Don't Expect Any Real Value From Blog Comment Spam

In the past, leaving comments on other people's blogs was a cheap and easy way to build links. Your typical blog comment form has four fields: name, email address, URL, and your comment. It's in the URL field that the link building advantage lies, since once you post your comment your name automatically becomes a link which points back to whatever address you specify in the URL field. We actually employe this strategy but the comments are left to contribute to the community. Unfortunately it didn't take too long before spammers also realized this feature was a goldmine of easy links. This gave rise to the nofollow tag, which really didn't do much to stop spam but it did cut down on the effectiveness of blog comments as a link building tool.

These days, most blog comments have the nofollowed tag by default, meaning the link value they pass is worthless with Google but you can still manage to pass value in Yahoo and Microsoft. So if you are going around leaving lots of blog comments in hopes of boosting rankings, you're mostly just wasting time and money. And it can get worse if you're not careful. After years of being comment spammed, many bloggers have developed a keen eye towards what is a real comment that contributes versus what is just a lame "I really like your blog" type comment used only for building links. Once they spot you trying to spam their blog you are likely to be called out publicly on their blog. If it's a reasonably high-profile blog this can lead to a real black eye for your site.

There are still many blogs which don't use the nofollow tag. You might consider just restricting your comments to those blogs which don't use nofollow. By searching out high PageRank pages blogs that don't use the "nofollow" tag and leaving comments you can actually build some pretty decent links. Use a tool like SEOCHATS Page Rank Search to do a site search ordered by Page Rank

Be sure you understand that any of these blogs could decide to add the nofollow tag to their comments at any time and effectively render all your work worthless in an instant. And these bloggers will likely find any attempts to spam their blogs and again it will be bad for you if they publish your URL or name.

Does that mean blog comments are a total waste of time when it comes to link building? The answer is not but leaving pointless comments on blogs for link value can be a waste of time. But leaving insightful comments that contribute something valuable to a blog can actually be a great way to build links indirectly.

Other than writing your own unique and worthwile articles, one of the best ways to become known as an expert in your industry is to leave truly relevant comments on the blogs of the leading voices in your niche. Not only is this a great way to get yourself noticed and begin building a relationship with that authority, but readers of that blog will see your comments, which means your voice is being heard by a large audience and some of them will follow the comment link back to your site. If you've got great stuff to offer them there too then it's a highly effective way to build your audience. If you do it this way, you can build relationships, reputation and traffic all of which will indirectly lead to links, provided your site has something worthwhile to link to. Worthless comment spamming for the most part will just lead to wasted time, effort and money.