With any successful blog, Comments and Spam are juxtaposed at opposite ends of the spectrum. We all want to engage and generate conversations. The change in SEO practices means spam is being replaced by inbound link baiting.
Akismet the only rubber you need
In WordPress - part of the battle is won by using the free Akismet plugin which is developed and maintained by Automattic (the ‘commercial arm’ of WordPress.com etc). Akismet keeps good tabs on spam and works efficiently.
The problem for any good quality website and blog is generating conversation that is useful and relevant. Of all the comments that were missed by Akismet in the past 3 − 5 months NONE were relevant all comments were spam or unwanted link baiting for SEO.
The Dark Arts of SEO
After I turned off all comments except if you became a registered user - I still got link-bait. I couldn’t believe it - some people registered so that they can add spam. They must be working hard to generate links and probably being paid cents for their effort.
Today, you can’t avoid link-baiting, such dark arts of SEO specialists are now as bad as spammy comments and should be avoided at all costs to the continued health of your Google Pagerank.
End Result - I’m turning on Comments (again)
So after several months of monitoring the state of comments - I’ve now added Facebook Comments.
Tags:Read more from my blog for an introduction and quick tips on developing in Hugo or UCTD.
Meet the author
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.
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