Do You Time Your Blog Comment Responses?
Posted in Anatomy of a Blog, SEO, Web Master by DB
First let me get a disclaimer off my chest. I have no proof of this. This is just me theorizing or rambling. With that out of the way let me say what I’m currently debating.
One of the goals of every new blog is to get Google to index its content every day (more than a day if you ask me). Now the standard answer to that is write a lot of posts, follow a schedule religiously and soon Google will match that schedule. So if you want to get indexed everyday, write new posts everyday for a few months and pretty soon “googlebot” will be your everyday visitor. Ok great!! Is there any other way for me to coax “googlebot” to come visit me more often? Yep, you guessed right, your blog comments.
Comments on your posts add fresh content to the post itself and we all know Google’s appetite for fresh content. The only problem is new blogs very rarely get commented on frequently. With a 100,000 plus blogs starting each day, a new blog will struggle to find a decent number of visitors where then is the question of comments.
So what do you do? Let’s assume my theory about comments improving the chances of getting indexed faster is true. What can you do to tip the scales in your favor? This is precisely the situation where it might be prudent to time your comment responses. Now assuming you are an old fashioned blogger ( one who does not ask people on forums and communities to exchange comments on each other’s blog ) the only addition to the comment section you control is your responses and the few comments trapped in Akismet.
Next thing you do is check the date of the last “googlebot” visit. If the post itself has not been indexed yet, do nothing. Dont respond yet to that one comment you have. Wait till “googlebot” is done indexing the post and only then reply to any existing comments on the post. Repeat the process, maybe this time you release some of the valid comments from your spam filter.
How long do you do this? Till you have a large vibrant community actively participating on your blog. Till such time, time your comment responses.
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