Why I Love Links In Comments ... shhhh ... It's an SEO Secret!

Links can be good or bad.

On one of my blogs, more than 15,000 comments were deleted in the year 2007 alone, I approved less than 100. Why? Because those comments were automated spam. They had no real content to them, always linked to a spam (porn, get rich quick, etc.) site, and often where left by someone who was not a member of that particular blog host. Those are bad links. Bad links should be deleted. Why? Because bad links, linking to poor quality or spam sites will effect your Google ranking.

Years ago, comment links had a huge impact on your site's Google rank. The blog being commented on, would shoot up on Google's rank, because it had so many comments with links in it. Likewise, the site being linked to by the comment would also shoot up in Google rank. This was a good thing. The blog gained authority because it was linking back to an equally relevant and on topic blog/site. The blog/site got a pat on the back from Google, as a reward for it's being such a good blog/site that the blog had decided to link to it.

The goal here, and what was Google's original intent, was that blogs linking to relevant on topic blogs and sites were rewarded for becoming an *authority* on the topic in question. Google's goal was to find the sites which had the most authority on each topic, and send traffic to them, because they were the best place to find answers to questions people asked on the topic in question.

In those days links in comments were a good thing. All links, any links where welcomed. Links were good and every one wanted them.

Unfortunately, once bloggers and owners of spam sites learned this, spam left the email inbox and marched across every blog on the net. The end result of which was that no one was getting good rankings with Google, because now none of the links where relevant, every link under the sun was linking to every blog under the sun, and no one was getting anywhere. What started out as a good thing, quickly went very, very bad.

It only took Google a few months to realize what had happened and to stop indexing comments off of blogs, meaning that now, it doesn't matter if you have 100 links to one site on your blog comments, because Google turns a blind eye to those links, looking instead at the links added by the blog master to their blogroll.

It was the Google Slap that hit every single blog and web site across the net, and it hit them all hard. Good sites and spam sites alike were punished. Legit webmasters and spam webmaster fell side by side, as overnight, ALL links to everyone were suddenly counted as spam. The end result was a lot of hard feelings from the legit web masters who suddenly found themselves being called spammers, just for failing to delete off-topic links from their blog comments.

Soon after Google's anti-link comment slap, there was a dramatic change in how web masters looked at comments and it was seen everywhere. Not only on blogs, but on site guestbooks, social networking profiles, discussion groups, and chat forums . . . any place where the general public could leave a comment was now looked at with an eye of suspicion. Many sites that formally had guestbooks were quick to delete them. Many blogs, once public, became private or disable commenting ability. Web masters everywhere developed a new phobia: fear of comment links.

In this new online world where link-comment fear reigns supreme, there are a few odd web masters who laugh in the face of spammers and seek to take the bad and revert it back to it's original state of goodness. To do so however, requires the actual seeking and finding of relevant links. And while searching on Google does find us a few relevant links, I find that the best way to find recently updated, and more personalized links is to let the webmasters share the links on their own. Squidoo makes this easy.

The following closing statement is seen on 37 of my lenses, while more than 100 other lenses (including this one) carry a similar though reworded version of it.

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I'm looking for some great on-topic lenses to add to my lensroll on this lens. Got an art, artist, Zazzle, CafePress, or art instruction lens? I'd love to read it. Post a link to it here in your comment! Feel free to leave a link to it. Next time I log-in I'll stop by and check it out.

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I love comments. Like one of my lenses? Just want to say hi? Go ahead and leave comments. Don't be afraid. I won't bite. In fact chances are pretty good that I'll click on your profile, join your fan club, and than rate, fave, and comment on a few of your lenses. If you've got a lens I like and want others to read, I'll lensroll it. If you've got a lens I really really like a lot, I'll add it to a featured module on one of my own lenses. More than once, I've found a lens I really liked and wanted to feature only to find that I had no lenses on topic to it, so I actually went and created a new lens on the same/similar topic, just so I would have a place to feature your lens. Wasn't that nice of me? :)

You know what else I like? Links! I like links. No I love links. Have you ever read one of my blogs? If so, than you know just how much link promotion I do. On Star Log White (my longest and oldest blog) there are more than 500 blogs, lenses, and web sites linked into it's blog roll and separated by topic. Did you know that I started my CosPlay Blog not because I wanted to start a blog about CosPlay, but because I wanted to start a BLOGROLL to showcase my fave CosPlay sites on? Today there are more than 300 sites in it's blogroll.

I really love sharing links and I'm one of the few lensmasters you will find who *requests* links in comments on my Squidoo lenses!

I am always looking for some great on-topic lenses to add to my lensroll on my lenses. So, if you've got a lens on topic for whatever lens you happen to be commenting on, go ahead and leave a link to it in your comment. Likewise, links to Zazzle Galleries, CafePress shops, and blogs are always welcomed. Feel free to leave a link to those too. Next time I log-in I'll stop by and check it out.

For those wondering what happens if they leave a link in a comment on one of my lenses. Well, it takes me 3 or 4 days to get around to checking my comments. I do not check comments every day, because they do often have links in them.

I generally approve comments one day a week, usually Saterday night. Why? The links. It is not uncommon for folks to leave links in their comments on my lenses and I do click all of those links. The problem with clicking links is that I end up on websites/blogs/lenses, and the next thing I know 3 or 4 hours have gone by because I started reading the site/blog/lens and than followed links off of it and read some more, and than followed more links from there, and so on and so forth. In other words, I can not check comments on a day that I am editing/building lenses because if I did, I'd never get any editing done, because I'd be too busy reading and link surfing!

And even if the commenter didn't leave a link, I'll click on your profile, join your fan club, and than rate, fave, and comment on a few of your lenses. If you've got a lens I like and want others to read, I'll lensroll it. If you've got a lens I really really like a lot, I'll add it to a featured module on one of my own lenses.

I have 2,000 friends on MySpace, and they are not *spam friends* either. These are actually 2,000 people whom I talk to on various forums across the net, about 75% of them are authors. If you've got a lens that I liked and think they'll like too, than I send a bulletin about it. So, by adding a link in your comment on my lens, your just raised your chances that 2,000 other people are being told: "Hey, check this out!".

And that's not all . . .

I've got 32 blogs and do a lot of talking about forums, sites, lenses, Zazzle galleries, and blogs which I visit, always linking out to them, so leaving links to your on one of my lenses, will usually result in me linking out to it from one of my blogs as well. I'm real big on sharing traffic to my blogs and lenses with others. :)

If I really, REALLY like your link, I'll post it in a forum post and tell other forum members to check it out.

You should join a few forums and than talk to other members daily. Why? Well, for one thing, it the best way there is to talk about things you love. Of course if you are on Squidoo than you are already talking about things you love, but talking about those same things on a forum, allows you to link to your lenses and drive traffic to them. That's what I do,, and if you've left links in one of my comment boxes, that that is helping you out to. How?

I am an active member posting weekly on 30+ forums. I am an active poster, posting monthly on 150+ other forums. I am a semi active poster, posting on 300+ other forums. I join new forums every month. I own and am the administrator of 12 more forums.

At my most active, I have one forum membership where I have posted more than 30,000 posts. My other more popular haunts average at 7,0000 - 10,000 posts made by me. While even my lest active ones average at 1,000 posts by me. Why is this important for you?

Every single one of my lenses is linked to a forum sig. Most of my forum sigs allow 5 links in them, so most of my forum sigs have 5 of my lenses linked to it. 90% of my lens traffic is coming directly from forum members clicking links to my lenses. This means that the traffic come in to my lenses is traffic that WANTS to read the topic in question, and here is how that effects you:

I post on forums the same way I write my lenses: by filling up every inch of space with as many hundreds of words as possible. People who click my links are usually people who have just spent a half hour reading a VERY long forum post. Most of my readers know before they come to my lens, that they are going to plan on an hour or two to read my lens, so they come to my lens planning to read the entire thing. They also come to my lens knowing that I love links. Which means after reading my lens, they are going to seek out links to site I recommend. Ah-huh! That's where your comments come in. Since my readers tend to be forum posters rather than general web surfers, that means these are folks who read comments. If you've left a relevant on-topic link in your comment, there is a very good chance that my readers are going to click it and check out your lens too.

There is no reason why you can't do the same thing. Links in forum sigs allows you to leave comments with links without bothering the blogger/lensmaster. And best of all you make a lot of new friends who you can talk to online.

Once upon a time, every link in a comment and every forum post signature link, was counted by Google and added to your backlink total. In the days when Google indexed links in comments and forum signatures, people left links left and right.

A lot of people stopped leaving links, because they felt it pointless and a waste of time, and that they could use their SEO skills elsewhere. Why? Because today, Google ignores those links, so adding links to comments and forum sigs does nothing to boost your Google rank . . . or does it?

Actually it does still boost your Google rank . . . IF the link is relevant. How? Because Google counts your traffic, and they count which link was clicked by said traffic. Google wants to know how much traffic you get, and where that traffic is coming from. So if a link was clicks from a blog comment link, Google does notice, they may ignore it as a backlink, but they did still see it and count it as part of your traffic, and when you check your traffic stats, the link will show up as the site which sent you the traffic.

This happens, because while spam links are deleted by the web master, relevant links are often, not deleted by the webmaster/blogger/lensmaster. If the link is relevant, the webmaster will likely leave it, because keeping relevant links in comments does drive traffic both ways. Google knows who click what link and when they did it, so even if they do not index the link as a backlink, the link if relevant still benefits, the owner of both sites.

An example of this is my Creating Character Profiles lens. I made it in October 2007 at the request of a NaNoWriMo contestant who needed help with creating character profiles for their novel. I placed a link to it on their forum thread, where they had requested it. From that one link, had come ALL of my traffic to that lens. That lens being my second most trafficed lens after Publishing Methods. Today nearly a year later, that one lens continunes to be one of my top 10 lenses. I checked my stats page to find out how this could be, and was stunned with what I found:

After I had left that one link on the forum thread in my reply post, the person who had started the request thread, read and commented on my lens. Next they wrote a blog post about my lens. Than they went and searched out every blog post they could find requesting help in creating characters, and they posted a comment telling that blogger to check out the site I had made in answer to their request. Each of those bloggers in turn did the same, leaving blog comments telling people to read my lens.

I left one link, one year ago, and from that one link, I get 200 - 400 visits to my lens each week, not from the link I left, but from the links other people left in comments on blogs! 100% of my traffic on that lens, is coming in from links left in blog comments! I have since tracked down all of those blogs and posted thank you comments.

And there, is the true power behind links in comments on blogs and lenses. The link was relevant. The link answered a question the blogger had asked on their post. Others read the blog, read the comments, and than followed the link, and without any help from Google, my lens is getting traffic, because it was used as an on-topic and relevant link! And that is how links in comments were intended to be used, how Google had hoped they would be used, and how people should use them: to provide helpful information.

So leaving links in comments is still a good thing, provided that the links are relevant to the blog/site/post/lens in question. Relevant meaning that it moves the topic forward, it complements the topic, it answers a question asked, or it in some other way supports the topic in question.

Remember that the point of the comment box or guest book is to . . . *SHOCK* . . . leave a comment, share your feedback, offer a suggestion, or give a thumbs up to the web master. You should never look at a comment box thinking: "How can I use this to promote my site?", instead you should be looking at the comment box and thinking: "What can I say that will help the lensmaster?"

And an important note here: if you go to leave a comment, but than do not leave your comment because you noticed that the site builder said they delete links, than you had better rethink your motives for leaving a comment! If your goal in commenting is to leave a link to your site, than you are not commenting on the site, but rather using the site as a soapbox! THAT is spam.

Remember that the best comments are the ones that help the lensmaster/blogger/web master, not the ones that help yourself. So comment first, and add a link to the comment, only if you truly feel that your link is relevant and helpful. Make it your goal to leave helpful comments and only post links when you feel the link is helping, and you'll find yourself using links in comments wisely and in a way that is not considered spam.

Everyone loves comments, however, not every lensmaster, blogger, or webmaster wants to see links on their site. If the site builder states on the site that they do not want links in comments, than DO NOT leave links in your comments. Know that 9 times out of 10, the site builder is going to say "No Links", and even if they don't say it, they are usually thinking it. If the site builder says it's okay to post links in comments, than do so, but do so wisely, only leaving a link if you can truly say it is relevant.

As a blogger, I actually write more comments than I do posts. I'll write a post once every 2 or 3 days, but I write 10 or 12 comments every single day. I'll look for something that I'm in the mood to talk about (via Google) and than I'll read what other folks have to say about it, and than I'll comment on what I thought about what they said. My comments tend to be pretty long, 200 - 500 words is not uncommon for me. Sometimes I end up copying the comment back to my blog, and than continuing on into a rant, which ends up becoming my next blog post.

As a general rule, if I left a comment, than you'll find either that post, or the entire blog, linked back to one of my 30+ blogs afterwards, either via a post or blog roll. I'm a huge believer in linking out to others, which is how one of my blogs ended up with more than 300 blogs listed on it's blogroll!

I've been a blogger for years, so my commenting habits rolled over onto Squidoo when I joined, and thus I tend to leave a lot of pretty long comments on lenses as well, though the character limit on Squidoo tends to keep my comments here, to less than a quarter the size they are on blog posts. I don't leave comments on Squidoo as much as I do on blogs, however, because I tend to comment on opinion type posts, thus I also comment mostly on opinion type lenses.

Very, very rarely. I never do on blogs because the comment boxes provide a place to type a URL, so when people click on your name they go to whatever URL you typed in. The URL which I type in the box, depends on the blog I'm posting on. If it's a general topic Blogger blog, I leave my general topic BlogSpot URL, if it's a writer's Blogger blog, I leave my writer's BlogSpot blog URL, if it's a WordPress blog I leave one of my WordPress URLs, if it's a Squidoo blog, I leave the URL to my lensography, and so on and so forth. I try to match the URL to the blog I'm commenting on, and with 30+ blogs, 300+ Squidoo lenses, and 200+ websites, I have plenty of topics to choose from and thus no matter what blog topic I'm commenting on, I own a site with a matching URL.

On Squidoo, there are only three occasions when I leave links.

One I like your lens a lot, and have an on topic group it can join, so send an invitation to join. (Note, that I really, really, really got to like a lens an awful lot, before I do this however.)

Two, you had already joined one of my groups and I sent a thank you comment, which links back to the group in question, however, I only update my groups about once every three months or so, so this doesn't happen very often.

And three, I liked your lens so much that I added it as a featured lens on one of my lenses. This actually is usually the only time you'll ever get a link from me, and again, I don't very often tell you that I've featured your lens, so it's still a rather rare occurance.

There are a couple of exceptions to this, and that is, if I know you IN PERSON, in real life, off-line and around the neighborhood. There are 4 lensmasters who fall under this category, whom all live in walking distance from me. We chatter off line daily, and than on line we continue to chatter across the net, including across each others lenses, which I admit has resulted in so pretty strange comments, because we well have started a conversation off line face to face and than a few hours later picked up and continued that conversation in comments on each others lenses, and for us we know what we are talking about, but for people who land on the lens and read the comments, it must look pretty strange since they are only seeing the last half of a rather long conversation. In these comment between the 5 of us, you will also see links scattered about in, what at first looks like an off-topic willy-nilly fashion, however, these links where a result of the face-to-face conversations which went something like this:

"Hey I saw a great site you'd like today, about ...."

"Oh really? I'll be editing .... lens tonight, send it to me in a comment and I'll check it out."

I'm afraid the 5 of us, use each others lenses like a chat room, and so comments back and forth between the 5 of us, may or may not be on topic for the lens in question, simply because we started replying to each other via lens comment.

And than to make those conversations just a little bit less understandable to others, one lensmaster well say something on my lens and I'll answer on their lens, to which they answer on a different one of my lenses, and it becomes sort of a *treasure hunt* to track down the entire conversation that went on between the two of us! LOL! Than we take it one step farther by finishing the conversation face to face off line. So you only see bits and pieces of the conversation. We understand it all, but no body else does.

Fortunately, the 5 of us, only do this on each others lenses, so you have nothing to worry about. :)

From Google's point of view, not much. If you have written content in your blog post/Squidoo lens, and have links html coded into your text than Google counts them. Sunk into the text link that Google assumes that the author has read the site they are linking to, and are recommending it as an authority on it's topic.

Google looks at blogroll link secondarily, more as an after thought.

Links in comments, Google doesn't even blink an eye at.

If Google cruises past your site, notices you've added a link to you site, than cruises past THAT site and notices they are linking back to your site . . . WHAMO! Google now assumes that one site is linking to the other site at the request of the first site, and therefor it's not a real recommendation, but a mere link exchange, and now, Google discredits both links as pointless.

However, if you are dealing with a tiny niche topic and there are only a handfull of sites on the topic, and you happen to own one or more of those sites, than it is to your advantage to ignore Google and request and exchange with those sites.

Link exchanges only work in small niches though, and only when the links are closely related topics. An example of this would be the ONLY link exchange I have ever agreed to, when Sesshomaru's Castle requested a link exchange with my Lord Sesshomaru Costume lens. From their site I now get a steady stream of traffic. Likewise, from my site, they now get a steady stream of traffic. Google couldn't care less, and yet, this link exchange works because the two of us are each running one of the two largest sites devoted totally to Sesshomaru. Last year her's was the largest, now this year mine is. We both rank on Google's page one, because we both run sites in a tiny corner of a small niche: crazed girls with a super rabid obsession with Sesshomaru to the extent of literally becoming him. While he has a lot of fans, there aren't many who are quite so obsessed as we are, and so site's like ours get all the traffic there is to get, simply because there are no other sites for fans to go too, and thus it makes sense for us to exchange links.

Would this work on a more general topic, like say: growing roses? It may and it may not. For a link exchange to work, you would need two sites that complement each other perfectly. You may have to sift through a few hundred sites on growing roses, before you find the one that complements not competes with yours.

The biggest mistake made by those seeking a link exchange is that they ask every site under the sun, thinking that hundreds of links is going to help them get Google rank. The reverse holds true. Google will look at all those links, scattered willy nilly on off topic and irrelevant sites and it will knock you and the backlinking sites off to the bottom ranks. Find one or two sites and one or two sites only to request a link exchange with, and make certain that those two sites are of a very close knit relevance to your own site.

Overall the best links (in Google's eyes) are the ones you leave in your blog posts, right along with your text. Those are pretty much the only links Google really cares about.