I would never buy blog comments
I have only visited John Chow’s site once prior to today, but I decided to visit again today because I keep hearing that he is evil and I wanted to make my mind up for myself. But before I could really dive into his blog, I found a very interesting post that asks the question:
What really interested me here is that he discusses an email he received from Jon Warass who is offering 100 comments on blogs for $19.99. The argument the young Warass is making is that this approach will help you rank higher in the SERPs by leaving comments within your niche, which would give you more weight in the search engines. While John Chow seems to agree with this approach, he states that the price is much too high.
I have some insight to offer here as I recently had a run in with the young Warass in a certain seocontest, along with his friend Eli from a certain SEO blog that seems quite popular. Now, I have no doubt methods similar to those he is trying to sell here were used. In addition, Warass had an older domain to use for the contest, which in all right should have garnered him a top spot.
Over the course of their participation I read as they gloated about the thousands of links they had managed to spam the internet with, and about how they had no doubt that their “evil tricks” would win them the contest. This worried me a bit, as I had only managed to get a little over 1000 links to my seocontest site, and plus the young Warass had called my links “shit” and said “he wiped his ass with better links”. So since he was so cocky, I thought to myself: “Maybe he has something here?”
Long story short: Jon did not win a single prize out of the 9 prizes offered in the seocontest. I ranked in the top 5 in all three search engines and won a few of the cash prizes.
I recently wrote that comment spam is the Voldemort of SEO and I meant it. I am a smart enough cookie to know that comment spam will get you nowhere, and I would not recommend this to anybody, no matter how lazy and uncreative you may be. If you can’t comment, don’t blog, it’s that simple.
So you have two options:
Pay Jon Warass for comments - You pay this service for blog comments, which generally means a number of PR0 link. They comment once or twice on each blog so that they don’t seem obviously spammy about it. They don’t return to that blog and in essence don’t really build a relationship with anyone. And PR0 links are a dime a dozen, if you have not heard. Why not just set up a bunch of blogs yourself and comment on them?
Comment yourself and be diligent in your blogging - You comment on a blog you like and you return there to see what else they had to say in response to your comment. You build a relationship with that blogger and with the other readers of that blog. You get some real traffic and return visitors. Maybe even some sidebar links with PR. You build a reputation for yourself by being an honest and interesting person.
There is no quick and easy way to ranking high in the search engines. To do well in the search engines, and online as a whole, is work, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they are just fooling you to make a quick buck. And any temporary results you may have will only be wiped out very quickly by people who understand what I am saying.
I would not recommend using this service under any circumstances. You would be a fool to do so, and you would be out $19.99.
Posted: July 11th, 2007 under Internet Marketing, Blogging.
Comments: 15
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Comments
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 3:28 am
I’ve been reading a lot about this concept lately in a few different places. It’s lame. Very, very lame. I prefer to do my own schmoozing :)
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 11, 2007, 3:39 am
Tell me about it - LAME is right. Not to mention he really hurt my feelings my saying such mean things about my hard work and I was so friendly too. I am way to emotional to compete in an all boy competition ever again, though I may enter the SEO world championship next year, but I will wear my thick skin.
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 3:45 am
At least in the end you totally destroyed him :P
I’ll be rooting for you if you compete next year :D
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 11, 2007, 4:23 am
Well with you rooting for me I have no doubt I will do well! :)
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 6:40 am
Yes, I agree that it’s totally lame as well. And I haven’t been to John Chow’s blog in a long time. It’s a waste of time for me. Too much bad advice and tactics that I feel are unethical/black hat.
Heck, Google even just recently gave him a big smack. Now he ranks 57th for his own name! I warned months ago that Google would not appreciate the link back campaign in the way it was being run. It was basically Google bombing.
He’s also been banned from Digg, and AuctionAds disabled his account for cookie-stuffing, which is a violation of most affiliate programs’ TOS. Shoemoney himself posted a comment warning about it. But what was worse is that John even posted an article about cookie-stuffing as if it was a GOOD thing to do. I’m sure a lot of inexperienced bloggers lost some affiliate accounts because of it.
Those are just a few of the reasons I haven’t been there. I’m not interested in learning how to get banned anywhere. I’ve got much better things to do. :)
Shine on,
Aaron
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 6:44 am
BTW, congrats on your winnings Danielle! I’m glad to hear that you did so well in the contest. Woo hoo!
Shine on,
Aaron
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 11, 2007, 6:57 am
Thanks Aaron! I am pretty proud of myself for this. I was very new to SEO and did extremely well.
And I agree that there is much to be said for not trying to cheat the system to make a fast buck. I don’t know much about John and his tactics, and while his blog was interesting just as a “case study” I don’t know that I would want to follow in his footsteps. I have other dreams anyways! :)
I am a much bigger fan of trying to get good links. Though in the contest I did use a few less than perfect approaches, the competition was fierce and in comparison, I was an SEO angel.
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 6:59 am
Hehe…Well hopefully my rooting power will be strong enough to guarantee you a victory :)
I nearly typed tooting power. That’s a whole different subject :-o
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 11, 2007, 7:03 am
I needed a good laugh! :D I don’t know what it is about the word tooting but it really brings out the 8 year old in me! It must be because it reminds me of the song with the beans. :P
Comment from
Time: July 11, 2007, 7:05 am
I should have just left the typo. That would have been even funnier ;P
Wow, with this cocomment thingy you get updated immediately when there’s new comments. Nifty :D
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 11, 2007, 7:37 am
It’s enough just that you used the word tooting!
And I am slowly growing to love coComment!
Comment from
Time: July 12, 2007, 2:12 pm
One of the better write ups i’ve seen.. I have just started an SEO Blog that has stories i like to call Short bus trips that i have taken in the process of learning SEO. This buying of comments sounds like one of those trips.
I agree that the whole thing about bloging is building a relational net work and you have to put into it to get anything out of it.
On a business side of it though is there any difference in paying for New Releases, Text Link ads, Content than there is for comments. While we may not pay for comments on blogs with cash we pay for them through social reciprecation. We pay people to do those things that they are good at. If im not good at Content creation i pay someone to do it. Is social media Content any different?
Comment from Danielle
Time: July 12, 2007, 2:42 pm
I think the major difference is that I, like most people who have a blog, don’t want “fake” purchased comments on our blogs. I don’t want my blog, my hard work promoting my blog, and my desire to have the no nofollow on my blog being used to promote sites that did not have the presence of mind to come here on their own.
I don’t want to think of the fact that my blog is in a database that some lame-o company is using to make $19.99 for 100 comments. Why should they make $19.99 to fill my blog with “links” when what I want is comments.
Thanks for stopping by! :)
Comment from
Time: July 13, 2007, 1:08 pm
I agree that i wouldn’t want fake unrelated comments on my blog. I have several sites that i spend more time removing automated spam messages than i do adding content. As an SEO i want, We want relevent fresh content. So i guess as long as the paid comment are relevent and worthy i wouldn’t care if someone had paid someone else to post them. If its a comment like “My site is just like this one come see it at mysite.com then i would have a problem with it and it would get deleted.
As we know there are some less that ethical SEO or So Called SEOs out there that are looking for the quick fix. Good Relevent Content is King or Queen if you preffer to solid results.
We both know a reputable SEO business that have 20 or more employess that go out and get high quality links and provide content for there clients. Would you say that they would be wrong to go to a relevent bolg for that customer and post a relevent comment on that blog?
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