I have been noticing a trend going on with people using keywords instead of their name. While I understand it might be some link juice in the making, I do understand that it would literally take thousands of comments from one person to even try to amount to something. Have you actually seen the chart for how the link building works on that?
If so, pretty much pops the air out of your balloon, huh? I also find that people who only use keywords are more than likely to hit my spam filter first, which makes me have to moderate nearly on a daily basis.
Personally, I believe if you are going to use keywords, especially when you are behind that brand, perhaps using:
Your Name – Keyword/ Keyword Phrase
Example:
If I were to try my method, it would be –
Nile Flores – Blondish.net
For all I know you could have a worker going around doing comments. Guy Kawasaki has people who do tweet on his stream for him. Many celebs do to. And with so many zine style blogs with a staff, I would not be surprised.
I say – Stand up and be proud for your company, your brand, and yourself.
While you could have a few keywords, it would be far more meaningful to state your name. In the early days of the Internet, it was the cool thing to seem anonymous or hide behind a username. Social media today has totally blasted that out of the water by encouraging people and companies to become more transparent.
I am not saying you are a person who is lying. I could care less if you were a kid, elderly, or even ugly (I know that the last sounds harsh, but I am trying to convey that I am not shallow.) I do not even have to know your address, phone number, your parent’s names, your kids names, or what you had for breakfast. Just keep it real.
Nothing fancy needed. KeywordLUV is a nice and handy plugin, but not really the most necessary one to have in anyone’s plugin arsenal.
So when commenting, think hard on how you will brand yourself. In five years, you might find that what you added as keywords no longer fit or probably could have been done better.
Comments should be important for the engaging factor as that is what keeps the site alive. Any owner can admit that it is their visitors that have helped make their site a success. The way you want to introduce yourself in that name field on the comment form does make an impression.
While I know my opinion may be different, I would like to know your thoughts about using keywords for your name when commenting? If you are a blog owner, how do you differentiate between a real person using keywords for their name versus a spammer? What should be the etiquette? For any that use this method, what is your advice to others who might want to try it out?
Linknami says
Using the intensedebate and other commenting tools it is better to brand the name and the company than the keyword as the link often points to the intensedebate profile anyway and not to the site directly.
Extreme John says
I pretty much consider it spam as soon as I see a Keyword in the name field of a comment, add into the fact that I offer the Keyword Luv plugin for users to take advantage of so it's not as spammy and they receive a better Do Follow link in return. Some spammers just don't get it.
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Nile says
I have been seeing people put in an extra field to require commenters to check before submitting. The field says something to that of – “check to confirm you are not a spammer.”
I kind of like that… though there are still paid commenters out there that are going to try to be sly to get past that. Glad to know I am not the only one keeping a keen eye on who is a real commenter. 😀
Wes Towers says
I admit that I do use keywords in commenting in blogs, but when I do so, I leave my name at the end so the blogger will know who is behind the keyword or key phrase. I do this on a case to case basis, because there are other blog sites that do allow that and there are others (like here) that prefers to have the real names. So, peace, Nile, and to others who might do not like these keywords being left on the name field…I have no intention to spam.
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Nile says
lol. I hear you. Because of the growing trend of signing off with a keyword, I have been making sure to scan the comment and visit the link just in case. I would recommend others to do the same.
shkhanal says
I just don't understand why people still use keywords in Name field even when I have enabled KeywordLuv and commentLuv. This is perfectly ridiculous. Or are they the automated bots?
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Sherryl Perry says
It really irks me when people leave keywords for their name. Couple that with no avatar and there's very little chance of my approving your comment. I'll make an exception if I think it's a newbie mistake and the comment brings value but most of the time, it's marked spam or trashed. Good to see a post written about this Nile
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Rob says
Because when you use keywords as you name, it makes a H-U-G-E difference in getting that URL ranked in the top of Google. I've gotten lots of top-3 results from using this method. If you put just any old name in there as the anchor text, then it associates the link text as the word with the web page you're linking to and not the key word. It does not good to link your name to the URL instead of the actual web page that you want to be found at the top of Google. Also leaving the proper hyper-linked URL is a reward for people for not posting spam on a comment. I am sitting here writing this by hand. I am not using a bot or any nonsense to post this. If you allow a lot of people to post legitimate comments on your blog, then it will add a lot of content to the page helping it get more page-views. Then the webmaster can earn more revenue or what have you by any Google Adsense ads or any other marketing efforts you're running. Cheers!
Bill says
@ shkhanal
“Or are they the automated bots?”
Yes, I think people use automated bots to place hundreds, if not thousands of comment a day, thinking their ranking will improve overnight.
Google is just too smart to be tricked this way.
My 2 Cent…
Bill
Zeljko Vasic says
It’s interesting how some people defend using the keywords instead of names when posting comments, while others are completly against it.
I just started optimizing and advertising my website in at least some of the zilion available ways to do it and commenting on different topics I understand and like is actually something that gratifies me.
After reading around some oppinions about should or should not use keywords instead of names, I agree that if you do a good valuable comment you should be allowed to post a keyword link to your website if the content of the landing page is actually somehow related to the topic of the discussion and therefore adds value(if it’s your name as the anchor text even if it’s a good comment you might not get people to check your site). That seems quite reasonable but obviously most commentators don’t have a good etiquete of puting a keyword link only when related.
From this point of view I somehow like the idea Nile proposed of putting your name and then after that your keyword phrase. I think that is somehow a middleground between those who don’t like having comments being posted “from keywords” and those who want to use keywords for ranking.
matt says
I prefer to use real name when commenting since whats really important is how good and informative my comments are. With that it will generate attention to the readers and most likely visit my site because of that.
Allen Santiago says
Mostly use keywords in the name field only and only for getting keyword popularity for their business and it is good to have keyword as anchor text. But i think your suggested technique is also good and to certain extent helps for keyword popularity. Thanks for the nice advice.
bhuvnish says
hi,
literally this is what i m looking for . it will definitely be helpful
thanks for providing such useful and informative blog in very effective manner.Really keyword luv play an important role in ranking of a site.moreover blog commenting draw attention and provide a way to interact with many.this is very effort to make concept clear
thanks for review.
pankaj says
Blog comment is a way to interact with other blogger and know there ideas and thoughts which help very much. I always prefer my actual name so that we can make interaction with each other.
Oscar | septic tank emptying cornwall says
I loooove your post! No-one should ever be ashamed of their company in any way shape or form, the problem still remains about the fact that people get put off when you put in your keywords. I say, give people a chance and let them have their keywords but also ask them to provide a name and a valid comment, this way the little people get noticed.