have posts with comments showing up and it could help you gain a small number of new readers, but in the end if you aren't regularly publishing content worth visiting the people will leave anyway.

[Cedric]

It's easy to have like many comments, you can actually comment in your own blog using other nicknames but the real deal is the LOYALTY! Like what Jeremy said, if your blog does not have a frequent update, people will leave eventually so what's the point wasting money on that comment thing? If you need them desperately you could ask your friends to help out! :P

[Jelena]

I am really interested to know if that service become popular. While I don't have anything against it, I don't have much faith that it will succeed. As Cedric said, if you are that desparate for comments, you can leave them by yourself.

[ses5909]

I don't see the great benfit to the comments on blogs but there are services which add social bookmarking and forum posts for example which i can see where the impact would be greater. Same with Pay per post.

[BlogBookmark]

It's easy to have like many comments, you can actually comment in your own blog using other nicknames but the real deal is the LOYALTY! Like what Jeremy said, if your blog does not have a frequent update, people will leave eventually so what's the point wasting money on that comment thing? If you need them desperately you could ask your friends to help out! :P
Agreed, it's far too easy to just create a few personalities and post comments yourself.

[Jelena]

The only thing with writing your own comments is lack of links. While some % of people doesn't leave a link to their site when commenting, majority of them do.

[Cedric]

That's why I said we can actually count on our friends (bloggers) to do so, but that will leave them a bad impression of course, how can you compel people to do things that MIGHT go against their will? So you see? And sometimes you feel proud about how many comments you get but when you actually read through them, you find out that sometimes they comment without even finish reading your post. So again, why waste money? :)

[Calypso]

When I first started my writing blog, I considered using a service like this, but since then I've gotten some real readers leaving comments and there's no need to hire anyone to post anymore. Yea!

[Cedric]

Calypso, good to hear that from you! A lot of people do not understand that it's hard to maintain readers' loyalty. So congrats to you! :)

[malique]

its like buying forum posts.

i think its pretty 'ok' for a business blog.
but i think its a no-no for personal blogs.

[malique]

whoa, after checking the site out..its by Jon!
gosh.

[davemcnally]

I wouldn't bother with a service like this, I would rather spend the money on getting some traffic to my site.

[doorlight]

... desperate?

[malique]

if u blog as a career, and do black hat seo...this might work for you.
if not, dont even think of it.

[ses5909]

Is it black hat seo? I wouldn't think it would be. It seems the goal of paying someone to comment on a blog is just to make it appear that the blog is more popular than it is and ALSO to entice other people to comment. I'm not sure what SEO benefit paying for comments would have.

[malique]

if they are looking to increase their SERPS

[Dan Schulz]

Sara, is it just me or is this thread about to explode into an SEO fight? I'm really biting my tongue on this, but well as they say...

[samwoodfin]

I'm not real clear on what does or doesn't constitute white hat, black hat, or gray hat (if gray hat exists). And I'm not gonna ask. At least not right now. But the "by Jon" comment made me wonder who the hell Jon was, so I went to the site Sara linked, clicked on the Jon Waraas link under "Who runs BuyBlogComments" in the FAQ, and it took me to a blog that talks about making money with scraper sites. Maybe that's where the "black hat" comment came into play? just sayin'...

[4clubbs]

OK, now I'm just confused.

[ses5909]

Well I'm not considering anything else Jon Waraas has done, and while i can see the ethical issues involved I don't see the issue with SEO. I don't see how having comments in your blog can help increase your rank. But no, no fight :D

[malique]

*takes hat off*

[Prettyfem]

If comment spam was not already bad enough, we now have buyblogpomments.com. This is one more reason to use comment moderation and make sure that you have Akismet installed on your blog.

[GnomeyNewt]

For years now forum owners have been hiring people to start threads and posts on their forums, especially new ones. I don't really see how this is any different. I think it will come down to what you are trying to accomplish with your blog. And as PP's said, if your content is just not there it won't matter if your comments are paid for because visitors stay mostly for the content, not the commentors.

For me personally, I would not pay somebody to comment on my blog because I am looking to interact with my visitors for the long run. Plus I like feed back that is not based on getting paid by me, I want it to be truthful.

[dojo]

I don't pay for forum posts, I don't pay for comments. Write GOOD posts and have a top commentators list plus make links do follow and you'll get people to comment. :)

[ses5909]

But the question romana is... is there anything wrong with the paid for comments IF they are relevant to your post? I wouldn't pay for comments either, but I don't see anything wrong with it since it isn't spam.

[smittenbite]

no theres nothing wrong with that just like how theres nothing wrong with paying people to post in forums and make RELEVANT posts there too. i think the paying for comments thing pretty much implies that it is going to be on topic and of some level of quality if they want the money. thats why people open those 'posting' companies, so you can pay them and they can regulate the quality for you and make sure its on topic.

[GnomeyNewt]

no theres nothing wrong with that just like how theres nothing wrong with paying people to post in forums and make RELEVANT posts there too. i think the paying for comments thing pretty much implies that it is going to be on topic and of some level of quality if they want the money. thats why people open those 'posting' companies, so you can pay them and they can regulate the quality for you and make sure its on topic.

Agreed. This is what I was trying to say. :)

Regardless of if I will use them or not, the service is there for those that need them and if it is not spammy than I don't see it as bad. If forums can do it than so can blogs is how I feel.

[Michael Martin]

I wouldn't use such a service (The value of comments for me is that someone actually thought your post was worth talking about. Obviously that value disappears if you're paying them...), but I'm not against it either.

If you're writing posts worth commenting on, but your blog just happens to be new, well, fair enough. I suppose it might be the only way for some people to get a conversation started.

[lilmissjenny]

Waste of time, waste of money, waste of effort, waste of... well, pretty much everything.

You know what they say about parting fools from their money. :(
I agree!

[thetafferboy]

A lot of you have the wrong end of the stick here... Lets clear some things up..

1) You are not buying comments for your own blog, you are buying a service that leaves comments on other blogs, with a name (anchor text) of your choosing to link back to your blog.

2) All of the blogs have "followed" comments - which means you will get a search engine benefit from the link.

3) To those that say it will have no impact on serps, think about how Google ranks pages:

->The blogs that comments are left on are RELEVANT to your site
->A lot of blogs have high PR / trust, so the links have AUTHORITY
->You are gaining a lot of new links and this benefits your site's LINK VELOCITY.. which are all things that will definitely help you rank better.

4) To the "oh noes, not more spamz!" brigade - if you looked at Jon's service, he will read the post and leave a relevant comment. This will add value to your blog and its readers - the point is you won't KNOW it has been paid for.

5) What about all these CEOs and celebs that pay people to blog for them, as if it were them? How is it different getting people to leave comments for you?

6) They are genuine comments, it's not blackhat, that's just silly.

see: dofollow blogs (http://www.digeratimarketing.co.uk/2007/07/20/over-160-relevant-link-following-blogs/) /rant :)

[Selkirk]

Its just manual spam. If you are only leaving the comment for the back link, its spam. I sometimes delete comments from my blog that are legitimate and in context for the sole reason that they link back to a really crappy web site that I don't care for. I should make a "kill link" plugin that keeps the comment but deletes the link.

[thetafferboy]

Its just manual spam. If you are only leaving the comment for the back link, its spam. I sometimes delete comments from my blog that are legitimate and in context for the sole reason that they link back to a really crappy web site that I don't care for. I should make a "kill link" plugin that keeps the comment but deletes the link.

Lol, "manual spam" - oxymoron? Why don't you just nofollow if you're that bothered?

[Selkirk]

I do use nofollow, but some people will still leave a manual comment, but their link is a pharma or gambling site, or a get rich page. I delete these. The comments are rarely insightful or valuable, they're just a variation on "good point" designed to show that they actually read the post.

[Gamesfurk]

Well,this Idea sucks harder than BLogRUsh:naughty:
Your Blog depends on the content.And comments
are from real readers!!!:hanson:

[tater03]

You know personally I say to each their own. I mean I am not to sure if I would want to pay for them on my own personal blog but I don't fault anyone if they choose to.

[malique]

now now..

[mamab]

I've seen where people get paid to review an item on their blog, is that any different than getting paid to go to someone's blog to comment?

[thetafferboy]

You know personally I say to each their own. I mean I am not to sure if I would want to pay for them on my own personal blog but I don't fault anyone if they choose to.

Nobody is talking about paying for comments on their own blog........ [-X

[thetafferboy]

Well,this Idea sucks harder than BLogRUsh:naughty:
Your Blog depends on the content.And comments
are from real readers!!!:hanson:

and backlinks count for even more...

[Gamesfurk]

now now..

whats that supposed to mean:naughty:

[thetafferboy]

I recently tried this service, so this should end any debate on if it's a waste of time. I'd remained stationary at #8 for my term for quite a while (I hadn't been bothered doing any link building etc). One week after my comments were done, I'm now #2... Near to evidence as you're going to get.

[lilmissjenny]

The only problem with this service or any other kind like it is that those comments tend to get thrown into the spam folder. SO it really is a waste of money.

[thetafferboy]

The only problem with this service or any other kind like it is that those comments tend to get thrown into the spam folder. SO it really is a waste of money.

How is this lilmissjenny? The comments are done manually and are no different to if you typed a comment yourself. They are typed by humans, I think you should read the detail on his services page.

[ses5909]

Plus I believe the comments are guaranteed to be relevant to the posts at hand, not just a fluff comment.

[dojo]

This would be a "business" I don't see anything wrong in it. I see it wrong deom my point of view as a blogger. If I have to pay for comments, then I am really doing something awfully wrong .. why not comment yourself under different names instead of paying? The problem is that the content is not worthy as to make people comment. Or there are other issues.

[SageMother]

This might be a great tool for those who cannot promote their blog as thoroughly as they like, due to time constraints.

[thetafferboy]

This would be a "business" I don't see anything wrong in it. I see it wrong deom my point of view as a blogger. If I have to pay for comments, then I am really doing something awfully wrong .. why not comment yourself under different names instead of paying? The problem is that the content is not worthy as to make people comment. Or there are other issues.

NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT PAYING FOR COMMENTS ON YOUR OWN BLOG. PLEASE AT LEAST SCAN READ THE THREAD!!!!!!!

[Dan Schulz]

Mark, you forgot the obligatory "We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging." statement. :D

[mrs.tinsley]

Waste of time, waste of money, waste of effort, waste of... well, pretty much everything.

You know what they say about parting fools from their money. :(

I agree, I have been hired to respond to blogs or guestbooks before, the catch is they sign off with a website under the name.