I raised my eyebrows the other day when Fred Wilson announced he wants to close comments on all blog posts after two weeks.
While I can sympathize with his frustration of spammers finding old blog posts and adding their thoughts, why can’t he do what I do and moderate? It is manual work but takes seconds and is a near-foolproof way to reduce unwanted comment spam.
If you’re someone who’s never commented here before, your first two comments will be moderated, manually, by me, and marked for either approval or spam. This is in accordance with my comment policies.
The problem with preventing comments after two weeks is you never know if blog content becomes relevant based upon keywords or topics you once wrote about. As I commented on Fred’s post, I suggested he emulate what I do by closing comments after 365 days. Moderate the first two comments by every unique visitor and allow comments up to a year. Beyond that time frame it is questionable to me why someone is commenting. Agreed?
To the people I constantly mark as spam because they add irrelevant comments about web hosting, pornography, and topics I won’t mention here, I recall the words of former Saturday Night Live cast member Cheri Oteri in the below April 2000 sketch: “Simmer down now!”
Updated December 18, 2009: Based upon your comments below, I have returned the ability to add comments to all posts, not just those from the past year. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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{ 22 comments }
Twitter: kikolani
December 17, 2009 at 4:46 PM
I have toyed with the idea of closing comments on my site because of the flood of incoming spam. Akismet has cut that down dramatically, especially the trackback spam which was worse than the comments, especially on older posts.
I do see the benefits in always leaving comments open. There are posts on most blogs that are going to be relevant today, tomorrow, and into the future that could bring in new traffic, and I would like to always leave the door open for conversation.
Also, I think there are some search engine benefits – new comments on older posts refreshes the content on those pages, drawing search engines to it again and maybe even boosting it results for particular keywords.
Thanks for inspiring me to write more about my reasons for leaving open comments.
~ Kristi
.-= New from Kikolani: Is Closing Blog Comments a Good Idea? =-.
Ahh… the search engine benefit. I hadn’t thought of that. Smart woman!
I don’t even know if there is any need to close them after a year. I have some posts I’ve written more than a year ago which
a) still hold true, or conversely
b) are no longer true.
In the latter case, I think comments may be actually more useful than the post itself. If someone can post a comment as a correction, or post to a newer resource, that’s actually more beneficial to the site visitor than an out-of-date post.
Obviously the alternative is to manually expire your blog posts after a given period of time, if you think they cease to be relevant.. but we don’t like to think about that, do we?
.-= New from Andrea Hill: Should Twitter be Banned at Conferences? =-.
Hi Ari,
I do agree with you also Kikolani and Andrea. I am also ever thinking to closed my comment form after 10 comment, but my consideration is the search engine index. when we got the new comment in our older post will giving the opportunities to our post for indexed again in the search engine. This issue also will carry our new post from the sandbox of search engine to the permanent database index.
I always open my comment form with always moderate all new comment to avoid the spamming even its take my time. Akismet is very helpful for us in catching the spammer.
.-= New from Bachrum @ Online Business Solutions: Keyword Choosing Analyses =-.
I wandered in from Kikolani’s blog (I’m not stalking you kristi honest).
Although I don’t like closed comments a year is probably fair to most people. Unless it’s the dictionary someone will find a better way to say it (ummm no offense) by that time if it’s worth saying.
I also think your policy of first 2 comment moderation is a great idea. It’ll give you a good idea of who’s who and what’s what. It doesn’t normally take all that long to figure out nice post is pretty easy to write.
Gonna go explore now, I’ve never been here before.
.-= New from Dwippy DoFollow: U Comment I Follow =-.
Thanks for chiming in and do enjoy your explorations. You know how to share your thoughts if inspired. Just a suggestion: add a real or fictitious name if you can; I’ve never met anyone named Dwippy and I doubt you were baptised with it.
Actually I just visited the blog and man does he have a lot of comments! I can see why he wants to shut it down. However, I still think there is more benefits in keeping the comment live (free updated content). I wouldn’t shut them down, but that’s his choice.
I like Dwippy. My IRL middle name is Delight bet you never heard anyone named that either. Now I’ll admit adding the DoFollow just for fun because it seems to flow. I never was baptized I’m an athiest btw.
What kind of name is Herzog anyways. LOL
That was fun. It probably sounds like I’m offended or annoyed but I’m not. I’m just slightly strange with a strange sense of humor.
Thanks.
Cletus Connor Castle
The list maker formerly known as Dwippy
.-= New from Dwippy DoFollow: U Comment I Follow =-.
What’s the point of blogging if you’re going to close down the comments section once a post is two weeks old? The idea behind blogging is supposed to be creating conversation and engaging with people, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t shutting down comments defeat the purpose of blogging?
Tessa Carroll
http://www.blogs.vbpoutsourcing.com
No, a blog is not defined by comments but enables conversations and ideas. There are many prolific and well-read blogs that lack commenting features; they’re no less blogs, though.
Hi Tessa,
I commonly advise clients that blogs are a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader: to showcase your expertise or knowledge in a subject. In some cases, they may not elicit comments, and that’s ok. I think we like to equate comments with engagement, and engagement is seen as a measure of success, but not all blog topics will generate a lot of discussion, and I think that’s ok.
actually, if blogs were only about conversation, they would be message boards…
.-= New from Andrea Hill: Should Twitter be Banned at Conferences? =-.
I haven’t been here for quite sometime, I just bumped into this post on Facebook via a friend’s status and RT of Kristy’s post. Anyway, your post makes me think a bit. I’m currently closing in comments after 90 days. Although there are timeless posts that really generate some traffic for me, I was quite thinking about the idea. I’m not really sure thou but having dofollow all this time might be abused as well by comments from old posts especially some popular ones. What do you say?
.-= New from Mathdelane @Software Critics: Goo.gl it and Socialize with Google’s URL Shortener =-.
I don’t see any abuse coming in; and I’ve enabled do follow links for most of 2009.
I not sure if you have already experienced commentators leaving the same email yet pointing to different sites they have and using the KeywordLuv as link bait. Here’s my post about it.
.-= New from Mathdelane @Software Critics: Goo.gl it and Socialize with Google’s URL Shortener =-.
I can understand that spam comments are really annoying. But isn’t it too extreme to close all comments? Akismet or Bad Behaviour are great tools to handle spam. I have proven it myself.
Twitter: DannyBrown
December 20, 2009 at 6:03 PM
I don’t think I’d ever close down the comments on any of my posts for the simple reason that I’m still seeing comments on posts from more than a year back. And with the likes of Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites offering traffic long after the piece, seems kinda counter-active to keeping a blog alive and interesting to visitors. Just my two cents.
.-= New from Danny Brown: Marketing in 2010 eBook from Valeria Maltoni =-.
Hmm, re-captcha seems to help, and so does bad-behavior, and on top of that akismet.
Theres no way to prevent it, just ways to slow it.
.-= New from Brad: Google Donates $20 Million To Charities for the Holidays =-.
I have ever felt stressful with spam comments, not only don’t have any relation with the articles, but also some rude words are written to my blog. I have ever closed the comment form, but then I realize that comment form is a media for me to have conversation with my visitors, so I open it again, but now I also use wp-spamfree plugin to encounter the bad comments, it quite works and useful for me.
Spammers could e frustrating really, but i don’t see a reason for closing comments. I use the Akismet plugin to automatically remove spam comments, then I still have to approve non-spam comments. At least for now, since I don’t get that many comments.
Twitter: waynejohn
February 19, 2011 at 4:22 PM
Hi Ari, I’m writing an article relating to this post, and noticed your link was throwing a 404 for your policies.
I’m inspired by how you’ve laid out your commenting policy. You’ll see my post in a few moments I suspect.
Cheers!
Wayne recently wrote Why you should pay attention to the commentators on your blog
Casualty of war from changing domains, amended now.
Twitter: waynejohn
February 20, 2011 at 12:40 PM
Want to discover all your casualties? Try Alex King’s 404 Notifier…I use that every now and then. Turn it on for about an hour, then turn it off. Emails will come showing you each 404 found….if you leave it on, it will continue to email…I usually take chunks at a time.
I’m sure you’re probably already doing that though. Just thought I’d drop my two cents on it.
Wayne recently wrote Updated comment policy- privacy page and other changes
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