Commercial comments
After getting another comment from one of the buckwheat people, I realized I was looking at a new comment category.
These people are doing what I’d term “commercial comments”. Not automated spam, but still using the blogging system to their end. The way Paul did his original comment, it was just a suggestion for someone who could help me replace my pillow (and his prices are good, especially compared to an overly pricey one I found in Norway).
So, how about I give those who want to promote a site some tips instead?
Instead of coming right out and saying I’ve got a product for you, the smart way, and the acceptable way, is to say something on the topic. Like for instance when I mentioned my buckwheat pillow as an aside, the smart way might have been to comment on how frequently one should replace buckwheat pillows. Comment on the various forms of uses and how that might affect how long they last before they go bad. What would make it go bad? Buckwheat pillows actually have properties that should make them last longer than other pillows. Compared to other pillows, fungi doesn’t really grow in them (unless they’re filled with contaminants like saliva, dandruff and I don’t know, I’m just guessing).
So, if I were talking about buckwheat pillows, I’d welcome comments from someone who knew more about them. Someone who had something to tell me I didn’t know, or something that was going just that little bit further than my text. Or telling me I was wrong in an assumption.
This isn’t really about buckwheat pillows. It’s about commercial comments. How do you get to do those without setting off spamhunters and vigilante bloggers, making them wonder if you’re a spammer doing searches for target terms.
And yes, I think that’s something that’s heating up right now. Folks doing targeted searches, then leaving comments relating to those terms. Recently I got a long rambling comment about penis enlargement. It read like a comment, a real comment. But I know it was a commercial comment gone wrong. Why? Because the name of the post was “African sucker”. I originally thought this was someone doing a search for sucker (sounded reasonable to me). Turns out the search term was: african blog. Looks like the comment was done by hand, and the contents were pasted into the form. But my post was on page six in Google, and if I do a search for the comment contents, I find lots of them on blog posts with the word African somewhere in the body of the post… So, not exactly on topic, but it looks like a real comment, apart from the topic.
Anyway, my point is, if you want to promote your site, do it the smart way. Don’t do ad copy. Don’t say straight out that you sell something. Don’t pepper the comment with links. Just write something helpful on topic, leave the URL to your site in the proper place (under your name), and let people find it on their own, if they like what you write.
Makes sense, eh?
Commercial comments even if on topic are certainly still spam even if entered by hand in low numbers. It is only a small stepping stone between this and becomming an all out automated spammer. But I agree, if the commercial commenter added some meaningful information to the post and is not just pushing their product then I have no problem with them including a link to their commercial site.
“that’s something that’s heating up right now. Folks doing targeted searches, then leaving comments relating to those terms”
You got that right. I got some odd comment a while back by just mentioning the Yahoo Finance site. I see it on other sites too, stuff that shows you were found by someone doing a search.
Speaking of that, your might not have been found by Google. Other blogsearch engines may put you much higher for “african blog.”
He used Google to find the blogs. I found the search referrer, from the same IP number. Definitely Google.
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