Are you thinking about disabling comments on your blog? Moderating blog comments can be time-consuming, and you may wonder whether it’s really worth your effort. In this post, we’ll share what the data shows about allowing blog comments or not.
You may have heard about some popular publishers who have disabled their blog comments due to a high volume of spammy and low-quality comments, and you’re wondering whether you should too.
In 2014, Copyblogger announced that they were removing comments… but then brought comments back in 2016.
Michael Hyatt pulled the comments section from his blog as well… but after a year, he too brought them back again.
Zen Habits turned off their comments permanently due to too much comment spam.
Seth Godin says that, while he thinks comments are terrific, they take up too much of his time and energy, so he will never allow them.
On the other hand, many publishers still argue the case for keeping blog comments.
With no clear consensus from the content marketing community, how are you supposed to decide what to do with the comments on your own blog? Particularly when you are inundated by tons of spammy or low-quality comments?
How to Decide Whether or Not to Disable Comments
Here at OptinMonster, we believe in doing what is best for our users, even if that means some extra time, effort or expense. At the same time, we also believe in making smart, data-driven decisions–and helping you to make those decisions–so that you can spend your resources wisely.
You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons of allowing comments before you make that decision for your own blog. That’s why we decided to show you the actual data in this post, rather than giving you yet another subjective point of view.
But before we dive into the data, let’s briefly discuss why you may want to disable your blog comments, and what some popular opinions are on the subject…
The Debate
The reasons why you may want to allow blog comments or not is summarized nicely in this post on Fizzle, where popular bloggers Pat Flynn and Everett Bogue debate the issue.
Pat argues that you should allow comments on most blogs, while Everett argues that you should seriously consider turning them off.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what each had to say…
The Argument For Blog Comments
In Pat’s argument, he states that,
“Without comments, a blog isn’t really a blog. To me, blogging is not just about publishing content, but also the two-way communication and community building aspects behind it.”
The benefits he states for allowing blog comments are:
- Blog comments provide a form of social proof
- Blog comments help you to understand what your readers want you to write about
- Responding to comments helps you to deepen your relationship with your readers
- The act of commenting theoretically increases the likelihood that the user will also engage in other ways, such as subscribing to your email newsletter or even making a purchase down the road
The Argument Against Blog Comments
In Everett’s argument, he states that,
“To say a blog is not a blog when it doesn’t have comments can’t be true, because my blog works just fine without comments. My ideas are definitely not perfect, but at a certain point I had to make a decision about where my focus would lie. Did I want hordes of Internet randoms deciding where my ideas needed to go, or did I want to proactively choose the opinions that would influence my ideas?”
He goes on to say that rather than spending endless amounts of time sifting through low-quality comments on his blog, he now has time to build meaningful relationships with individuals on social media.
So which argument makes the most sense for your readers and your business? Let’s take a look at what the data says…
The Data
Determining whether blog comments are generating revenue for your business is tricky because they don’t directly lead to sales. But is it possible that having blog comments indirectly increases your revenue?
When it comes to your content marketing, you can safely assume that the more traffic you get, the more revenue you’ll be able to generate. So the question becomes, do blog comments lead to more traffic?
HubSpot analyzed comment, view and link data from over 100,000 blog posts. What they found about the correlation between blog posts and views/links was fascinating.
As you can see, they found that there is no correlation between the number of comments on a post and the number of links that post got. There is also no correlation between the number of comments and the number of views that post got.
(There is, however, a positive correlation between links and views, which is exactly what you would expect.)
So, the data shows that blog comments are not correlated with increased traffic.
Neil Patel also published some data in regard to whether or not blog comments generate more search traffic.
Related Content: Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics and Facts (Updated for 2020)
The theory is that the more blog comments you have, the more content you’ll have on each page, and the more keywords you should rank for, which should increase your overall search traffic. However, Neil was not convinced that this is actually the case, so he did some research.
First Neil found that he averages about 176 comments per post, with 22.6 words per comment, which means that allowing blog comments nets him an average of 3,978 extra words on each page.
Next, he checked Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to see whether the blog comments were resulting in more search engine rankings. He found that approx. 26.7% of the keywords that were ranking in Google were from the comments section.
However, to figure out how much additional traffic he was receiving from those rankings, Neil took a look at the actual number of impressions and clicks that those rankings received.
Overall, he found that the comments section brought in 16% of all search traffic. Neil concludes,
“Comments didn’t drive as many visitors as I wanted, but considering that it’s user-generated content, it’s not that bad. It could be that Google may not be placing as much value on text created through comments or words appearing lower on a page (since comments are located below each blog post) as it does on the post itself.”
I should note that Neil only analyzed 560 blog posts–so far less data than the 100,000+ blog posts from the HubSpot study–but it is interesting information nonetheless.
Related Content: 13 Best Blog Sites In 2020: Which Is Right For You?
Michael Hyatt made the decision to eliminate his comments section due to the sheer amount of low-quality comments he was receiving, plus the fact that social media is where most meaningful conversations seem to be happening nowadays. In his announcement, he shared the following graph of blog comments compared to blog traffic.
As you can see, his traffic shot up by 74% while his average comments per post steadily declined year after year.
While Michael did later bring his comments section back, he explained that it was not because it had a huge negative effect on his blog traffic. It was because he wanted his blog to feel more hospitable.
All of this shows that comments are not a reliable indicator of blog traffic. If you have a high-quality comment section, you may see a slight boost in traffic from Google, but it probably isn’t going to be so huge that you can’t consider eliminating your comments section if you really wanted to.
Conclusion
As we saw in the data above, blog comments are not an indicator of blog traffic. One blog may have tons of comments with little traffic, whereas another blog may have tons of traffic with little comments.
Yes, some blogs may receive a slight boost in search traffic due to the comments section. But you’ll need a good amount of high-quality, keyword-rich comments.
Since blog comments don’t have a huge effect on your traffic, they don’t have a huge effect on your revenue either. So you don’t need to stress out about the number of comments that you get or don’t get.
Bottom Line: Comments are Nice to Have, Not a Necessity
Comments can be used to further relationships with your existing readership, provide social proof, or to elicit feedback. As you can see, we allow comments ourselves, and we take the time to respond to many of the comments we receive.
However, it is completely up to your own personal preference. If your comments section is causing you a lot of time, money or stress, and your readers aren’t getting much value from it, then maybe you should consider removing it.
Did you enjoy this post? You may also enjoy The Best Time to Send Emails (Here’s What Studies Show).
Thanks for reading this article – I hope you found it helpful.
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Interesting article Mary. Comments might not be an indicator of traffic but I think it’s a great way to connect and communicate with the readers. Yes, it’s not a necessity but it’s much better to have one I guess. Anyway, thanks for sharing! I had a good read.
I’m glad you enjoyed the read, Emmerey!
Thanks for this post. I am currently starting up a blog for our company and I found it to be very helpful! I think that the advice to evaluate and do what is best for your individual audience was very wise and helped me come to a decision. Thanks for the unbiased content!
Glad that the post helped you decide on your own blog comment strategy, Trey. A good follow-up is our roundup of case studies on increasing blog traffic. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with new posts.
One of the biggest questions I see in my circles is around using blog comments to spam URLs. Not so much the automated bot drivel, but the human “lightly-referencing the post but aiming for a link” kind of thing. In experimenting with removing the “URL” field, we cut down on that too; but I do feel we’re missing some of the conversation that came from people interested, but motivated to comment by the link attribution.
Thanks for that insight, Craig. For sure, there are people with something valuable to contribute who won’t comment without the opportunity for the link. Each blog has to decide whether the reduced comment moderation load is worth it. You might enjoy our article on email marketing and social media statistics. 🙂 And please follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with all our articles.
Thanks for the article, it was very helpful.
I’ve been wondering whether to remove and disable comments on my site for a long now. But I got solid reasons. Did a final research now, and your article together with the resources mentioned in it helped.
I believe it’s a good decision. Less clutter now, and the conversation moved to social media 🙂
Thanks again.
Best,
Lidiya
Happy to hear that you found the article useful, Lidiya. :)As a follow-up, check out our article on measuring content marketing ROI.
Good read. Thanks for the data. It helps us at North of 52. We only have several comments per post and were evaluating the impact on metrics. Doesn’t seem to be any. Our highest read posts have no or one comment.
Hope that works well for you, Laura. As a follow-up, you might enjoy our recent guide to content marketing strategy.
this site is a very good site
Thanks for stopping by, Lutfor!
Hy..Good read. Thanks for the data. It helps us at North of 52. We only have several comments per post and were evaluating the impact on metrics. Doesn’t seem to be any. Our highest read posts have no or one comment.
We keep our comments open because they give us another way to stay in touch with our customers – and we really do love our customers! Comments can also help with SEO, though that boost may not be quite as big as it once was.
Regardless, it’s nice to be able to address concerns as they come up, answer on-topic questions, and have some actual conversations with real visitors. ?
thanks very much great article i recently allowed comments on my blogspot blog
Hi, It’s really a great post with lots of blog commenting sites. It’s very important for getting traffic and really thanks for sharing all.
Good article, keep going on..
Regards
Sunil
I really appreciate this post thank you for sharing these type of posts
Aloha guys!
Very interesting article! Thank you! It relaxes me 🙂
So, I think I will keep the comments so readers can get in touch with me easily but I’m grateful to let go the pressure from it.
Aloha, Jenna
Hello,
I read your blog and i found it very interesting and useful blog for me. I hope you will post more like this, i am very thankful to you for these type of post.
Thank you.
I think concentrating on the merits and metrics of blog comments against any individual post misses some of the opportunities and merits comments can bring. Appearing to be open to customer engagement helps to build confidence in your brand. The opportunities gained by hearing the thoughts, desires and (with my commercial hat on) needs of your audience can be hugly beneficial. If we have a commercial site we are here, after all, to serve our audience, perhaps educate along the way but not lecture or dictate to. So any comment however small or infrequent can aid us in that undertaking to build content, products or services that are wanted by our customers. After all without our audience we have no customers, no customers no income.
I really appreciate this post thank you for sharing these type of posts
We keep our comments open because they give us another way to stay in touch with our customers – and we really do love our customers! Comments can also help with digital marketing, though that boost may not be quite as big as it once was.
Regardless, it’s nice to be able to address concerns as they come up, answer on-topic questions, and have some actual conversations with real visitors. ?
Thanks for this post i just added comment in my blog.
Very informative article.
Awesome post! This is helpful post. This article is clear and with lots of useful information. Thanks for the run down!
Thanks for the article. Comments are the best way to connect to users and know about their experiences.
Commendable article,
Blog Comment is a great way to exchange ideas, thoughts or opinions about what people feel for a particular topic or a blog post. They helps the blog to attract traffic and makes it social so yes they will definitely helps in improving the performance of the website.
Thank you
Comments are good to keep the page fresh.
Awesome post! This is helpful post. This article is clear and with lots of useful information. Thanks for the run down!
Mary – thanks for the detailed report.
I came here because I am very close to disabling Disqus on my site. About 90% of the comments are spammy and people just wanting links. But I noticed some other websites such as Neil Patel, Brian Dean – all of them having very active comment section.
Like anything else – the SEO/Content Marketing community is divided on this.
However, after reading the data – this has given me a little bit more faith in keeping commenting (Disqus) alive on my website.
This was really helpful 🙂 I was really confused because I get so many spammy comments on my blog post but I really got a nice in-depth view of what having comments on my blog can offer 🙂 Thank you.
This was helpful. I am helping an acquaintance with his marketing agency Dieresis (www.dieresis.agency) and I was asking him to remove the comments section but he insists on allowing them because of “free speech” and all that. I guess he was right, in a way.
One thing to note, though, I think (and correct me if I am wrong) that google does not currently aggregate comments for keywords as it focuses more on long-tail keywords (phrases) as per the Digital Marketing course in google.
Blog comments can become part of your page content. And, since page content is indexed, blog comments can increase keyword ratios that could boost your rankings. It’s not going to be a huge SEO boost. But, when you consider the other benefits of leaving comments on your posts, it makes the decision an easier one. 🙂
The possibility of writing (and reading!) comments doesn’t just mean participating in the discussion with the author or other people. It’s an extension of the article, improvement of the content value and finally, transformation of passive readers into active ones, which has a huge impact on building a sense of belonging to the group. From here it’s a very short journey to trusting the brand and staying longer with the content, which will result in subscribing and paying. Consequently, publishers, journalists and authors face a challenge to be community organizers today.
Greetings from PressPad Digital Publishing!
Imagine if there was no comment section here. How would I be able to say thank you for this beautiful content.
I agree it’s true more engaging conversations are happening in social media but for completely cold traffic, they wouldn’t want to waste their time looking for you in Facebook while they can quickly comment and leave
I have comments on because I do think blogs should provide a point of departure for interactive commentary, but I get a high proportion of spam comments. The nature of comments on a blog are different from those in a social media platform, so vote for keeping the comments, and using plug-ins that will eliminate most of the spam on my blog.
Hi, i am much happy to find new way to searching directories and forums. Thanks for sharing
You’re very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
This is good information to have. I do a lot of blog post for clients and this could save me and my clients time that we could use toward other parts of our business. Thanks
Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I think there was one idea missed here – comments may improve our perception of a blog, person, or brand. If I go to a blog post that’s flooded with comments, it signifies to me that this blog is popular. The writer may be an authority in this space. The site has lots of viewers and people trust + feel community with the blog, enough to engage.
On the other side, when I go to a blog post with zero comments – I’m not sure I take that blogger as seriously. Especially in the B2B space or any space where the blogger is trying to establish themselves as an expert. How can you claim to be an expert when it seems like no one is engaged with your content?
I’m not saying these are the CORRECT assumptions to me. But humans make quick judgments off of context clues – we just can’t help it. And comments may be an important part of showing your expert-status.
Hey Meghan, thanks for taking the time to write! Totally agree. A blog with lots of comments can totally improve a blog’s perception and increasing the author’s credibility. A lot of comments also create a fear of missing out which makes some readers think, “If this blog is popular, I should probably read it too.” As you said, comments can be a powerful contextual tool!
Very informative I liked……
I think you’ve just hit the nail right on the head with this one.I think it’s the most important article any aspiring guest blogger should read.
Your article Awesome Thanks for this information, very informative as well as Modern.
Thank you for the kind words, and we’re glad you liked it!
very helpful blog, thanks so much.
Fabulous Post. You’ve touched upon a very unique but needed topic. It’s great to see guest posting come full circle
Brilliant post. I’ve been reading a number of blog posts within my own blogging niche and found many with comments switched off. I had wanted to interact with the authors ina genuine manner and couldn’t understand why they had switched them off. Now I can see there are valid reasons behind it and that it is a personal preference. I do feel it detracts from the user experience though if you cant leave a comment. Some of these blogs are making lots of revenue so surely they can pay somebody to sift the comments for them.
I have about 6 blogs and I allow comments on all of them. All of them are set for me to moderate the comment first. Unfortunately, I have found most comments to be junk. I used to have a blog that was about a specific vinyl material that was hard to source. That blog had an active audience who kept posting to help each other find the hard to purchase material.
Very informative information! Thanks
Great Information. Thanks for share.
Thanks, I learned a lot from reading this post. Thank you very much
Thanks this was helpful
I remember watching Copyblogger and a host of others turn off comments and I thought that was unwise. Especially when you’re a brand that has built a community around the threaded discussion.
No matter how unappealing comments are for you, they add more than detract from the article.