Danny Sullivan left SearchEngineWatch last year and has started his own company called SearchEngineLand. Danny also has a blog by the same name where he writes on search related topics. Today he wrote about his rules of engagement for comments on his blog. He does a good job of explaining what adds value to the conversation, what doesn't, and what he does to block spam.
Comments and Trackbacks - When I started blogging a little over a year ago I read lots of blogs to get an idea of what style, formats, and topics work. I left Comments and Trackbacks on several blogs. A Trackback is basically a link on their blog that links back to your blog. A Trackback is different from a Comment in that a Trackback is simply a link with no commentary.
Mathew Ingram is a media and technology writer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, so he is a professional writer and obviously a great blogger. In my early days of blogging I left a Trackback on Mathew's blog. He sent me an email where he politely said, paraphrasing, "Leave a comment that adds to the discussion, and include a link back to your blog if it is relevant. Trackbacks don't add value" Mathew was very polite, and I actually agreed with his point. So, I don't generally leave Trackbacks, but I do comment and include a link where appropriate. However, I do accept relevant Tracbacks on my blog...although I would prefer Comments.
Spam - Search engines give high ranking to sites that have lots of inbound links. Spammers have discovered that blogs are an easy way to generate links. Spammers have developed bots that automatically scan blogs and leave trackbacks to their sites. For popular blogs this has become a huge problem. For this reason I require everyone to validate their comment or trackback by typing in a random code. I also review every comment or trackback before it is published. I wish I didn't need to do this but the spam was overwhelming.
Anonymous commenters - I allow almost all comments, but anonymous comments raise a red flag. Anonymous commenters are usually bashers or "drive by shooters" that leave inflammatory opinions with no facts or examples to back them up...just bashing. Sometimes it can add a different perspective to the conversation, but in a few cases it is just plain venom. I usually don't allow those.
Disagreement and controversy is good - I love comments, read every one of them, and try to respond to as many as I can. Some of the best comments are those that challenge my assumptions or opinions, or even better, correct factual mistakes. I wrote a blog about the Apple iPhone and mentioned that Apple is able to price at a 20% to 30% premium because it all just works. Several readers commented that I was wrong about that and gave specific examples. They were right, and added value to the discussion.
Are blogs echo chambers? - No, they mimic real conversation. Someone starts it and others join in. Interesting discussions attract a lot of attention in the form of blog posts, less interesting topics don't. Blogs mimic real life in that there are a few A-Listers that are opinion leaders and usually lead the discussion. We need to join the blog conversation in the same way we join other public discussions. Ask questions, add opinions, give a different perspective. I am not an "A-List" blogger yet and may never be one. But all of us can influence the discussion by pro-actively participating.
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Don:
I always thought trackbacks were different from comments in another way (apart from the fact that it's a link with no text); specifically, I only add a trackback to a blog post if a post on my blog has a link to that blog post. For example, if I were to write a blog post on my blog (Software Abstractions) that links to this post, then I would put a trackback here pointing back to my post.
Incidentally, Wikipedia supports this definition [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackback] and TypePad implements this feature within their blog management interface.
I have to disagree with Mathew Ingram on this one - I think trackbacks used in this way are valuable, because they enable a reader to follow a conversation carried out across multiple blogs.
Posted by: NitinK | January 18, 2007 at 01:34 PM
NitinK, I agree with you, and if everyone used Trackbacks as you suggest, life would be good.
The problem is that spammers put trackbacks on blogs that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of a post. They do it simply to get a link to their blog, and thereby build up their PageRank for search engines.
As an aside, Danny Sullivan left a trackback yesterday to my blog post about Gabe Rivera and TechMeme. That trackback was exactly the right way to do it...just as you have suggested.
Posted by: Don Dodge | January 18, 2007 at 02:14 PM
While trackback spam is an issue, I think Matthew is being a tad too purist here. Trackbacks show that your discussion has been referenced elsewhere, instead of directly commented on. That said, it doesn't seem to be a much-used feature - it's not obvious for non-techies - and those spammers... &%!@$!!
Posted by: Juha | January 18, 2007 at 02:31 PM
Just to clarify, I sent Don an email after I got his trackback link and noticed that he hadn't actually linked to me in his post, or even mentioned my post (the one he was tracking back to).
Since my understanding of the trackback was the same as the definition NitinK gave from Wikipedia, I said (as I recall) that I didn't mind having him trackback a post of mine -- provided he actually mentioned or linked to the post in his post.
I'm happy to have comments or trackbacks, and can see the value of both. But if a post that tracks back to mine doesn't contain a link or a mention of my post, then that seems to me to cross the line into spam.
Posted by: Mathew Ingram | January 18, 2007 at 03:01 PM
It may be useful for me to mention for the sake of the tech-minded and bloggers that the search engines developed a protocol for the outbound links from your site so that you can essentially say "I don't vouch for this link", and using that protocol helps reduce spam. If enough people used it, it might reduce the value of spamming blogs.
The protocol is called the NOFOLLOW parameter, and you can make it so that all links from comments or trackbacks are NOFOLLOWED, telling the search engines to not count those links when they're calculating the ranking values of the destination pages.
Posted by: Silver | January 18, 2007 at 03:55 PM
I've never seen a trackback that didn't include a summary, usually the first 255 characters, of the post tracking back [trackbacking?] to another's post. So, I must disagree with the idea that trackbacks don't have content. Another similar, though different idea is "pingback". Pingback software on your blog looks for links in a blog post that you're publishing, then looks for a pingback server at those link's targets, and then provides to those targets a summary taken from your post near the link in your post, and thus a more relevant pingback appears in the trackback or comment section of the target link's post. Unfortunately, pingback is much harder to implement than trackback, and not all blog engines do so, or do so successfully. Spammers abusing comments, trackbacks and pingbacks are another issue altogether.
Blogging is like speaking from a podium, and often to an empty room. Allowing comments invites questions, opinions and clarifications from the audience. Trackbacks and pingbacks transform blogging into a panel discussion, wherein anyone with a blog and something to say on the topic, can be a panelist.
Posted by: Joseph A di Paolantonio | January 20, 2007 at 02:36 PM
Love your blog. Can't wait to see what you write about. Go for it!
Posted by: Flash Porsche | October 16, 2007 at 07:03 PM