I get self promotion and weak comments on my site from time to time and I just delete them. If I can feel the persons self promotion energy, so can the reader and it reflects badly on me.

I like to take a complete reader perspective when I comment on a site. If I wouldn’t leave the same comment if I didn’t have a site then I don’t leave it.

I’m not a fan of too much promotion of a product or service by the website owner. I have read enough sites that I automatically glance over the promotion at the end. It’s better to have the product in a prominent spot on the index page that the reader could find themselves.

I have just entered the blogging world so I have so much to learn. One thing I learned initially is to give lots of comments on lots of blogs so you can get lots of link. This is easy said than done. There was one post (sorry I don’t remember the link) but the author suggests that you should make 100 comments per day so you will get 30, 000 link a year. He did that and his site got 100, 000 visitors just 12 weeks after being launched. Isn’t that nice?

Honestly, that sounds a little tempting. I tried it for one day and the best I got is 12 comments. That took me 2 hours. I mean, like you said, the comments have to add some value to the post. How can I humanly make 100 high-quality comments on 1 day? That’s to say there are many hypes on the net. I am learning to filter out useless suggestions.

Anyway, now I rather have 4 well-thought comments each day than a bunch of useless ones that might be marked spam anyway. But my problem is that sometimes I like many posts in 1 blog and eventually left 4 comments on that blog on one day. They are good comments but I was afraid that the blog owner may not like that many comments from one person in one day. Then how many comments should I leave on 1 blog a day? Any thought, anyone?Darren?

I don’t have a problem with someone trying to get a bit of attention by posting a comment on my site – but I would hope that they did a little more subtly than how it is currently done. If you want to promote you web design site or a new service you have, put it as the anchor text of your link, don’t decide to chuck a few more links inside the actual comment. Firstly, it is not polite, secondly it is spam, thirdly – it is spam that will most probably be caught by Akismet.

I have always had a negative stance towards one liner comments or as I enjoy calling them ‘link-seeker’ style comments. Personally, I go around my comments section deleting comments that don’t add value to the post. In our day and age, you have to be vicious when it comes to comment spam and their deletion. People who say stuff like – thanks for the info and great stuff dude should have their comments eternally purged from your blog! (hehehe)

I have a new comment and spam policy that I have placed underneath my posts – it informs people that their comments will be purged if they do not add value to the post or share their opinions with the community in their comment. I know this may seem a bit drastic at first, but I highly believe it is the best way to go in order to ward off human spam commenters.

It might sound a bit melodramatic but I felt betrayed somehow, because had she simply asked me to link to her blog I wouldn’t have minded doing so but now I’ve got my back up against her because of those actions.

In a word, I am not a fan of excessive self promotion. I think being subtle by leaving thought-provoking or helpful comments that make other readers ask “I wonder what else this person has to say!” is best.

Then the real conversation goes somewhere else (twitter)…where people are less “serious” with themselves…

Irrelevant or spam comments are filtered out as quickly as I can find them!

I usually discard comments if there are irrelevant links contained in the body of the content.

I leave links there that may provide help for other visitors, or that add value to the original post.

Like anything though, it is a learning process.

Thanks for a great post.

Cheers!

We teach people that their online “brand” is so critical to their potential ability to get a job. If they use themselves to blatantly promote (i.e. spam) it’s worse than if they had sent thousands of pieces of email spam. Thanks for giving us more insight on when, why and how to respond to posts!

I don’t want to steal the show. I feel like I have to overcompensate, since my first thought is that I am totally in it for my own reasons (self-promotion). I decide I am going to comment on certain posts, then have to actually think up something meaningful to say. Sometimes, this takes more time than the author put into the original post, which I am sure is the case in this instance. I’ve definitely put more than 3 minutes into concocting this one.

If I can get the author to respond to me directly, it’s just more validation for my non-spam. I guess I have a guilty conscience. I over think these things. But what it really comes down to is adding something to the conversation as many of you have said.

Sometimes, I feel bad leaving comments, even genuine comments, if I haven’t brought up some meaningful point. But at the end of the day, I turn the tables and realize that I would love more people to comment on my blog. It doesn’t have to be anything deep or academic, just someone genuinely saying they liked a post or it spoke to them in a certain way. No 2 word comments, but a 3 or 4 word comment could be nice in certain instances.

Why aren’t people prepared to put in an “honest days work” anymore??? (okay, that may be an unfair generalisation but I can’t help but feel that blogging has become the latest market for “get rich quick” scams).

Hence, certainly in the very early days, unless one hits an immediate niche or gets lucky (or is enormously blessed), it is hard to resist not only over-commenting, but also sending all and sundry over to Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, et al.

The irony with the latter, of course, is that, again, bar the odd exception, you really need to have a following on these social networks for anything you submit to really take of, and this absolutely applies to your own material, the personal submission of which is generally frowned upon anyway (more so, in some cases).

I agree, though, that sending links to another blog’s comments to just to pick up a few cheap hits yourself backfires in all kinds of ways. I personally always try and add something of value; I’ll leave it to others to decide if that mark is ever met.

That is not to say a blog’s author necessarily wants a forum-like exchange, but some of the best ideas from my blog have been introduced by readers in the comments area. Same rules that apply in comments sections apply in forums – create value for other readers and you’ll be fine.

These advertisements stick out like a sore thumb, but as with people who type in all caps, some don’t realize that there’s a certain etiquette associated with comments.

Would you let someone come into your house and spit on the floor?

Spammers who get upset about having their comments blocked are getting what they have coming to them, at some point they need to learn what blogging is all about – a conversation, not some slugfest where you try to steal all of the readers of someone’s blog.

By the way, please visit these links:

(heh, got ya)

Think of the comment as a mini post. It’s your chance to catch the eye of the blog owner as well as the other commentators. It’s a way to start a dialog, it should not be seen as a way to drop one or two links in the vain hope that you will get increased traffic.

That’s my 2 cents