(UPDATE 2012 – Watch out with this tactic. Getting loads of unnatural links too fast may invite a GWT Notice of Unnatural Links and eventual penalty – commenting on blogs for purely seo purposes is probably NOT a good tactic in 2012)
I don’t do that much blog commenting these days, and I certainly don’t do dofollow list commenting anymore. I spent nearly 2 hours making one comment on a VERY TRUSTED (PR 8 ) site for a client a couple of months ago because I knew the link I would get would be GOLD – and it was.
I’d already determined the site was passing anchor text value, but there seemed to be heavy moderation going on so the comment itself would need to be stellar for them to leave my links intact and not look like some blog commenting scumbag.
The comment I left was actually as much as a full blog post as a comment. I researched the topic, tested out the actual blog platform (the blog platform was unfamiliar to me and I needed to see how it handled HTML formated links) and in the end pulled together some really valuable advice and dropped a link to my client site with spot on anchor text.
It took two hours to make that comment, but now one of the most trusted sites in the world links to my client with the exact anchor text we need to get to the top of Google and I didn’t piss anybody off (even Google!).
Spot the difference between that type of comment and the no-mark dofollow link-droppers that leave “great site!” in your blog comments.
Yes, they might do 100 comments in the time I did one comment, but mine is 100 times better.
If you have a good opportunity to get a link – take all the time in the world – all night if necessary – in fact, come back next week. Don’t screw up a perfectly good chance to drop a top quality link just because you can’t be arsed to create a useful comment.
We had a potential client come in the other week who had been using a link building service for a different business he was working on. He knew exactly how many links they had been trying to get via submissions etc but when I asked him how many links the site actually had he had no idea. When we had a look at the site in question the inbound links were very disapointing, there were one or two half decent ones but I get the impression they were probably down to luck more than anything else. I guess its all to easy to just shove in link requests or blog comments anywhere just to look like you are doing something.
This is exactly what I do. You do not need many of these. But if you spot such an opportunity you must be willing to put in the hours. Also, this kind of work is fun and leaves you – the link builder – with a good feeling about yourself and what you do. The best thing about this is that the blogger in most cases will be grateful to you for enriching his or her post. In some cases though ppl are not so thankful if your comment is better than the post itself ;-)
I’m still playing with blog comment links (not always successfully). :-) BB
Great site ** Just joking! Thanks for the read and all the tips. I found your site through google the other day, and you have some excellent SEO information which I am finding very useful, as a beginner. But you put all that work in, how would you have felt if they hadn’t approved your comment?
Another rare but potentially good perk for making a high quality comment is when the blog or website owner sees your comment and then goes on to reference it …Either as an addendum to that same post you commented on, or in their next post about the same topic. In-content links are always better than one in the comment section; especially for blogs that have no-follow links in the comment section, but do-follow in the posts. I’ve had both happen and they are sweet. Not only for the additional link juice, but also as social proof by the site owner himself that you apparently know what you’re talking about (and readers may subsequently click through and visit your site as a result). 2 cents.
Another good article, especially the link to the anchor text length article (i couldn’t comment there as comments seem to be closed). That is really useful to know about the 55 character limit, i’m now off to check all my links back from client websites. Its an interesting point about the full url as well being taken into account. 2 things I can honestly say I’d never heard of before that article. I do love this site!! I tried the dofollow blog commenting thing and found it not that useful. the so called do follow blog search engines all just seem to pump out results of blogs that are no follow. But then i guess a nofollow links still shows as a link just no PR is passed for it (I hope that’s right). I guess you just need to find that gold opportunity and take the bull by both horns and go for it!
I am still not sure if link building by commenting on do-follow blogs is really worth it. But then what do I know about SEO ? Anyway I will start making some comments here and there.
Many businesses are being sold on the idea of spamming blogs. Few probably realize that most bloggers are smart enough to delete their comments at best – and report them as spammers so Akismet picks off most of their future comments faster. Leaving quality comments in dofollow blogs can definitely work IF your comments are relevant. I’ve doubled traffic using that strategy and you can see proof of that using Compete. There is a post that stays in the Most Popular section of GrowMap.com explaining how to do it. The reason many dofollow blog search engines have nofollow blogs in their results is that many formerly dofollow blog owners got tired of dealing with massive spam and went nofollow. We are still not only still committed to being a dofollow blog but also offer KeywordLuv so anyone can select anchor text for their QUALITY comments. (Spammy comments are promptly deleted.) No matter what Google decides or what is best for SEO what is most important IMHO is encouraging readers to interact and rewarding those willing to share their experience and limited time assisting others. I know that position is unusual especially among those who understand incoming links, SEO and the monopoly that is Google. Interesting that at least in this thread your comments have no links at all.
But what about this site which is a “Great Site” http:// :)
No chance :) I don’t out sites. PS – I think there’s some misunderstanding… the site in question was not a dofollow blog…. but links in it’s comments passed Pagerank ;) C’mon it’s 2009. :)
Hi Shaun, Comments – whether in dofollow blogs or any other site – can be effective in bringing real people to your site when they allow links. Some also have a positive impact on your search positions. The obvious question I have – not being an SEO myself but having more than average familiarity with the subject – is how you can determine that a site passes PageRank to links in comments.
Without testing yourself to see if a page passes pagerank or anchor text benefit, you can never know for sure. For instance, I know one PR7 dofollow blog which is 100% not passing anchor text benefit to external sites. But if Googlebot can see a link without a link-condom on it, it’s capable of passing juice. If it’s on a strong domain, on a relevant page, it’s worth taking the gamble on.