Comments or No Comments or timed comments

[paulbart1]

I just recently read about people who switch comments of or don't allow people to comment after 2 weeks or even allow anyone to blog and it doesn't get moderated....

This one marketing guru claimed that by turning comments off after 2 weeks, people had to wait to comment on the next new post...So it made it more scare to be able to comment and he was getting 100+ comments per post...However I disagree with that as some posts are old and I still feel I want to have an interest and comment.

The other guru claimed that you should turn the off the part where you have to moderate the comment before posting it...and just allow anyone to comment...However I thought that this is way to much incentive for people to just come and spam and advertise on your blog with comments.

Whats your views on comments?

[Melody]

Hi Paulbart!

I have strong views on commenting based on my own experience. My blog gets a reasonable number of comments (link in signature). However I don't proclaim to be an expert.

I don't turn comments off. Even old threads may attract new life to it, and I haven't seen any reason to shut off a blog post's comments based upon some timing of like two or three weeks gone by.

I don't routinely get 100 plus comments per blog post. Many many experts will say that the number of comments you get will jump if you make your blog "do follow" BUT you'll definitely find that there's an artificial spam component to that. Your spam will go through the roof and you'll have commenters who aren't that engaged by your content but commenting only because it's a "do follow" blog. My own blog is "no follow".

As to moderation: If you're using wordpress, Akismet is a must to keep spam off your site. I do moderate comments. The first time an email address is new it must be approved by the blog owner.

This may seem strange but a few people do come to the site to be antagnonistic and not contribute in a positive way. It rarely happens, but if it looks like someone is just trying to pick a fight, I won't approve the comment. Even Starbucks can cause people to have really strong feelings. Once an email address has been approved, that participant can recomment without going through moderation again.

My random two cents.

[paulbart1]

Ah cool thanks melody!
Yeah I agree, I don't close my comments off at all as I believe that some people may feel the need to add to a post from a few weeks back.
Also for me...

comments > views

Just thought I'd chuck that in there!

[Gemmacat]

I don't think it matters if you only give a short window to comment. It matters more whether the article had an impact or not and if it made people want to comment, for whatever reason. My blog has so few visitors yet that I'm not dealing with spam and just making an effort to get more readers So can't really comment on that yet.

[paulbart1]

Originally Posted by Gemmacat

My blog has so few visitors yet that I'm not dealing with spam and just making an effort to get more readers So can't really comment on that yet.

Yeah same to be honest I deal with a little bit of spam but very rare! I cannot wait until I have a little following! Just takes time and effort to get there which sucks, but I guess once there, it will feel better as you have worked your way up!

[Melody]

I strongly think there are good reasons to keep comments open. I've been thinking about this a lot. Imagine you have been blogging consistently for 2 or 3 years: You will have built up an archive of several hundred blog posts.

You may, at some point, find yourself with an "anchor" blog post. You won't know it right when you write it, but it will become obvious to you later. An "anchor" post is one that constantly brings people to your site long after you've written it. It doesn't become a forgotten blog post, rather it somehow always has activity on it. It might be that it's a very popular topic. Or it might be that you have exclusive content that people cannot find elsewhere.

I have one major anchor blog post:

Collecting Starbucks City Mugs! [Open Thread]

It's a year old and it's still alive. People use it as way to connect to each other to trade, sell, buy Starbucks city mugs. They connect through the comments.

Your blog won't really develop anchor posts quite like this if you close the comments arbitrarily after 2 weeks or a month or 90 days.

[pajojeff]

I've always told people it had to be true. Thanks for shedding light on this.