SiteComments needs a serious revamp
Hi, folks. Little rant here today.
First, just want to say this...
Comments are CONTENT TOO!
As such, you NEED to have very very strict policies about what comments you accept. Bad comments can have a NEGATIVE impact on your rankings! We are in this business to be successful, not spare feelings. That doesn't mean we have to be rude to the people who leave poor comments, but it does mean we have every right to reject them if they aren't up to scratch! I used to accept every comment because I was being polite and nice, and I wanted to make the person feel good. No more of that!
So, I'm trying to get back into the habit of getting comments on a regular basis in order to build trust, ranking, all that good stuff, but I'm realizing something...
People are terrible at giving comments!
I'm not calling anyone out in particular, and I absolutely do not want to bash people who don't speak english as a native language, but it should be common sense what separates a good comment from a bad comment - Language aside.
When I'm writing an article on building a gaming PC and a commenter thinks I'm talking about developing games, something is SERIOUSLY wrong (I am referring to the SiteComments platform, by the way).
I have to disapprove 75% of the comments I get.
That's not an exaggeration.
It's really, really frustrating. I go out of my way to leave amazing comments on every single post I comment on..It's both polite and helpful to the person on the other end.
It seems like I get a lot of comments from people with absolutely zero interest in my niche. The moment you start a comment saying something like "I'm not really into pc gaming", that's a red flag. That doesn't mean the comment itself is low quality, it just means it's not realistic.
If you aren't into PC gaming and you aren't shopping for a relative who is, why are you (Realistically) on the site? I'm not saying I would reject an organic comment like that, but come on guys. You are able to select what type of websites you want to comment on, so why not just click "I'm not interested" if it's a topic you can't even pretend to be interested in?
Oh, also, I (Much like Marcus and ColtonJames on here) too suffer from the "Getting Feedback on sitecomments" thing. Stuff like this:
"Great site, looks good! I like how you lay out your articles and i like your overall site design. i think your readers will love to come here and read your content! one thing i would suggest is fixing your grammar and spelling on xyz, but otherwise its good."
Please stop doing that, guys. Please.
I'd really like to see a better filtering system for low quality comments. Please, Kyle & Carson? Do you guys have any plans to fix or update the SiteComments platform in the future?
Thanks for listening to my rant here! What do you guys think? Do you have similar issues with SiteComments? What kind of standards do you set for your comments? Drop a comment below and let me know.
Recent Comments
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I appreciate your frustrations!! It's always going to be challenge and I'm not sure to be honest how you would filter comments because a computer isn't going to be able to discern between good and bad comments, beyond things such as length and grammar?
I think the biggest problem is that we are asking people who have very little interest in our niche to pretend to be an organic visitor and comment from that perspective. And that is an extremely difficult thing to do properly. I rarely comment on sites because I find it hard enough especially if I have no interest in the topic, so now I just won't do it unless I can actually relate to the topic.
I know I have mentioned this before but even in the real world we are going to get the same problem with genuine organic comments, even from people who are interested in the topic. The real skill is how you work with those comments to turn them around and use them to highlight other posts or add internal links on your site.
And if the comment can be worked with (I accept perhaps not all can) then there is some training here on how to turn them around. Managing Website Comments
This has always been a problem as when a person is new they just do not understand the difference as was the same with me!!!!
Site feedback is al internal WA the big and should be truthful because it helps to improve your site - comments are real and are posted on the website so should be a good comments as it will help with Google rankings
I learned something here, thanks Paul it's a good community conduct that you suggest. I'll remember for when I get to this stage.
There seems to be a problem with people not understanding the difference between post comments and site feedback. Putting site feedback in a post comment ( such the comments that you have above) dont have any relevance to the actual post ... its very frustrating.
Thank you for this rant. It needs to be said. Early on, I liked the concept of Site Comments but recently I have gone a little cold on it since I will not comment on things I have little interest in or seem radical and unpleasant in caliber.
So often the comments are just feedback which is so colored by the lens they look through that it is not worth reading.
Hopefully, if there are enough posts like this, Kyle will respond with some refinements to the system so that Site Comments makes a meaningful contribution to our website.
This problem has been raised several times by other frustrated members. A good number of us really don't know what a good website looks like making comments redundant.
There should be some guidelines - not sure what. Perhaps one of Kyles videos should demonstrate how to make worthwhile comments.
I have noticed that a number of the more ambitious members recruit the assistance of more experienced in here e.g. PJ,
You make a good point, our finished website is the result of a lot of hard work, and deserves a final shake down to ensure proper presentation to the internet world.
Who are you referring to by more ambitious members?
Agreed, Kyle could definitely have a video going over what makes a good comment, etc. Putting it in the actual training would be very helpful, too.
Thanks for your comment!
Two member in my community were working hard to get their websites up to scratch and recruit the assistance of more experienced WA members. Basically for the reasons outlined in you blog.
I agree! I often don't request too many comments because some just don't know how to comment!! I mean, how hard is it to chew the fat? We do it standing in line at the grocery store....well, at least I do! I have deleted a few comments...now I know it's better to 'reject' them so we can get another one free. I would never just accept a comment! It's my site, what I say goes! Lol
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The confusion (to some,) as to the difference between feedback and comments...aaarghhh!