A new service, which aims to outsource blog commenting, has found its way onto the blogging scene. The service is — rather unimaginatively — called Buy Blog Comments. I learned about it through Ian Fernando’s write up about them.

While I haven’t personally tested the service myself, I believe I’ve witnessed some of their work in action. How could I tell? Since the redesign, I’ve implemented a challenge question which has been highly effective; the number of Akismet spam I needed to weed through dropped from 300 per day to about 10 per week. So, when a comment makes it past Akismet and my spam filter, I know that a human (or highly evolved robot) had to answer my challenge question.

If that is the case, here’s a true sample of some of the comments you’ll receive (there were other variations, but I deleted them not knowing this entry would be born):

Excellent Article. Have emailed it to my friends!

Is it worth it? That’d be a no. That comment never even saw the light of day on this blog because it didn’t add to the conversation. Any blogmaster who cares about her blog would not allow such a trite comment to appear for any length of time.

Of course, this service really isn’t geared towards the “legitimately busy, but insightful blogger”, it’s geared towards online marketers and business site owners who have an agenda.

Can outsourcing comments work? Yep, when done properly and it happens more often that we realize. Most people don’t notice, but Big Co.™ and some other businesses already does it. Not necessarily to build PageRank or get better placement in SERPs, mind you, but to build their brand awareness and connect with their readers. These companies have their employees (or hired consultants) troll the blogosphere and add to the discussion.

Ah, did you catch that? Add to the discussion. That’s what commenting is all about, a discussion and connecting with others. If you purchase comment outsourcing from some place like Buy Blog Comments, you won’t be getting quality or value with prices like $19.99 for 100 comments, that’s for certain.

In order to play with the big boys, you’d be paying a pretty penny because adding insightful and quality comments to blog entries (after actually reading them) takes time and clear thought. Those companies have full-time employees or well-trained assistants who do this work for them. So, if you’re going to venture out into this murky water, you had better know how to swim like an Olympic champion.

Ian brought up a lot of excellent points to consider:

  • Quality of the comments. As witnessed above, if the comment does not contain any value to the blog author or readers, it won’t matter much because it will be deleted.
  • Tone of the comments. When you have someone comment on other blogs for you, their personality, not yours, will shine through.
  • Link juice is hit or miss. Some blogs still have the rel=nofollow attribute enabled on their blogs. While Yahoo! and Ask treat these differently, the link will not pass any GoogleJuice (one of the major selling points for the service).
  • IP blocking. If the comments, with your blog or websites link, constantly get flagged as spam due to low quality, soon your legitimate comments will be, too.

All things considered, I must agree with Darren, Liz, Ian, and others that this service only facilitates human submitted spam and over time, as more bloggers flag it as spam (as I did with the comment above), it will become less effective.

There’s a fine line between quality contributions and spam — do the comments contribute to the conversation and are they in line with the blog’s comment policy? And what about the end website? I know that I always check the sites linked out to from this blog and if it’s not up to snuff, it gets nuked before the comment is approved.

If the comment above is a testament to the types of comments we, as bloggers, can expect, then we’re in for a world of hurt. Sorry Buy Blog Comments, but you really should re-think your strategy.

For those who have considered this service, step away from the buy now button. It’s in your best interest to read and network yourself. Let the bloggers get to know you and your style. You never know what type of connections you can make if you put the effort in.

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