My Lousy Commenting Policy Undergoes Changes Again! 
Posted by on 06 June 2010GD Star Rating
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Tuesday May 25, 2010 at 9:16 PM, one of the new commentators here contacted me because I had delinked her comment for failing to stick to my commenting policy.
My commenting policy clearly states that commentators will generally be giving a free hand @ using keywords of their choices ONLY after leaving 10 comments.
Below are the emails we exchanged:
Hello.
I recently commented on your blog but had the link removed for not following your commenting policy. I apologize for wasting your time with that. I would like some clarification before commenting again. Am I allowed to use ‘Louisa@Designer Handbags’, or would I have to use Louisa@Galliano’ for the first 10 comments? If it’s the latter I probably won’t bother.
Thanks.
To this I replied
Thanks for contacting me but sorry. It has to be the latter.
If my policy changes, I’ll let you know. have a great day/night 
And she replied again
Yeah no offense, but that’s a pretty lousy blog commenting policy. Basically you are forcing your commenters to give you 10 ‘free’ comments before you give them anything in return. Most blogs are more appreciative of their commenters as they know it is what keeps all of their posts fresh in the eyes of the search engines.
Anyways, it’s your call. I have plenty of other blogs that would happily accept my comments.
Thanks.
-Louisa
To everyone who have wanted to leave a comment here but decided not to after reading my “lousy” commenting policy, this is what I have to say.
When I first started this blog, I was craving for comments thus I installed Dofollow, Keywordluv and Commentluv. The comments flooded in especially on posts that had to do with these two two plug-ins. I was ecstatic!
It was while checking out someone else’s blog that I noticed a comment similar to one which had been left on my blog. Further investigations revealed that most of my commenters where simply regurgitating comments they had left on other blogs so they could get free backlinks.
Before I could say jack, my Google PageRank dropped and even though I wasn’t too keen on PR, I knew I had to take action less my search engine traffic suffered too.
Thus I introduced the new commenting policy and also cleared about 95% of all trackbacks on this blog. (Trackbacks are still activated but are seriously moderated)
I’m really sorry that you guys feel the way you do but I’m just trying to maintain some sanity on my blog as I dislike most blogs with varieties of keywords littered everywhere and having ABSOLUTELY no relation to the niche in question.
I detest nasty backlink chasers especially those that come around, coyly ask a question and never reply back when their questions/comments have been answered or replied to. What even pisses me off the most, though it shouldn’t, is that their blogs are strictly NOFOLLOW.
It’s like “You leech my PR with your comments and don’t even bother to check back after I’ve attended to your comment. Sheeeeesh!”
After some serious thinking, I’ve decided to make my commenting policy less lousier. Thus the new rules are as follows.
- You MUST use your name or online name. Keywords only will get your comment delinked. Be warned.
- Both Author URL and Commentluv URL will be dofollow only after 3 “solid” comments.
- Restrict yourself to 3 Keywords Only. Anything more than 3 keywords and your comment risks getting deleted!
- Links to incomplete sites, suspicious sites, gambling/sex/casino sites and all Google unfriendly sites will be removed.
- STUPID SPAMMY COMMENTS such “Bookmarked for future reading“, “Great site. Good article” and the rest of them are not allowed. Don’t waste your precious time and mine. Also comment regurgitation is not allowed on my blog.
- To all those you can’t speak English, I’m sorry but if I can’t understand a word of what you’re saying, your comment risks ending up in the Trash especially if I initiate a conversation with you to explain what you meant in your comment and you don’t reply.
- BTW if you can’t write English fluently and you speak Spanish, feel free to leave your comment in Spanish.
- By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. If you’re not cool with this, please DO NOT submit your comment.
- All transactions with commenters on this blog are @ your own risk. StrictlyOnlineBiz will not be held responsible for any transaction gone wrong.
- Finally for me to believe that your comment ain’t spam, you MUST make reference to something written within the post.
Apologies to all those who have left just one comment and never returned again as this new commenting policy means that your link is now useless. If you are chasing dofollow backlinks, it’s always advisable to leave @ least 3 comments if you can should in case, the blog owner changes his policy on commenting.
Have you noticed that most dofollow blogs are silently going nofollow? I don’t want to do that and this commenting policy helps me stay true to the dofollow movement.
Do have a great week ahead. Cheers!
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Hi. I didn’t even realize that you had such a policy. I’m not quite so picky about the quantity of comments that are left. You might be right about some of the links having an effect on your page rank, but I’m not really sure. Anyway I think that it’s your blog and though others might quibble over your policy no one else makes the call except you.
I’m glad you are being flexible though. Things might improve for you soon.
Akismet seems to be in the habit of tagging you as spam. I wonder why.
After hearing what the likes of Growmap and Louisa had to say, I knew I had to make a change and as you say, I’m hoping things will look up from now onwards.
The links that probably hurt my PR then were those spammy trackbacks left by autoblogs. When I decided to check on them all, I found out that 99% of them had been deleted. Who knows? Probably got pissed @ that and made me “suffer” for it. lol
Good comment policy, Chuks. I’m not crazy about the keyword luv thing myself, but if you’ve read my policy, the only thing I ask is that I have a first name to call someone, and then I don’t care if they want to add keywords or not. I do care, though, that the comment has something to do with what I’ve written, and at this point I know if it doesn’t that it’s really just spam, and lucky for me, Askimet catches most of it. In that way, you really wouldn’t need #3 because 99.9999% of the time it really is spam, unless you personally know the person.
So go on with your bad self; I like your policy.
As you rightly said, I only accept #3 kind of comments when I’m somewhat of familiar with the commenter. Unfortunately Akismet still lets through most of this kind of short comments on my blog.
I’m not commenting for links. I’m commenting because I like your site
Have you tries Akismet together with WP-SPamFree? I found this worked pretty well when I tried it because most of the people who write the same comments on multiple blogs get trapped by Akismet.
I’m also careful to check all sites that link to me even if they pass the spam filters. If the site is not good, I leave the comment and delete the site link. If the site is really poor quality (i.e. nothing but adverts with no real content), then I mark it as spam so other Akismet users get warned.
I’ve seen sites like that and that was why I added rule No. 3
. I’m currently using Akismet and Wp-Spam Free and so far so good, the bulk of spam comments have been reduced greatly.
P.S: Not to worry I know you ain’t commenting for links cos generally those who do leave after they’ve gotten their link in place. Besides, I invited you over. lol
Hey Chukwudi,
Nice Post. I never comment on other sites, to get backlinks, keyword luv.. etc. !!
Btw. you have a awesome comment policy. Keep it up man.
~Dev
Thanks for stopping by again Dev but the truth is most of us do comment for backlinks. I do but ONLY when I have something to say. I also comment on nofollow sites especially when I’ve learned some great tip from them.
Thanks for the compliment
Have a great day!
Woah! I will have to apologize for your reason for instituting you comment policy! I can agree with you, however, the importance of receiving quality comments. I wanted to say, in my opinion, that yours is the first blog that I had to leave a comment on because your solution to the WPSC was on point! I had not problems with uninstalling it after reading your helpful review; I even subscribed right after! I arrived here after your recommendation to read your commenting policy…I can understand your reasoning behind it. It may be dis-hardening for a few of your visitors, but I understand all the same!
Thank you, I am happy to be a subscriber of your blog!
AIDY
Re: perhaps not following ALL of your rules your rules – I like your site so sue me!
I particularly found your advice page for pointing out the scammers for Nigerians interesting (but a lot to read in one go – will come back and digest later!)
Purely out of interest. Do you not find your commenting policy quite time consuming? And does the benefit really outweigh being a little more relaxed about it? I ask because as you are an online marketer and a doctor/would-be artist, one would assume that your time is taken up with tons of other necessary stuff.
Lol. From what I understand of your comment, I’m a little more relaxed becuse of my commenting policy as I don’t have to scan through tons of spammy messages. I just hit the delete button and continue with my life.
P.S: Thanks for the compliment. BTW you didn’t leave a link to your site.
I’m in between homes at the moment – moving from one site to another so all the furniture is scattered everywhere and it’s all quite bare LOL! But to be honest just commented because I genuinely liked your site not for a link opp.
I am new here and I agree with your new comment policy of dofollow only after three solid comments, I think that is better than the ten you mention before. And I agree with Louisa on the ten comment policy you are operating before, it is too much and will send lots of people like him and me away. Thank God you have reduce it before I get here
It is good yo have a policy for a blog or website and make sure you follow your policy and it is important to be flexible with policy if it affect users, you are doing a great job on your blog.
Wish you all the best.
Thanks for the compliments and for dropping in as well. Hope “your stay” will be worth it
In response, I thought I’d point out a few things for you. First, in your policy you state:
STUPID SPAMMY COMMENTS such “Bookmarked for future reading“, “Great site. Good article” and the rest of them are not allowed.
There’s really no need to point that out since they aren’t real people posting that stuff. Its all done by spammers using automated software to post the same crud to thousands of sites automatically.
The other thing I wanted to point out is that you seem to dislike people posting a comment and then never coming back to respond to your response. I’m afraid you’re asking a lot there. As a reader and an occasional commenter I read things and if I feel its worth my time I leave a note about what I thought of the article. I don’t view blogs as chatrooms and I don’t go there to converse. If I come back to your blog after this, it will only be because I found the same blog on Google when I was searching for something else. I hope you won’t think less of me because I’m not the kind of person who likes to chat.
Thanks for keeping it real. I TOTALLY understand your stance. I’m also not the kind of person who likes to talk on phone. SERIOUSLY!
.
The thing is there are commenters who leave quite an interesting argument from which even the blog author could learn a thing or two but when we ask them to talk more on this and help us and others out, they are simply no where to be found
This is the reason why I have problem with folks not returning to continue a conversation that they started.
I just realized I have been blogging for 2 years and never published an official “Commenting Policy” I need to do that and will be using yours as a framework. I think yours is a good one and not too hard lined as some people would complain about.
Feel free to use mine. I don’t mind one bit
I stumbled upon your blog today for I am looking for do follow blogs and whew! I find your blog. Your comment policy is not that lousy, eh. Just trying to protect your blog and in doing so, you are also trying to protect those commenter that you have. Anyway, I’m sure I’m gonna comment on some of your posts, since I like the topics that I’ve read here.Great day!
Thanks for dropping by
Hi,
You said that your new comment policy has cleared out 95% of your trackbacks. I’m not really familiar with how trackbacks work, so I don’t understand. I thought trackbacks were sort of automatic. Is that you’ve just made all trackbacks nofollow?
The only reason I ask is because I have my own wordpress blog, and I haven’t enabled anything like dofollow, keywordluv or commentluv, but have been thinking about it. Since I’m considering going to a system like that sometime soon, I was just wondering what kind of configuring you did that handled the trackbacks.
Thanks,
Boston VanCleave
Nope my trackbacks are dofollow but I’ve eliminated 95% of the spammy trackbacks. Trackbacks aren’t automatic. You have to send them when writing a blog post. I presently using Simple Trackback Validation plug-in to take care of the spam.
Gotcha! Thanks for the feedback on that plugin!
You’re welcome
[...] http://www.strictlyonlinebiz.com/blog/lousy-commenting-policy/1344/ <– Another DoFollow Blogger [...]
Chukwudi. I’m so proud of you. You are a rear gem. Freedom without some level of control mostly leads to anarchy. I think you are on the right track to protect your blog. There are so much information you are giving out for free that you need to be adequately rewarded with good comments and high page ranks.
Thanks for all your good works.
God bless you.
Thanks for the compliments too
Your site is down oh! Something about having exceeded your bandwidth
Hi Chuks, do you know I’m just reading your comment policy for the first time! Frankly, I rarely do this but after deciding to put up a policy on my blog with the latest top commentator rewards contest I’m running, I’ve also decided to be reading other blogs’ comment policies
Any way, I do not have issues with the policy. It clearly states why you are taking this stance. I’m personally really against most of what some bloggers call comments.
The rules are ok. Although I’d been commenting here but it’s been a bit long and I used different email addresses for different sites.
Ain’t no problem using different emails for different sites as long as the comments aren’t spam
Good Man!
Makes lot of sense. You really can’t please everyone perhaps including me too. Just do your thing and do it right, okay?
You are right in controlling unreasonable commenting attitude of desperate bloggers. I have learnt from this commenting policy of yours and I would borrow a leaf from it and apply same to my new blog.
Neverthess, I wish to ask you for a favour, and I just hope you would grant it. My blog Nigerius is a new one but I have started posting original content on it, and I know from my past experinces in blogging that for a blog to rank high in search engines, it needs a synergy of Original Content and Backlinks.
Even if you would not allow me to leave a link here, can you please send me an email on nairaman(at)ymail(dot)com on what I need to do to get my link on your blog because I would like to get at least quality links from related websites as mine. Thanks in anticipation of your kindness.
You can get backlinks from this blog by leaving quality comments or writing a quality guest post
Ok. Thanks. I will like the Guest post option and I will start right away to create a quality post for you. Just hope that it will meet your taste. Thanks for the reply anyway. You too much.