The content marketing blog, Copyblogger, has come to the decision to remove comments from its blog. They cite the following three reasons:
- There are a multitude of places to continue the conversation. Some places might even be even better than the comments section of a blog post.
- Fleshed out comments would be better suited as stand-alone blog posts. It also seemed like Copyblogger wouldn’t mind the SEO benefits of more inbound links.
- Spam, which finds its way through even modern, sophisticated spam filters.
I can’t comment on the spam. My commenters are all so insightful, and easy enough to manage on my own. All one comment I’ve received.
If it weren’t for the second point, I probably wouldn’t be posting this recap. It makes perfect sense for smart comments to become their own entities.
My biggest umbrage with their decision boils down with their number one reason for removing comments: the conversation can continue on social media in a number of social media networks.
The best part of blogs are the living entity that occurs in the comments section. By not giving a consolidated place for readers to give their opinion, blog posts lose that spark of life.
While social media might allow a better place for conversations than a blog post, the sheer number of social outlets leads to a conversation diaspora. How an individual will find and consume these points of view is past my view.
I hope this is only a temporary experiment. Even more so, I hope this doesn’t become an overarching trend.
