Feedback Vs. Comments
Alright, it's been awhile. But now I do have something to say. This is about the difference between feedback and comments. I imagine there are probably some new members who don't understand the difference yet, so I will try to explain it and why it's important. I'll start with an example.
I requested some comments yesterday and honestly, they were all just fine - except for one. It's a good thing we're able to filter these things out before they appear on our sites, because sometimes they just don't belong there.
When you request a comment, you're asking for commentary relating to the subject matter of a specific article or topic on your website. This is clearly explained when you go to the site comment page to offer one. The purpose of commenting is for the community to help you boost your rankings by showing the search engines that your site does have visitors, legitimate content and discussions going on.
Feedback is something totally different. When you request feedback, you're asking for a critique by other members, so they can let you know where your site needs improvement or if they can see anything obviously wrong with it. This IS absolutely for your benefit, but it's supposed to be for the site owner's benefit, not something for all their readers to see.
Feedback is essentially private.
As website owners and entrepreneurs, our goal is to present ourselves as experts and authorities within our respective niches. Now we may not be experts to begin with, but the act of researching and writing about these topics is what will ultimately make us true authorities on them. If your readers think you're an amateur because someone who's acting like your "coach" is critiquing your article length, making style suggestions and occasionally seeming to pat you on the head for trying, why would they treat you any differently?
Now it goes without saying that outside of WA, there will occasionally be some nasty critic who stumbles upon your website and jumps into the comment stream just to inject some negativity. But it's usually obvious when that's the case and you're certainly under no obligation to approve their comments. I'm not saying my comment was that bad, because it's about what I would have expected for feedback. But feedback is not what I requested, so I had to disapprove it.
Anyhow, I just thought I would put that out there, because I'm not one to disapprove comments on a regular basis. In fact, this is the first one I've ever done that with. I've seen some with bad grammar, but in the real world you will find a lot of that. I don't consider that a poor reflection on my website, seeing as how it's coming from the reader. If it were my own poor grammar, that would be another story.
But feedback from someone who should know better in the comment section of someone's website? Nope! That's not where it goes, unless you're trying to undermine that person's authority in their area of expertise - which is not what we're supposed to be doing. We're here to help each other!
Let's do it right!
Recent Comments
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You have pointed out an excellent reason for us to make the distinction. Our comments are supposed to be positive remarks about the post, and those go to help our public image. We all need these to help improve our rankings as we move forward.
We need feedback, too, but you make the very important point that it is private, between WA members, and is not meant for the public to see
Hopefully your post will clarify things a bit.
I sure hope so. I hope I didn't sound like too much of a complainer. I just wanted to bring attention to this.
No, I don't think you sounded like a complainer. I think you made a clear distinction between the two.
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Thank you for sharing.
Joseph
Anytime, Joseph. Just something we'll probably all deal with eventually.