I guess my evil is starting to rub off on other people. I got an email from my Jon Waraas saying he started a new site call Buy Blog Comments.
Blog comments help your site rank better in the SERPs. We hired a few people who go through a list of blogs in a database we set up and pick out blogs that are in your niche. They then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it wont get deleted. Your backlink will then be on a targeted blog, giving you more weight in the search engines.
The service is similar to a paid forum posting services like ForumShock, which help to make your forums look popular by having a bunch of people posting on it – fake it till you you make, as they say. With Buy Blog Comments, you’re paying someone to go out to a list of targeted blogs and commenting on their posts. Since these are live people making the comments, it should pass through all the spam filters. No doubt, the service will be targeting blogs that turned off their nofollow tags so they can get maximum Google juice.
The initial response from other bloggers have been extremely negative (here, here and here) and they recommend everyone stay away.
I’m going to recommend against this service as well, not because it’s a bad idea (it’s actually an OK idea), but because the price is too high. If the service actually does what Waraas claims it will do then most webmasters wouldn’t notice nor care. Let’s face it, all blogs want more comments because it makes the blog look active. And if the comments are related to the post topic, do you really care if it’s being done by a hired gun instead of the true commentator?
Many bloggers make commenting on other blogs as part of their marketing strategy. It helps bring traffic and gets you noticed by the blog owner. Waraas is betting that instead of spending the hour or two a day it takes to comment on your favorite blogs, you’ll pay him to do it for you. However, I don’t see many buyers at $19.99 for 100 comments.
If you want to hire someone to comment on blogs for you, then I recommend you go to Your Man In India or Get Friday and hire a virtual assistant to do it. You can get an VA for as low as $4 an hour and I’m sure she can make 100 comments in that time.
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{ 86 comments }
I have reviewed his site, and I like the ideas in the construction of his house… but I say no thanks to the new project. Not my cup of milk.
Yeah. I have a easy way to generate comments. I’m the Comment King. I have different promos to get comments. But they’re free for now. ! =)
any way to make more money
i salute to people who keep their think cap on all the time!
Cash for Comments is one the Southern California Bloggers! I’m supporting him instead of paying some guy for something i can and like to do for my own!
Thanks MR. Gary Lee. Don’t forget about Mr. Gary Lee’s infamous iPHONE giveaway. check his site out!
indeed…you are the king of comments
and they don’t even cost anything!
Thanks Ms. Danielle. Where or where is that Zune! haha
Seriously. Come over to my blog and hook me up, man.
I stopped by to your blog. Check my promo out for comments.
Just did it. Thanks.
Cup of milk? Oh! John Cow is gonna LOVE you!
John, I think you got the basic idea of the site wrong. The point is not to make your site look popular with comments, though it could be used for that, but for “other” sites to benefit from the URL left behind while commenting on blogs in terms of SEO.
Hmm it looks like other idea… Could have service for looking popular.
but I don’t think it helps if they have the nofollow on
Really that would just add to the spam. Just like sponsored links theme which got flagged(no longer reviewed on WLTC and removed on the theme viewer), popular spam tools like Akismet might later flag this too.
It could be good for some but I won’t do it. Also, they may write better English than me but will they understand a niche market? What kind of quality the comment will be? “Nice post”, “lol” .. won’t cut it. Would they leave a comment under the client name or just write the URL in the comment itself thus not direct link?
Unlike you, I think the pricing is not that high but the price structure is not good. You should pay less when buying more(Costco Style)
Pricing:
100 Blog Comments Only $19.99!
500 Blog Comments Only $99.99!
1000 Blog Comments Only $199.99!
Should be:
100 Blog Comments Only $19.99!
500 Blog Comments Only $79.99!
1000 Blog Comments Only $139.99!
I personally wouldn’t use this service either. I actually like making comments myself and enjoy reading what people have to say.
Exactly and I don’t want the same comments showing up on your blog as on my blog. Particularly because they are differnt topics.
This just highlights the lengths that people will go for a buck, and also how far people will go to shortcut the process of building up sites. Also highlights the laziness of people these days. This would have NEVER happened in the 50′s! (yeah, yeah, they didn’t have computers then, I know)
cooliojones you are right. it amazes me how people come up with an idea and try to fast track it, instead of putting in the time and effort. Hard work and passion = sustainability
Yeah same here. Comments are the lifeline of my blog
does this site have anything to do with http://www.johncow.com/
Since no one else seems to be answering your question, I guess I might as well do so. John Cow is NOT affiliated with John Chow or this site in any way. As a matter of fact, John of John Cow dot Com was created by Bob (assuming thats his real name too) of Bob Meets World. You can read about it here…
http://bobmeetsworld.com/a-tribute-to-john/
It was created as a parody apparently in tribute to John’s rising fame. It was one heck of an evil idea to drive traffic to his site
interesting. I wrote a blog of JC look a likes. And I found out that John Chow dot com dot com was available. I know sneaky bastard move. But I posted it on my blog then someone bought it the next day. I wonder who did. I can’t wait to see that parody
^^^ What he said! Also I think Chow really respects Cow, and there is — as far as I can tell — no bad blood between the two. I think eventually they will meet up and do something together. it only makes sense!
Unfortunately I think that spam lover will have loads of success. A lot of people are willing to trade their souls for money. Not me…
I just can imagine the kind of comments people will start to have on their blogs:
“Nice job! I love your blog… bla bla bla…”
What’s the point of that kind of comments? Pure stupidity.
Beijinho (Kiss)
This is beyond lame.
Doesn’t anyone have any creative ideas any more? I mean ones with some actual VALUE?
Was no one online 5 years ago when you could buy 50K visitors to your web site for $100? Why don’t you see those ads anymore? Because THE TRAFFIC is WORTHLESS. It just took some people a little time to figure that out.
If you can’t muster some enthusiam from REAL PEOPLE to comment on your blog…you’re probably not saying anyting worth hearing. And if that’s the case, what the hell is the point of blogging in the first place? Go do something else.
Sheesh. (crawls back in his cave and goes back to sleep)
hahah NOW that was a COMMENT. good job. have fun in your cave. I guess people are lazy, but 50k? that pretty cheap.
I prefer to leave my own comments manually. That provides both the opportunity to meet great folks like y’all and learn new evil strategies from John Chow.
yeah this guy has lots of em. You Darth Vader you!
Oh, great.
Now John has gone desperate on us. He’s doing the “magic underlined words” ads on his site.
Bad form, John. You’re making plenty of money with non-intrusive advertising. This kind of thing stinks…not classy at all.
Maybe John Cow has taken over this blog after all.
I don’t really expect fellow bloggers to click on the ads. Do you? The non-bloggers are my audiance of interest.
Um, according to his PDF, you are not the audience he is looking for. He doesn’t expect you to click.
These have been around for a while, have they not? I can’t tell, I’ve got Firefox and Ad blocker plus
Uhh, where have you been chuck? its been on here for a while now. While Im not a fan of them, I dont really click on them either.
You write – “The service is similar to a paid forum posting services like ForumShock, which help to make your forums look popular by having a bunch of people posting on it – fake it till you you make, as they say.”
Sorry John – but it’s not similar at all apart from the comments being fake. The difference is that with ForumShock you’re paying someone to come and comment on your own forum – the ‘service’ offered by Buy Blog Comments is targeting other people’s blogs without their permission.
I guess the question that I’ve asked other bloggers is simply – ‘would you mind this service targeting your blog?’
I guess the answer says something about how valuable people see the comments section of their blog being and what it’s purpose is. For me, comments are about community, learning together and sharing knowledge. I don’t see how this service would add to any of that for a blog that is targeted by this service.
Some argue that the comments are genuine – but as I’ve pointed out on my blog – at 19 cents per comment it means that comment leavers would need to leave 500+ comments per day for them to make $100 (1 comment per minute over 8 hours). Of course Jon will take his cut so it’s probably more like 700-1000 comments per day (1.5 to 2 per minute). For a post to be genuine the person would need to read the post.
I can’t imagine that these comments will be really that on topic of genuine and any company buying them is going to run the risk of being labeled as a spammer and on spam filtering blacklists.
I just don’t see why any blogger would endorse this type of thing if they’re trying to give their readers a valuable experience.
Just my two cents.
You bring up a very good point about the blog receiving the comments suffering. If you purchase 1000 comments, I’m sure that quite a large % of those comments will be on the same 10 or 15 blogs. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of 50 or more of these so called ‘relevant’ comments.
Personally, I don’t think any blogger should want a comment in his/her name that is below the standard of commentating they usually post.
Hi Darren
Just wanted to highlight one of the things you said:
Comments is targeting other people’s blogs without their permission.
For me this is the biggest problem this kind of “service” will cause in the long term.
PS: You and John must get ready to fight comment spammers (again).
Beijinho (kiss)
You bring up some extremely good point and I agree with all them.
My point is that this would only work if it does what Warass claims it does – that these are real people who will actually interact with the blogs targeted for comments.
If all they’re going to do is copy and paste the same comments over and over again to a bunch of blogs, then it’ll fall flat on its face.
But as long as the comments are relevant to the posts you’ve made and aren’t just clear cut spam, it’s hard to say you wouldn’t want them on your site.
I disagree with Darren on how long it takes to read, comprehend and leave a comment. Especially on websites such as this one, where you can comment on other people’s comments, I can spit off almost 3 comments in one minute, all relevant to the topic at hand. Granted I do it for different reasons, mostly because I do have something useful to say, but it can be done. But even if I could do 100/hour, it simply isn’t worth the eyestrain and brain power necessary to go from blog to blog leaving your two cents. You’re supposed to work smarter, not harder, and this is just unskilled and borderline unethical behavior. This is simply outsourcing gone bad.
no one’s doubting you can do 3 in a minute – but can you do it every minute for 8 hours?
I smell a challenge!
I saw this on Problogger, I guess he’s contacting all the top bloggers!
It is a great idea, it’s just way too pricey. We have commentators at this blog that make almost 100 comments a week!
well, you’ve noticed…
A week? I think we’re vying for every 3 days!
I want to be a top site so Darren can leave me a message too!!
this is just word-of-mouth marketing with a different label. i don’t think it’s “good” or “bad” either, but what i don’t like are spammy comments on my site.
I’m not a spammy guy on your site
thanks browie!
yea i agree that comments create a feeling of community. if it’s about getting comments on your site (versus leaving spam comments on other sites), building a good network around you and creating valuable content will naturally get good comments. at least that’s what i think. i would never pay someone to come to my site to leave comments. it’s actually like reverse word-of-mouth marketing, then. it doesn’t make any sense to me…have your friends leave comments. that’s free.
true that. But i wonder how JC feels when he gets about 200 comments or more a day. Do you have a team to just read your comments?
Spammenters bad. Contributers good.
oh..hi derrich. funny seeing you here
John – Where have you seen a virtual assistant for $4 per hour that has enough english experience to leave decent comments on blogs? Get Friday ranges from $15 to $7 per hour last time I checked. Brickworks is much more expensive (but they appear to be much more educated).
So here’s the plan for the next wave: pay a service to write your blog! Combine that with paid commenting, paid directory submittal, paid seo optimization, a paid template and paid Adwords.
If several sites do this, you could end up with a virtual fake community that is optimized solely for high paying keywords for the search bots.
This could end up being the Milli Vanilli version of blogs! The sad thing about this scenario would be that the majority of the population probably would not be able to tell the difference…
…oh yes, don’t forget to submit for paid reviews for your paid for blog!
It would be like the Second Life for internet marketing
I’m a bit suprised that you think this is a good idea John. Patrick Altoft brought up a very good point in this post (on blogstorm). If you pay for 1000 comments then you’ll have 1000 comments on the web which are apparently from you ie. people assume you wrote them. A blogger’s name would go to mud if he was constantly backtracking from comments because he didnt actually make them.
One of the reasons comments can be so good at bringing in traffic is because people will click on the links of people who make valid comments. I really doubt the comments which are made on your behalf will be good if they cost 20 cents a time.
Im actually quite keen on seeing how Jon deals with a rush of purchases. I wonder how he would fit in 10,000 comments one week!!!
I asked the same question in my comment above. Is it the name of the blogger or the URL is in the comment itself? That make a good difference.
You are right about leaving a good comment on a blog under your name. People will click it.
Last week, I left a comment about the HD format war and a link to a post from February(first post I did) and the blog started to send me some traffic. Today, the same blog was news in a zdnet newsletter. I got more and more traffic from that comment alone. I even did a trackback and it too also is sending me traffic.
Like content, a good comment is king!
i feel that hiring commentors seems fake, true bloggers comments are always good to have and in this way your blog is then real
Looking over there site does not leave me with much confidence in their ability to leave comments.
There are numerous grammatical errors in the third paragraph in the blue area. Take a look.
english should have a capital E.
dont should be don’t
cant should be can’t
again english should have a captial E
wont should be won’t or even better “will not”
there is english a third time without E
All in all I am not impressed with their ability to leave a comment …. I would not want someone leaving a comment in my name that doesn’t understand proper grammer.
Eric
Did you take a look at the picture at the top of the page also? It’s blocking out some of the words, well at least it is for me. I’m using Firefox.
I don’t think buying comments is the way to go since they don’t parse well and are indexed less frequently if at all by most spiders.
I don’t need to buy comments. I make plenty of comments myself. I do need to buy a review from John Chow though.
I second that, I wonder if John does direct sales for a discounted price by cutting out the middle man
AMEN!! I need one as well! Maybe he could do one on a sliding scale, and write it off on his taxes!
You are all wrong here and need to do some reading. This website sells blog comments ON other blogs, thus giving you a backlink from those blogs! Great service!
Uh, we know this. That’s what we’re talking about.
I count at least 5 grammatical errors in paragraph 3 of the blue area. English has a small e three times as well as improper contractions at least twice.
Not good for someone who wants to write my comments for me…..
I vote no
Eric
Sounds like bollocks to me. I wouldn’t pay for people to leave comments on other peoples blogs. I’m not a prolific “commentator” any where, but I like to think that a majority of the comments I leave are more than just of the “great post” style. In my opinion, as soon as you bring commerce into it, the quality of comments with nose dive.
speaking of quality taking a nosedive, that was supposed to read:
“the quality of comments will nose dive.”
You’re right. Each comment would cost you way more than the advertising revenue generated.
One Man. One Year. $100,000 online.
http://www.oneyeargoal.com
Not another one…
“Blog comments help your site rank better in the SERPs”
I don’t think so. Blog comments have the nofollow tag attached to them by default, right?
I’m not going to advocate this idea, though I did write over at R/WW that I think, with modifications, this could be a workable and ethical method.
Yes, it does matter if the comments are made by a hired gun or a true commentator. A true commentator has a) authenticity and b) the opportunity to become a regular BLOG reader / commenter.
Paid commenters just seem too much like paid dates: just not a good opportunity for true love.
Isn’t blogging about sharing your ideas and getting feedback and going back and forth? This is an interesting concept, however.
Absolutely, I think you are spot on, it’s all about expressing your ideas, comments, etc.
Hi John, Thanks for the “Your Man In India” and “Get Friday” links.
I still think it is important to post your own comments. It keeps in in touch with whats going on, gives you ideas and keeps your personality out there for people to love or hate.
I wouldn’t buy blog comments, no. It would just be better all round to just write the comments yourself under different usernames.
Steve
If it would realy would look like I wrote it than yes but what if I recieve emails asking what the hell I commented…
well, everything has disadvantage and advantage. this business might be good and might also be bad. but it will be better to go away from it.
I don’t really have an opionion on this, however some of you are forgetting that earning 4-7$ an hour in India is A LOT OF MONEY!
So personally, I would like to hear less of this “lets assume they’re stupid comments” attitude!
For 4-7$ an hour in India you can get quality employees!
Stupid, Lame and any other evil thing you can think of.
Vijay
i wouldn’t. i’ve spent some money on “reviews” but i’m not so sure that’s even necessary anymore.
Nothing like supporting fellow countrymen by purchasing off-shore.
People say ‘oh these bloggers, anything for a buck’ but you think outsourcing to another country so you only have to cough up a measly $4 isn’t completely cheap?
Would you, living in US, Canada, UK, Australia etc work for for $4 per hour? Or even, for that matter, $15 per hour? Where is the health benefits, superannuation, and don’t forget, you get taxed on that rate.
Why are people so opposed to supporting their own country and paying a rate that they would expect to be paid?
I don’t think that $20 is that bad for 100 comments. If they all get through that’s $0.20 a comment. Alittle steep but if you hire someone without a great grasp of the english language you will be much more likely to loose some due to spam reasons etc… at the blog owners discretion.
What they neglect is I believe alot of people comment during 9-5. It’s a great way to pass time while living the wage slave deloca!
I’m not sure I would trust someone else to leave comments with my link or name on them, eh? Seems like a substantial risk to me.