Comments are an important part of blogs. In this post I summarize several scientific studies on blogging and commenting. Two conclusions are that comments are important for feedback and self-expression and to build social links. Furthermore they are related to inbound links and and traffic, they contribute content and are useful for search engine optimization.
In one of my last posts I asked how to attract more comments on a blog and discussed some of the technical and motivational aspects. To find out more about commenting I was motivated to search for some literature about blogging and some studies on blog commenting.
Comments are one of the distinctive features of a weblog (blog) compared most other websites. According to the 2004 article Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs by Susan C. Herring, Lois Ann Scheidt, Sabrina Bonus, and Elijah Wright (the two other features that distinguish blogs from more traditional websites are that they are frequently updated and contain less multimedia). Comments allow a conversational exchange between readers and authors. Authors ultimately retain editorial control over the blog's content.
Many blog readers are themselves bloggers and many commentators therefore are bloggers. According to the article expressing social relationships on the blog through links and comments by Noor Ali-Hasan and Lada Adamic, commenting constitutes one form of link building to form social relationships between bloggers. The other two forms are blogrolls and citations (referring to a post on another blog in a post).
Blogging is a highly social activity. Bloggers within a community of blogs, a blogosphere, are more likely to link to each others and to leave comments. Within communities of blogs ties are often reciprocal. On-line relationships can often extend offline.
Noor Ali-Hasan and Lada Adamic surveyed bloggers from the United States, the United Emirates, and Kuwait, and found that the main motivation for starting a blog was to express oneself.
This was confirmed by Matt Sussman in the article The What and Why of Blogging, part of Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2009. The image below shows distribution of responses to the question "Why do you blog?"
As can be seen, sharing expertise and speaking one's mind is seen as a main motivation for blogging. This means that principal motivations of blogging are related to inter-communication.
Gilad Mishne and Natalie Glance made a statistical analysis of more than half a million blogs and more than half a million comments, which is published in the article, Leave a Reply - An Analysis of Weblog Comments (2006). Among other things, they analyzed commenting patterns in relation to blog popularity and comment content to blog access in search.
They found that while there are some blogs that have many, until 1000 comments per post, the average is much lower. More than 90 percent of blogs had commenting enabled, however only about 15 percent of posts or 28 percent of blogs had comments. There were on average 0.9 comments per post and comments were posted on average during 2.1 days after the post was published. Comments were on average 63 words long.
Some of the highly commented blogs were personal journals, where comments came from a group of the blogger's friends, and comments were not necessarily related to the post. For a given blog, a high number of comments to a post is often related to highly controversial topics (such as Iraq, Muslim, etc.) or to links from mainstream media.
Mishne and Glance estimated that comments amount to about 10 to 20 percent of the total text volume of the blogosphere. They found that comments contributed significantly to search results. This implies usefulness in search engine optimization, SEO. They noticed that comments often added additional descriptive keywords.
They found a relationship of blog popularity in terms of incoming links and page views on the one hand, and number of comments on the other hand. Blogs which have more comments have more incoming links and more pageviews (this also holds vice versa).
Number of comments page views incoming links 1–10 423.2 (-7%) 130.4 (+95%) 11–50 485.3 (+7%) 158.5 (+137%) 51–100 650.8 (+43%) 261.2 (+291%) 101+ 1894.6 (+317%) 600.3 (+800%)
This means that the number of comments in a blog is an indicator of the significance of a blog.
Krishnamurthy in his article The multidimensionality of blog conversations, writes this:
The number of comments per post is perhaps the truest and most diagnostic metric of the nature of communication on a weblog. The posts that are most insightful or controversial get the most comments. Those that are pedestrian do not get many comments”.
Enjoy. Feel yourself invited to leave a comment here.
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Reading your post was the first time that I clicked "search engine optimisation" is what the acronym SEO stands for! I see the letters SEO all the time, I finally know what is being talked about now. Cheers ;)
Great post! I usually add one post a week to mine (or when I have something to say that might be worth reading). I'm torn somewhere between impressed and appalled at many of the blogs I come across that contain things I never needed to know [TMI], or a cut and paste from someone else's blog because they were desperate to post something.
You are exactly right, too, that responding to the comments is key; I've found myself going back to the blogs I've left comments on to see what the author said in response :o)
First, thanks so much for posting the statistical information on comments. I think commenting is crucial not only to the life of the blog but also in building relationships with other bloggers. I remember a couple of years ago when I first began blogging and knew nothing about SEO etc... I left a comment on one of the top blogs on the internet because I enjoyed the post. The next day, my stats had increased over 400%. I was scratching my head as to what happened. That one little comment brought in hundreds of hits to my blog. I learned then the importance of comments.
As you have stated I've noticed the same trend on personal diary blogs and controversial issues in being the most commented and most popular. I also have to disagree with the "blogging gurus" who state that a niche blog is much more successful. In my opinion, blogs which have a deliberate mix of topic will attract more readers.
Your comment on SEO is right on target. Using keywords which are relevant to the post will allow for search engines to pick up the post more readily.
It is also crucial to reply to your readers' comments. It builds relationships and has them coming back for more and therefore will begin to garner a following.
I agree there are several reasons for blogging. Many our business related which are basically trying to sell to the public, then there are the bloggers who write for the sheer joy of expressing themselves. These bloggers in the long run are the most successful as they are writing from the heart.
This article was a great and informative piece of which helps us all understand the blogosphere a little better.
Nice info, I will start comment more from now on :)
@Poetic Shutterbug: thanks for your great comment, Jo, and for sharing your blogging experiences.
I think you make a remarkable observation implying that because posts on diverse controversial topics make for most popular and most commented, this could mean that blogs with a more broad scope could be more successful than niche blogs who cater articles of a given topic to a small target audience. I think you are probably right.
I have read many times that blogs should choose a niche and was thinking about whether I should branch out into different blogs or restrict the scope here. However I see in the google followers that the interests of readers are very different. Some readers are interested in blogging widgets, others in software and technology, and others in topics of general interest. I think, restricting the scope of this blog would be neither fun to me nor to most regular readers. Now, if a broader scope is good for SEO that is great.
I agree that the relationship-building aspect is very important about comments. On the one hand, I try to answer most comments, and I often check out blogs of people who comment to see what else they have to say. If on their blogs I see articles on topics that interest me I am more inclined to comment myself.
You write about a 400 percent traffic spike after leaving a comment. I think it should be clear that commenting is good for commentators and for post authors.
@Jen and Sarah: thanks for your comments.
Jen, I think I am going to post very soon about some firefox add-ons for blogging. One will be a comment tracking tool.
Hi friend,
I am visiting this site for the first time.. You have explained the importance of commenting in other blogs... The statistical information is really useful... Commenting on other blogs builds a good relationship with them.. Vaulable comments on their blog definitly bring traffic to our blog... We should be a regular commentator there..
I have written similar article "How to comment on other blogs" in my blog... I will be happy if you check out that article...
Thanks for sharing these information friend... I will be waiting for the next article in this blog friend..
That would be awesome! I just found a cool dooberhickey (er, that's a technical term :o) this morning called "Gravatar"; a.k.a. Globally Recognized Avatar that lets your avatar pop up on almost any blog when you post a comment. I always wondered how folks did that.
Hello
This is a great and useful post.You have described very well about importance of comments for blog and its really easy to understand from this post.I came to know so many new things about blogs.Thank you very much for such informative post.
acai beeren
Can't agree more with "This means that the number of comments in a blog is an indicator of the significance of the blog.
Well since this post is about leaving comments, I sure will leave a comment. I have also found in my travels, that the best way to get people to comment on your blog is to comment on theirs. Not just once but I try to be consistent about leaving comments. The blogging community truly is wonderful. I have made many good friends.
Hello friend,
Thank you very much for following my blog on Google. I am now following this informative blog too. Let's keep in touch.
Hi.. thanks for this information...
But, is there any software to find doFollow blog?
Thank again
Yanis
Dropping by to say Have a Happy Healthy Holidays to you and your family!
Comments show the connection between the author and his readers and are a good sign of growing blogs.
Happy Holidays!
Totally agree with you. Please check my article, its about leaving comments benefits http://www.famousbloggers.net/comments-benefits.html
Thanks a lot to everybody for your comments! You greatly enriched the discussion.
@deepika,@another blogger: nice articles. You can find that many of the points you make have a good statistical underpinning.
@bulk bag: I don't know of any software to find do-follow blogs. There are some article directories, however.
Lots of stats, though they didn't tell me how to encourage comments. I leave lots of comments. I do read the blog posts but can see many don't by the comments they leave; not just on my blogs but others as well.
I think we know comments matter, but what I've never understood is the one sided blogger. The blogger who loves comments on their blog, but never bothers to return them. I've even read some actually say in their comment section they don't return comments.
I think most of us have opinions about almost everything we read, though our level of knowledge and interest may vary. Most of us can leave a comment on a blog, but it appears most don't. The blogs I don't leave comments on tend to be super technical...well above my head, I don't know enough to make a comment. lol
Happy New Year
Sandy
@bulk bag, again: you asked about finding do-follow blogs. Look at Sandy's post I am a Do Follow Blog, Are You? to find a large list. You might also want to check my article Social Networking Websites by Usefulness where I list for a number of social networking sites, whether they are do-follow or not together with their pagerank.
@Sandy: thank you for your comment. I checked out your blog and was impressed by the amount of comments which is well-above the average as you can see in the statistics in this post.
I liked the comment post message on your blog which reads like this:
This is a do-follow Blog. I LOVE comments and always return them, so please let me know you were here by leaving a comment. A real one not 3 words, nice blog post; those don't really count as comments! All spam from webpages will be deleted. Only bloggers need to comment.
I have to admit that I don't always return comments, but I am hopefully not one of those that you call a "one sided bloggers."
I think most comments fall into one of 3 groups: 1) they want a link, 2) they want to say hello or thank you, 3) genuine contributions. I value most comments of group 3 and it's these comments that give me motivation for a long time to write more and better. Comments from group 1 not always are linkspam (I delete most linkspam). Sometimes there are very short, but not always.
When I get a comment, in general, I check out the site of the poster. I sometimes include these blogs in my entrecard favorites where I drop every day. I don't always leave a reply comment at the other blog. Some blogs talk about topics I am not interested in or don't know nothing about. There are probably as many reasons why I don't leave a comment as there are reasons to leave a comment. I don't force it. I leave comments when I am inspired and I think this is quite often.
You say the article does not really state how to get more comments and you are partly right. The post states that commenting is part of a social process/interaction. So you can do a lot of things to stimulate social interaction with other people. Of course I mean mostly bloggers.
Apart from that, I think there are many things to motivate comments. I wrote about how to attract comments. One of my main conclusions is that the blogger commenting system is not very good. You might choose not to change to another commenting system, however you can try to style it better. I might write about that if I see people are interested.
I think commenting is a very effective way in retaining good relationship with other bloggers as well as visitors
Excellent article. You are so right. Blogging is all about the interaction one can have with the readers. Often those of us who blog dont interact as much with other bloggers by leaving comments on what we read.
I agree coments are very important part of a blog. The relationship with readers is crucial. Thanks for putting thigns in a well read easy to understand manner.
@Benjamin
could you check out my blog and let me have your impression of it with a guest comment . Ive tried to follow the points in your article about how to attract more comments. But i seem to be essentially missing something important ,which i cant put my finger on. I have seen a lot of blogs with great content but absolutely no comments. so thats the first thing i am working on to get comments and then start working on building more content.
any input from your side would be appreciated.
Thanks
@Aditya Game Programmer: Thanks for your comment. I looked at your blog.
Your blog is still very new. The site meter on your blog shows 205 and you still have very few and short posts. On my blog it took about a year until I got the first comment (I did not use entrecard, though, and did no promotion, whatsoever). I never thought about blog design, promotion, and building blogger connections. Even then some posts that had more than 1000 pageviews didn't get any comment. You may need some patience. Write more posts, connect with other bloggers of similar interests and build connections and you'll see how the comments will come.
That said, I am proud to be the first commentator on your blog. I am sure there will be many more.
Thank you for your insightful comment. I am honored have you as my blogs first commentator .Yes my blog has few and short posts. As of now I am of the same view and hence I am following the pro blogger 10 tips of blog posts here http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post/. Also I liked the idea of creating a brand for your blog when it is still young. This also I found here at http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/11/27/7-essential-things-you-should-be-doing-when-your-blog-is-still-young/.I was basically inspired to start blogging by www.emanueleferonato.com/ .
I am basically the kind of person who thinks a good while into the future and plans does things accordingly. And essentially I believe in building up the support structure or the essential elements that give life to the blog besides the obvious content. Hence one of my early experiments is in SEO, and getting the right kind of traffic and that’s how I have come across outsourced brain and pro blogger. I was hooked onto your blog by your post the importance of comments for a blog. certainly would like to see how things progress.
Thanks all of you for your comments. They are very much appreciated.
@L. Venkata Subramaniam: I completely agree with you. It is important to become more aware of the importance of comments for other people and for yourself. First of all they are a great source of motivation. After writing this article I started writing more comments.
@Aditya Game Programmer: It's a great motivation to read such positive feedback. I wish you a lot of success and I hope you keep visiting.
Nice post. I am new to the blogging. So this post will help me a lot to increase traffic and attract more visitors.
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@Neil: I think understanding this topic can help a lot in reaching success. Good luck and success with your blog(s)!
Well done... I have no visitor comment in my blog..only one..and that's mine..:D but the Alexa rank page growing up from 6 million to 1.2 million for 2 months.
@Digger: Congratulations on the huge improvement in alexa rating. I am sure you'll start to get a lot of comments.
When I started blogging I was not getting much traffic. But then I made my blog dofollow and suddenly getting huge amount of traffic on daily basis.
It's obvious that a blog which allows linking, will get more visitors.
I try and leave comments on blogs that I read frequently, but clearly I Little do I know that importance of commenting.
SEO services
Very interesting. Never read something with such in depth analysis.
Tottenham: if they play any english team they will get beat 6 nil on aggregate! for sure! and liverpool have a Carroll and Suarez! but Chelsea have Drogba! Anelka! Torres VWAH!
A good post, but it isn't always as simple. For instance, I haven't get a system for comments in my website because I simply don't have the time to moderate the comments, I am usually so overloaded of work that I have problems replying to e-mail and posting. What I wonder is how much time does it consume to manage the comments.
Making controversial remarks or any view that goes against the norm will always ignite a response. Expressing your point of view is your chance to grab the limelight...so take it.Submitting irrelevant comments trying to get links will just get you trashed...so why waste your time?
I know I can spend ages getting decent, targeted content – autoblogging's good in theory, but in practice the articles aren't relevant enough and the traffic they bring just isn't targeted enough to turn a decent profit.
If you're anything like me, you're spending far too much time keeping your blogs updated with new content. However, I found a way around this...reducing time spent on blogging to a minimum.
Best Regards,
Brian Louden
Thanks for the tips. A few of them I already knew, a handful were
really obvious ones I should be doing, and some I just never thought of
using. So thanks for the info! I'm sure it will help my site out.
A good job, but not always easy. For example, I have not had a comment on my site, because they simply do not have time to moderate comments, I'm usually so overworked that I have trouble responding to e-mail and display. What I wonder is how much time is spent managing comments.
I usually do blog comment to get referral traffic to my website. These how I can have more profit or sells to my products.
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