Why You Should Have A Comment Policy On Your Blog

Comments are generally welcome in blogs. I personally like to read comments that are left on my blog and believe me, moderating comments has taken most of my blogging time. When people post comments, they keep a discussion thread open and maintain a lively exchange of information and opinions. However, in a free-for-all environment of the Internet, it has become so easy for people to remain anonymous or take on a fake identity. Now, those of you who champion freedom of the www, don’t get me wrong here. It is just that there have been many cases that these opportunities have also tempted many individuals to exploit the relative freedom of the Web and abuse their welcome. So, if you have a blog, especially if it’s DoFollow and with Keywordluv enabled, here are reasons why you should have a comment policy on it:

Commenting Policy

You want to take control

As much as you would like your blog’s visitors to feel free to say what they want, you need to be able to set the rules. After all, it is your blog and you are responsible for managing it. This is why it is necessary to impose some sort of control in the form of blog moderation. Your policy should state clearly if comments from visitors will be moderated and how.

You can impose the language and tone of comments

With a well-written comment policy, you could set rules regarding the type of language that is allowed (English-only, no slang, no abbreviations or textspeak) and which tone commenters are allowed to use (jokes are allowed but no sexual slang, no racist or sexist comments, etc.). This will help prevent potentially damaging comments from visitors that may affect the image of your blog.

You can allow, control or block links from being published

Some visitors may leave links with the body of their text. You may allow these so other visitors could follow them to other sites. You may also want to control which links to allow or you may want to block them altogether.

You can manage the comment length/focus

What’s the point of approving a comment that sounds like : “Thanks for the post”, “Nice post”, “Yes I’ll try the tips you’ve mentioned, thanks”, “I’m sure people will benefit with what you’ve said, great post” and some other ridiculously unrelated and lame comments? On the contrary, some people leave a testament – lengthy, long-winded conversations with themselves that take up too much space on your blog. Great if these are high quality comments but if these are nothing but ramblings and rants without a focus, these will be nothing but eyesores on an otherwise perfectly good site.

Hello! Do you have a real name?

Don’t you hate commenters that used only keywords as their names? Isn’t it weird to address a person with “Hi Antivirus Programs” or “Thanks for the comment Smartphone Buying Tips“? In fact, I have seen many comment policies that upfront determine that comments without a real name will definitely go into the trash (regardless of how good or relevant the comments are!). I admit, I’m guilty of some of the sins above when I first starting to blog/comments. I guess what I’m trying to say is, it does not hurt to pay attention to the sites commenting policy and you’re good.

In all fairness, it is also bloggers responsibility to ensure a clear policy and also just implementation of the policies as well…what’s the point of having a policy if it is not enforced or followed?

Hope this post is not only useful to bloggers but also fellow commenters as well.  We all know comments are like nuggets of gold for a post…otherwise, why post if no one bother to read or comments on it?

I know I’m off topic a little today with this post. I guess being off topic once in a while won’t hurt.

Just in case you missed it, here’s our Comment Policy and I do hope that you’ll spend some time go through it if you are going to leave any comment on this blog. 😉 Happy commenting.

Do you think our comment policy is fair? Give us your suggestions in the comments.

19 Comments

  1. James Dyson
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