Blog Comments - Close Comments or Leave Them Open?

Blog Comments – Close Comments or Leave Them Open?

20 July, 2009 - 07:00 AM - 11 Comments

As I have only been blogging for just under a year, I ran across several blogs the other day which some of the posts that interested me were fairly old such as three or more months old. The blog had closed comments for posts, in looking further wordpress of course gives you the ability to close comments for posts after a specified date. The question I have to pose is why? What advantage is there to closing comments for your older posts, if you know they are getting traffic you may be cutting off a method of communication and a way to engage your reader?

I can’t figure out a valid answer as to why other than maybe you want to try and cut down on SPAM, but I do not disable commenting on any of my blogs at this time. I was prevented from leaving some comments on other people’s blogs as a result of the comments being closed. So I ask my fellow bloggers, do you close comments after a set period of time? If you do, what is the reason and benefit you are trying to achieve as a result?

-Dragon Blogger

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Written by Justin Germino (1518 Articles Published)

Working in the IT Industry for over 10 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.

Follow Justin Germino on Twitter @dragonblogger

coach outlets

I prefer blogs!I don’t suggest you close comments after you reached a certain level of comments.

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Biodun @ Web Hosting UK

I do see the benefits in always leaving comments open and I would like to always leave the door open for conversation.

Then for search engine benefits new comments on older posts refreshes the content on those pages, drawing search engines to it again and maybe even boosting it results for particular keywords.

Black Friday HDTV Reviews

I suggest you close comments after you reached a certain level of comments. Remember page juice is also important in keeping your blog rankings, thats if you blog also makes you money. Otherwise if you dont mind, just keep the blog comments opened.
.-= Black Friday HDTV ReviewsÂ´s last blog ..Antennas Direct DB4 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna Review =-.

Scorpio

Closing comments to a selected or large group is more better than leaving them open. The more topics/posts you have the harder it is to monitor and check each of them which can allow spam.

Using the close comments method is bad if there are posts enjoyed by fans as such i suggest that you dont close comments on topics that have more than about five or more comments (Other than your own) The rest of the topics obviously dont have that much attention and dont need to be used that often.

Sorry for the long post.
.-= Scorpio´s last blog ..Josh Nizzi updates on ROTF =-.

dragonblogger

Thank you, I welcome your input. I can see some people close comments on sponsored or paid posts too, because they don't want people leaving negative feedback about the advertiser and creating a comment pissing war, is another possible reason.

Larz

I agree, I do not close comments. It just makes sense to leave it open and allow more visitors to view your blog and to comment. Who knows, an old post could re-blossom into a huge posting.

Tycoon Blogger

Justin,
This is funny your are blogging about this, I actually just closed comments yesterday on one of my posts. It is my most popular post, titled "Do Follow, commentluv and now keywordluv" I had like 88 comments and they were all the same..."great combination of plugins-thanks" or some variation of that. My reason for closing comments is to urge that reader to read some other posts and get a taste for my blog and if they really want the do follow link then they will leave a quality comment on another post.
.-= Tycoon Blogger´s last blog ..Is Social Spark ripping off bloggers? =-.

Very glad you brought that up, so maybe it is to discourage people from pilfering and taking advantage of dofollow comment links?

Klaus at TechPatio

I don't see a reason for closing comments either. I use the Akismet plugin to automatically remove spam comments, so I don't need to worry about that, though I still have to approve non-spam comments. At least for now, since I don't get that many comments.

But I also wonder why people would close older blog posts for comments - or maybe they're not even aware that they're doing it?
.-= Klaus at TechPatio´s last blog ..Mobile Apps To Become â€œAs Big As The Internetâ€? =-.

I agree with both of you, wondering if anyone has input from the other side. Is there any SEO benefit? I mean I have seen many blogs close comments on older posts and Wordpress allows you to disable comments after certain amount of days, they must have had a reason for including this.

Eric S.

I still receive comments on posts over a year old. I agree with you, it would be a shame to close the door on possible conversations. All of my blogs are on Blogger, and to my knowledge they do not have that option. I know you can close comments on individual posts, but I don't think you can put a time limit on it.
.-= Eric S.´s last blog ..July is The Wifeâ€™s Birthday Month =-.