Internet Marketing Toolbox

Have you developed a workable comment policy for your blog-based web site? While it doesn’t need to be published for all to see, it does help if you have a set of guidelines you can follow to help decide which comments to publish, and which Akismet comments to de-spam.

For starters, all comments to your blog should be approved before publication. That means as soon as someone makes a comment, they’ll see the “Your comment is awaiting moderation” message.

That means you have to allocate a set time each day to check and approve any comments that are pending.

Which Comments Get The Nod?

Ask yourself two questions:

1. does the comment ADD anything to the item under discussion
   
2. are any links provided places you really want to link to - and that means VISIT the links and have a quick look

If they pass that simple test… approve them.

But what if they don’t use their “real” name?

You know… in the part of the comment that links to their site i.e. use a key word instead? Are these people only looking for some SEO advantage from making a comment? With most blogs using a “no-follow” tag, they probably won’t get any. However they MAY attract more interest from your visitors if the words used are relevant.

Again - ask yourself the same questions above… plus another one.

Did they include their real name anywhere in the comment - i.e. at the end? If they want to identify themselves personally, then you might want to publish their comment if it meets the first two criteria.

If they want to remain anonymous, then maybe you shouldn’t approve it.

Should You Publish Negative Comments?

And if so, how should you reply to them?

There’s a “yes” and “no” answer there eh?

You’ll certainly NEVER please everybody, so a negative comment is to be expected every now and then.

While your first reaction might be “what’s this tosser saying… get off” and delete their comment, or even publish it and write a scathing reply… realise that MAYBE there might be something wrong with what you said.

How you respond and deal with that is a good measure of your credibility and can boost that IF you deal with negative comments constructively.

Quite often a simple “thank for for that” or “point noted” is the best way to do things… certainly do not get on any high horses and start shafting the commenter (not matter how much you may be tempted). That just doesn’t look good to your “normal” visitors.

What about Akismet?

As far as the comments and trackbacks captured by Akismet are concerned, before you are tempted to approve any, apply the same tests, but remember there’s probably a good reason why Akismet captured them in the first place.

I have had some legitimate comments get caught by Akismet, so you should check for these too.

Akismet will also catch a lot of trackbacks from known “scraper” blogs - these are blogs which automatically grab portions of your content from RSS feeds and build thousands of pages. While you can’t “do” anything about the incoming link, you certainly DON’T want to approve the link back to them from your site!

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