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Should I Allow Comments on my Blog Posts and Pages?

Approximately 40% of all websites world wide use WordPress. One of the features WordPress offers is a built-in system which allows visitors to comment on pages or blogs. Many developers turn this option off and use WordPress strictly to house their design. This is a mistake.

Recently, the question of whether comments on blog posts and pages helps with SEO or not was asked of Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller. Basically he stated that is was a good idea because it helped his search engine analyze the page by fleshing out the topic. Here are his exact words:

“What I think is really useful there with those comments is that oftentimes people will write about the page in their own words and that gives us a little bit more information on how we can show this page in the search results. So from that point of view I think comments are a good thing on a page.”

You will want to enable this feature only if you plan on paying fairly close attention to your site and staying interactive with it. There is no point in allowing someone to comment or ask a question if you never plan on logging-in to approve the comment or respond to it.

Another key is to not allow spammy comments. This can be done by manually approving all comments. And it does not hurt to allow the commenter to link to their blog or website as long as they are making a comment which is relevant to your article. Mueller had this to say about the topic:

“Obviously, finding a way to maintain them in a reasonable way is sometimes tricky because people also spam those comments and all kinds of crazy stuff happens there. But overall, I think if you can find a way to maintain comments on a webpage that gives you a little bit more context and helps people who are searching in different ways to also find your content.”

Cleaning House

If you are revamping your site and take an “out with the old, in with the new approach”, it is important not to go too far. For instance, try not to delete original content. And for that matter do not delete comments either and responses either. More from Mueller:

“From our point of view we do see comments as a part of the content… ultimately if people are finding your pages based on the comments there then, if you delete those comments, then obviously we wouldn’t be able to find your pages based on that.”

Conclusion

The more interactive you can be with your website the better. This means that writing new content regularly and allowing people to leave real comments on your content is a key part in optimizing your website. Respond to the people in the comments section and perhaps even reach out to them directly to ask them to link to you.