Evil Ways To Increase Blog Comments
written by John Chow
OK, you’ve tried the Top Commentator plugin and you turned off nofollow all in the hope of getting more people commenting on your blog and they’re still not commenting. It’s time to get evil! Comments on a blog are a better sign of activity than how often a blog is updated. A blog can do multiple posts per day but if there are no comments in any of them, a reader will question if anyone reads it (unless comments has been turned off). Here are some evil ways to increase blog comments.
Start a Commenting Group
We all know about Digg groups that get together to digg their stories to the front page. You can get together with a few other bloggers and start a commenting group or just join an existing one. You all agree to comment on each others’ blogs and this helps to maintain a level of minimum comment activity on your blog.
Setting up a comment group is kinda like taking link exchanges to the next level. Link exchanges help readers and search engines discover other blogs but they don’t create a sense of activity and a non-active blog is a dead blog. This is not to say you should comment on blogs that only comment on your blog. Commenting on other people’s blog (especially the big ones) is a very good way to bring targeted traffic to your blog.
Buy The Comments
If you can’t find a comment group to join then you can try to buy the comments. While you can pay people to comment on your blog, a better way would be to dangle a carrot in front of them with a reply to contest. Whenever I post about a contest that requires a simple reply to enter, I easily get up to 300 comments in the post.
This blog already gets enough enough comments as it is so why do I need to do a reply contest? It’s all part of the overall marketing plan. A large percentage of readers are new. When they see a post with 300 comments, it tells them that this is a happening blog.
The main problem with a reply to contest is it only generates comments to one post. It looks very strange to see one post with a bunch of comments and the rest with none. The solution would be to give commentators additional entries if they leave a comment in another post.
Be Your Own Top Commentator
If all else fail then it’s time for you to be the top commentator. Make up an alias and reply to your own post. Now you may think this is dishonest but in marketing, perception is everything and the perception is a blog without any comments is not a happening blog.
I’ve seen blog posts where the blogger asked a question from his readers. A couple of days later I got back and there’s zero comments to the question. That does not look good. If you are going to ask a question from your readership and there’s no reply, then answer it yourself with an alias. Having one comment on there is better than having none. That one comment may be all that’s needed to get the comment ball rolling. If you’re really evil, you’ll set up a bunch of aliases and really make the blog come to life. Remember, perception is everything.
Comment As a Big Name Blogger
This one is really pushing it but I’ve seen it done a few times. You leave a comment on your blog using a well known blogger. The ideal being to show, “Look! John Chow commented on my blog and you should too!” I really don’t recommend doing this because if the big name finds out, he may out you and that’ll kill your reputation.
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Commenting on your own blog is kind of sad
Hahaha…Newer blogs like mine might always appreciate more traffic and comments, but I’d feel so cheesy commenting on my own blog. Defeats the whole purpose of posting quality content and inviting quality comments….but I guess evilness works for some!
– Raymond
Is there a plugin to make them stop commenting?
lol, offer them some price or something
Yah, charge a dollar per comment
or a penny…
john could get even richer doing that
ehm
*adding new comment to john chow’s post*
I can’t say that I’ve ever commented on my own blog and I don’t think I’d be very comfortable with it either. It’s pretty deceptive and kind of bordering on some sort of mental illness if you start talking to yourself with all these aliases… lol.
Oh yeah, commenting on your own blog posts is not really “neat”. For me the pleasure comes when readers will comment by themselves, sometimes i will try to write something unclear to incentive readers to ask what in the heck am i saying, but commenting to my own posts is something i never tried, and since i never say never….
Ha! Yeah - there’s talking to yourself, and then talking to yourself in cyberspace. Takes it to a whole new level - you could probably get locked up and taken away to the asylum for that!
Thats true but that will let visitors think that you’re getting traffic and people are enjoying the post, so they might be more eager to read and comment as well.
i thought of the same too.
but it make sense to grow your blog…
now u need to cheat mybloglog to show the person face too
I guess it all comes down to ethics…if you can look yourself in the mirror and think “hey, I made myself successful, by tricking readers into thinking that my blog was popular” then by all means do it.
I’d like to look at my blog soon and think “wow…my posts were actually useful and inspired others to start posting on my site”.
If you’re insinuating that you won’t go apeshit on us for this ploy, I give you a huge thumbs up. Though I could never ever do it, due to my morals… I’ll try buying you a couple beers and making a creative post if I want your comment ;-).
First time commenter, love the blog, you’re an inspiration..
Same here.. now it’s a different story to use a “typo” of a large blogger! I could say.. Oh wow… “john cow” commented my blog.. but then… well, there already is a John Cow. I’m not ballsy enough to do that though.
I like it - bribing people to get comments!
John will be very happy with that - infact he could start his own evil commenting scheme - how much would you pay for the mighty John Chow to comment on your blog?!?
Although….I can see how commenting on your own blog would generate traffic…. During the Christmas shopping season I saw many ads in the paper looking to hire “paid shoppers”… people who would be hired to be pretend-shoppers and browse a particular store to make the store seem more lively and active….cheesy but effective perhaps
– Raymond
I once saw a barber having a friend sit in the barber chair (with the blanket on him), reading a newspaper, while the barber just stood beside him. Apart from that the shop was quite empty. Seems like having a busy store is one good way to advertise.
That is evil! Now all of your followers are going to be making up comments on their blogs. It’ll be fun to read how forced they sound.
Hehe, very clever. I’ll have to consider doing this…
That’s kind evil
john is becomin more evil day by day hehe
Thanks again for the great tips.
I think buying the commentators is the way to go.
Someone should start a payperpost for comments. 
I’ll comment on any old crap, where do I sign up!
Then why not make up some 100 commenters and have a multiple dialogue with yourself on your blog? If a comment would take you 30 seconds, with less that 2 hours of work per day, you can have a “happening blog”. Who would need real commenters then?
If you managed to do that, you would probably be better of in playwriting. You would probably make more money that way too.
Or just hire a person with multipe-personalities
With your last suggestion we probably soon have Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on several Top Commentators lists.
hahaha no joke… I think im going to comment my blog with some famous rock stars
ROFL now that will be funny and more secure. Lets say you comment in name of John Chow or Aaron Wall and the next day you get to see a post on John Chows blog: “Look this loser, he has faked comments and has said crap on the comment while using my own name, and I have never commented on his blog”
It would be more lame than that Andrejs blog that requested a review on his blog while he had copied entire posts of John Chow…yay
Thanks for this great tips.
PayPerComment (someone had taken the domain already)
This would sounld like buying readers. I mean.. You have to read the post to add relevant comment (and you might as well come back again later) 
hmm, i may try a few of these tips. bwahhahahahah.
We are having a Top Commentator Contest for a $200 laser and we have one guy with over 900 comments! (on zedomax.com)
900 Comments? Does he just sit there all day and comment? Crazy!
omg.. i need to try that myself
from zedomax:
1 girrrrrrr2 (920)
2 Carl (585)
3 Brian Gaut (255)
Somehow I don’t think John Chow needs a lot of those methods.
Thats because he already used them to get all of us to comment, or maybe all of yall or even I am actually John commenting on his blog
you never know
Stop messing with my mind man! People are paranoid enough round here already!
I don’t know why I’m in the second spot of Top Commentator
cause you comment a lot…. having mybloglog its possible for him to track all of your comments over time.. so there ya go
You really dug deep to find such tactics, especially commenting yourself with a pseudo name or with a big name. It is however a moral defeat.
This blog is mpw becoming source of evil inspiration.
Okay.. I’ll Bite.
If anyone wants to join a “commenting ring” email me at carl@promoinnovations.com
I will make a database to send to you all.
Sometimes you need a lil’ evil to get things goin hehe
Thanks John for the idea. I set up a post at http://promoinnovations.com/2007/08/27/bloggers-support-forum-comment-club/
if you want to join.
I took down the post…..
Why stop with John Chow? Let’s get really crazy and pretend to comment as Bill Clinton.
Yeah I think if you’re going to do it you should take it to the max. Why not top historical figures? It would be great to re-animate William the Conqueror, Hannibal and Genghis Khan for some blog comments.
Would that be good or bad for your blog?;)
Sometimes I am more likely to comment on a post that already has a comment on it, especially when it’s a blog that I’m a new visitor to; so i can see where you are going by leaving one comment on a post of your own to get others to start commenting.
Personally, I prefer to ask a friend or relative to leave a comment for me if I have a post that was designed to get comments and it isn’t working. Oddly enough, posts where I sit down and say “I need to get a bunch of comments on this one” sometimes end up with 0 comments, while sometimes a quick post about a small new feature will end up getting 10 comments.
All of the above comments were actually posted by John Chow himself…
J/K
How did you know? John, this guy’s telling everyone your ultime secret!
i wouldnt be surprised
jk
john is a blogging super hero.. he doesnt have to fake comments