If you are a Blogger whether a seasons veteran or a newbie we all love getting comments on our posts. But are your Blogs set up to me comment friendly? Do you make your readers jump through hoops so they can leave a comment or do you allow the free flow of ideas from your readers?
Yesterday I decided to go through and visit all the blogs participating in BlogPaws Wordless Wednesday Event just to say hi and take a few minutes to see who participates. What should have taken maybe an hour at the most with 54 links to beautiful pictures of everyone's pets took forever! And there was even one blog I couldn't figure out where to comment in the first place.
First I need to ask Why all the need for security with the captcha (that thing where you have to type in some made up word or decipher some random numbers and letters) turned on? Do you really get that many spam comments on a daily basis that you feel the need to make everyone go through that extra step? Nothing stops people from leaving comments on your blog like having to do those captcha things.
I know I don't get so much spam that I can keep a handle on it. Plus I am sorry to say to the spammer they aren't giving themselves any link love by leaving all those ridiculous comments for their shoes or dog beds or whatever else they are trying to sell. All they are doing is putting more comments on your blog because most aren't smart enough to learn how to comment in a meaningful way anyway. Plus on almost all blog platforms the comment section is automatically set to no follow for the Google bots anyway.
What is No Follow? This is a meta tag that is used to instruct the search engine bots to not follow the link and/or view the page. The no follow meta tag is used for content that a webmaster does not want a user to view via a search engine. The no follow attribute on links is used to NOT give link backs so they can spam you all they want it isn't helping their cause.
Back to comment love.
Here's how I handle comments. For the first 14 days a post is active I allow comments to post without my approval. I do not have captcha turned on because I want as many people as often as they feel the desire, to comment on my blog. Plus for giveaways it allows each entry to go more smoothly. My giveaway typically last 14 days so this feature is perfect for me so I don't spend my day moderating giveaway comments. Once the 14 days are up I have to approve each individual comment. I get maybe a total of 5 - 10 comments a month on old posts that I either allow to go through or just dump them in the spam folder and then delete to try and get the system to recognize specific spammers so I don't have to deal with them again.
When I do have a giveaway run past the 14 day mark I just have to remember to go into my comments and approve them those last few days. It takes maybe 5 minutes per day to approve the these last minute entries I don't investigate the comments in depth. If they look like a real comment on a post I allow them to go through.