Many blogs permit published comments to include live URL links. Companies trying to promote their websites have tried to capitalize on this for SEO purposes by spamming blogs with incoherent comments that include URL's in order to generate inbound links back to their own websites from the blogs (as is well-known, inbound links from high quality websites and blogs helps with SEO).
Bloggers fought back by moderating comments. That is, all comments are subject to approval before being published. If a comment is spam, it gets deleted and never makes it to the published blog.
The latest trend is for companies seeking inbound links to spend time writing up semi-coherent comments that address some point in a blog post in the hope that the blogger will publish it (even though it includes a URL) because the comment actually makes sense and adds some value to the "conversation" on the blog. Some clients recently asked whether they should publish such comments - clearly intended to generate an inbound link, but yet coherent enough to add value. Learn our view after the jump (note: we are not talking here about comments submitted by peers and colleagues who are known to you, or who are known within the community that you are a part of - you should be happy to provide those folks with inbound links (and vice versa); rather, we are referring to the practice of complete strangers in businesses outside your industry who suddenly submit a well-written, coherent comment to your blog for no apparent reason other than to generate an inbound link).
Our view is that there's no real harm in publishing a comment motivated by "link juice" if the comment makes sense and adds some value to the conversation on the blog, i.e., it is coherent and articulate. That is, the motivation of the commenter shouldn't bother you if, in fact, they add value with their comment. Indeed, if a blog is going to allow comments to be published with live URL's, then by definition you're inviting self-promotion to some extent (and if you don't want to facilitate inbound linking, then don't allow the comments to contain live URL's). Basically, think of it as a quid pro quo - if the commenter adds value to your blog, you reward them by providing them with an inbound link back to their website.
One other criteria you may want to use is to check if the URL of the site to which the comment links is related to your topic. If, for example, the commenter is promoting a "mortgage" website, and your blog is about personal injury law, there is no topical connection, and so you may want to raise the bar pretty high in terms of the quality of the comment. Indeed, hard to see how a mortgage broker could be knowledgeable enough about personal injury law to write a comment that would add sufficient value to offset the blatant promotional motivation (but you never know - perhaps the broker used to practice law, or was a personal injury client at some point).
On that note, as we've previously explained, outbound links define the community to which your site belongs, which is important to help search engines determine the relevancy of your site to search queries, and the extent to which your site is an "authority" on certain topics. Conversely, outbound linking can hurt you if you link to "link farms" or other "spammy" sites that Google would frown upon. So if the URL in the comment links to a spammy site, then definitely do NOT publish the comment with the URL. If the comment has high value, delete the URL link, and then publish.
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