Why are blog comments so important?

A massive emphasis is put on blog commenting in SEO but I just don't understand why... If one wishes to improve the ranking of a site organically and is doing so by commenting on blogs with their URL, I just don't see how this is organic or natural!

I mean, think about how many sites you have found useful... how many of them have you then gone and linked to in a blog comment?

I appreciate that link diversity is important but I just wonder if there are many people who have had successful SEO campaigns but not bothered with the blog commenting, because everywhere I look that is what people are talking about here, and there are so many tools released in order to improve it!

I'm new to SEO so I don't have any experience to back this up but I just don't see how it looks natural and would appreciate other peoples thoughts on this too!

They are easy to get. Most of us use them to add link power to our other links (contextual).
If the niche is soft, you can rank a site on first page with mostly High PR blog comments.
Like any link though, it's all about relevancy.

Easy to get and you can often get your link within a big block of related text, you can also find some gems (high PR like 6's and 7's with very few obl's).

You just defined Black Hat

I understand that you can get link juice from them, but lots of people talk about blog commenting and ranking naturally, and I just don't see how the two go together?

1. Yes I have had many successful campaigns without blog commenting, but done right, they can tell the SE what your site is all about.
2. If you look at spammed blogs it is obvious that it is not natural in those cases.
3. I've gotten many sites ranked with only articles, bookmarks, and profiles.

Dodge said:

I understand that you can get link juice from them, but lots of people talk about blog commenting and ranking naturally, and I just don't see how the two go together?

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That statement is true for low-mid competition keywords.

There was this one case study where an individual ranked on the first page for the keyword "sex" using only xrumer.

That just goes to say that it is possible to rank your sites using one source of backlink.

However, it doesn't happen all the time.

Dodge said:

I understand that you can get link juice from them, but lots of people talk about blog commenting and ranking naturally, and I just don't see how the two go together?

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Blog comments are a natural form of linking.
In theory, it shows big G that your site interacts with others.
That's why I place importance on where my blog comments come from.

As far as ranking naturally, this is pretty difficult to do for a new site.
The way I define "ranking naturally" would consist of you building 0 links to your site, as they are all built by users and other webmasters linking to your site.
In order for that to happen, you need the best 500-800 words anybody ever wrote.

themidiman said:

Blog comments are a natural form of linking.
In theory, it shows big G that your site interacts with others.
That's why I place importance on where my blog comments come from.

As far as ranking naturally, this is pretty difficult to do for a new site.
The way I define "ranking naturally" would consist of you building 0 links to your site, as they are all built by users and other webmasters linking to your site.
In order for that to happen, you need the best 500-800 words anybody ever wrote.

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The more blog comments/social interaction you do the more likely these links will happen from my experience. I don't spend a whole lot of time on blog commenting like others do though. Some spend time sorting through tons of blogs to find high PR pages to post their comments on. I simply make a blog post on my own site and then setup a G00gle alert to notify me when another blog on the Internet has posted something similar to my post. I'll post a good comment on the other webmaster's new post with my link so it's more likely to get accepted, and it brings an extension of information to the original post.

It's whitehat, but its a good way not waste time writing comments that don't even get accepted.

daveguy said:

The more blog comments/social interaction you do the more likely these links will happen from my experience. I don't spend a whole lot of time on blog commenting like others do though. Some spend time sorting through tons of blogs to find high PR pages to post their comments on. I simply make a blog post on my own site and then setup a G00gle alert to notify me when another blog on the Internet has posted something similar to my post. I'll post a good comment on the other webmaster's new post with my link so it's more likely to get accepted, and it brings an extension of information to the original post.

It's whitehat, but its a good way not waste time writing comments that don't even get accepted.

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See this is the thing - that is undoubtedly the best way to get your comments approved because they are of course contextual and genuine, BUT, do you still enter your keyword in the "name" field as anchor text? Because surely as soon as you do this then regardless of what your comment content is, it immediately looks suspicious to the blog administrator? But on the other hand if you don't include your keyword, do you still get much link juice?

Thanks everyone - the responses have been really informative!

Dodge said:

See this is the thing - that is undoubtedly the best way to get your comments approved because they are of course contextual and genuine, BUT, do you still enter your keyword in the "name" field as anchor text? Because surely as soon as you do this then regardless of what your comment content is, it immediately looks suspicious to the blog administrator? But on the other hand if you don't include your keyword, do you still get much link juice?

Thanks everyone - the responses have been really informative!

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If I know the comment will be approved automatically, I will use anchor.
If it's a heavily moderated blog, I will simply use a name.
I personally think it still passes great link juice.
The key is to make sure your pages are optimized for your KW.
Then a link from a related blog, to an optimized post, will be beneficial.

Just my opinion.

themidiman said:

If I know the comment will be approved automatically, I will use anchor.
If it's a heavily moderated blog, I will simply use a name.
I personally think it still passes great link juice.
The key is to make sure your pages are optimized for your KW.
Then a link from a related blog, to an optimized post, will be beneficial.

Just my opinion.

Click to expand...

On-site SEO is something I need to work on tbh. It's on my to-do list!

Blog comments are also great ways to be noticed by other bloggers in your niche. If you have a great website/blog that people will actually find useful that isn't for spam/adsense purposes, commenting on blogs can help you get found by the blog's readers. Not to mention the blog owner. If the blog owner and their readers are web savey, they may check out your blog from your comment link. If they like your stuff, they could naturally link to you in one of their next posts.

This is how many people get started on the web and blow up. They take the time to build up rapport with people in their industry/niche to get noticed. This is obviously more difficult with results unknown, however it's, in my opinion, the best way to be effective at marketing your content. Imagine this scenario:

You are blogging in the online marketing niche. You are trying to get people to read your content and sign up for your newsletter so you can pitch new marketing ideas with your affiliate links. For example you found this great new private article network to post articles on and get backlinks. They have an affiliate link and you post this link in your blog post/newsletter. People that come from other internet marketing blogs to see your blog see that you have great ideas about a new form of getting links. They subscribe to your newsletter and you now have a HIGHLY targeted individual hanging on your every word.

If you do this with 100 blogs a week, you could potentially gather 100's of new newsletter subscribers every week. The key is to be genuine and provide amazing value in your blog comments. You want your comments to stand out and make people want to see who you are and why you know so much about the topic. This is the basic foundation of becoming an authority figure in your niche and can be replicated in any niche. Blog comments aren't just links, they are possible gateways to a new audience and highly targeted traffic.

Paper-Boy said:

That statement is true for low-mid competition keywords.

There was this one case study where an individual ranked on the first page for the keyword "sex" using only xrumer.

Click to expand...

This was pre-Panda I assume, right? Do you think the game has since changed or is this still true for mid/low keywords?

In my opinion since the Panda has hit the many websites, I'll suggest you to keep trying on 2 different websites. One with backlinks via commenting and other one, without it. You will get your answers.

themidiman said:

If I know the comment will be approved automatically, I will use anchor.
If it's a heavily moderated blog, I will simply use a name.
I personally think it still passes great link juice.
The key is to make sure your pages are optimized for your KW.
Then a link from a related blog, to an optimized post, will be beneficial.

Just my opinion.

Click to expand...

Very well said. Truth in between..

And tat works 99% Even My Personal Experience

ThopHayt said:

This was pre-Panda I assume, right? Do you think the game has since changed or is this still true for mid/low keywords?

Click to expand...

That's pretty obvious now isn't it?

themidiman said:

Blog comments are a natural form of linking.
In theory, it shows big G that your site interacts with others.
That's why I place importance on where my blog comments come from.

As far as ranking naturally, this is pretty difficult to do for a new site.
The way I define "ranking naturally" would consist of you building 0 links to your site, as they are all built by users and other webmasters linking to your site.
In order for that to happen, you need the best 500-800 words anybody ever wrote.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I only know of one person who was able to do this. He has done ZERO seo, but has multiple top rankings and hundreds of thousands of visitors per month.

The catch: his niche is very technical, shows people how to get real high paying jobs and his writing ability is ridiculous.

99.99% of people can't do this. Better to build links...

Blog commenting are important because there is very good chance to get links from that pages which have actual PR.
And the links google find naturally.
No need to ping them.
All the links have link juice.
That's why blog commenting is important.
But don't try to get those links which already have been spammed with lots of OBL.

Blog comments are just another form of link building. Spamming a blog with "very interesting site, it helped me with my website" is not a very effective technique in most cases!