Why You Must Avoid Blog Commenting Just for Getting Backlinks [Matt Cutts Video]

Blog Commenting is dead! Do not agree? I don’t agree either as comments are an essential part of any blog post and necessary for healthy discussions. So let me rephrase it. Commenting on Blogs, “Just to get Backlinks” is dead and dead since long. Hands Down.

Blog Commenting —
I'm very sure there are many SEO’s and Bloggers who still do not agree with me and are extensively using it as part of their Link Building Strategy. This is evident from the fact that, some very famous Bloggers still write articles giving out the Lists Of “CommentLuv” enabled websites and other websites which provide do-follow links from comments.

But, believe me, it will not help you improve your SEO. Rather, it will negatively affect your SEO. And I say this for a reason.

Find the weaknesses of depending on blog commenting only for backlinks. Dig the negative result it can have on your SEO efforts and learn more effective SEO strategies to boost your website online visibility.

Blog Commenting for Backlinks & SEO

While blog commenting can be a strategy for earning backlinks, it’s required to stop using it only for this purpose. Overuse can make you look spammy, negatively affecting your SEO efforts. Instead, focus on posting meaningful comments that add value to the discussion. This method not only improves your online reputation but also drives organic traffic, and so contributing to a healthier SEO profile. Remember, quality beats quantity in the world of SEO and backlinks.

Google Loves Content, Not Backlinks

To remind you all, Google does not care about how many backlinks you have. All Google wants is to promote the most awesome content, which is useful for its users, at the top of search Results.

As we have seen from the latest Google search algorithm updates that the more backlinks do not necessarily mean that the content is awesome and so the Google is very much aware of this fact.

Google Is Smarter Than You Think

Let’s take an example. Mr. Good writes well-researched content. He spends 8 hours daily for researching and writing an awesome content. He is able to get 10 backlinks to his article just because it is helpful to others. On the other hand, Mr. Bad writes poor articles in 1 hour. He spends next 7 hours building links by commenting on other blogs. He manages to get 20 dofollow backlinks.

If provided with this information, whose article would you prefer to read if you wanted to get information?
Mr. Good’s article right?

If we can make out that backlinks from comments section do not indicate that the article is good.
Do you really think Google is dumb enough to think otherwise?

Google is much smarter than you think. If Google can search do-follow and CommentLuv enabled blogs for you, it also knows when you get backlinks by commenting on these blogs.

Common Myths About Blog Commenting

Video: Matt Cutts On Blog Comments

To prove my point, let us see what Matt Cutts has to say about Blog Commenting:

Let us analyze his statements and what it mean for us as Bloggers. Answer by Matt Cutts

I leave topically relevant comments on topically relevant sites all the time. So somebody posts an SEO conspiracy theory And I’m like, “No, that’s not right,” I’ll show up and a leave a comment that says, “Here is the pointer that shows this is not correct,” Or, “Here’s the official word,” Or something like that. And I’ll just leave a comment with my name, and often even point to my blog rather than Google’s Webmaster Blog, because I’m just representing myself. So lots of people do that all the time and it is completely fine.

From the above statement, it clearly means that; But now comes the tricky part... Matt Cutts continues:

The sorts of things that I would start to worry about is it’s better to often leave your name so someone Knows who they are dealing with, rather than “Cheap Study Tutorials” Or “Fake Driver’s License”, Or whatever the name of your business is, often that will get a chillier reception than if you show up with your name.

This is what I said earlier. He further warns the people who use blog commenting as their primary link building strategy:

If your primary link building strategy is to leave comments all over the web, to the degree that you have a huge fraction of your link portfolio comments, and no real people linking to you, then at some point that can be considered a link scheme. At a very high level we reserve the right to take action on any sort of deceptive or manipulative link schemes that we consider to be distorting our rankings.

In the end, he clarifies that you should not worry about your regular comments as far as you do not go overboard with it.

But If you just doing regular organic comments and not doing it as a “OK, I have to leave this many comments a day every single day because that’s what i’m doing to build links to my sites,” You should be completely fine and it’s not the sort of thing you should be worried about it all.

The above video should be an eye opener for people who recommend using blog comments to build links. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google gets stricter about comment spam in the future.

Is Blog Commenting Waste Of Time?

NO, blog commenting is not a waste of time. As discussed earlier, blog commenting is necessary for healthy discussions. It also allows you to interact with fellow bloggers and get noticed in the blogging fraternity. Apart from this, if you share your knowledge through comments, you will develop a sense of trust among fellow bloggers. If you are posting 15-20 comments per month, that too useful ones, it will surely turn out to be positive for you. But if you go on posting 10 comments each to make sure you get many backlinks to your blog, you are not only wasting your time, you are also raising the red flags for Google.

Bottom Line

While blog commenting is still a good way for clearing your doubts or expressing your opinions of the articles or taking part in healthy discussions, you should avoid using it as part of link building strategy. While I do not discourage commenting on CommentLuv enabled blogs, you must, however, make sure to uncheck CommentLuv option.

If traffic is the main reason you use blog comments, you should rather start spending more time at Reddit and Quora. For more information you can read my article about Using Quora To Get Highly Targeted Blog Traffic

What are your views on using blog comments as link building strategy? Are you still using it?