Should Website Comments Be Moderated?

25th January 2012

It seems like every site now has a comments section. There are obvious benefits to this – it enables you to get feedback on what you’ve written and can help to build a community around your site.

But lots of site owners don’t seem to moderate the comments they receive – everything tends to get published no matter what is said or what the quality of the comment is like.

The problem with this is that comment sections become filled with superficial “junk” where nothing is really said – you see comments like “wow, thanks so much”, “first!”, or “this is a load of rubbish”.

It’s not uncommon to see in excess of 40-50+ of these types of comments on popular blog posts. Why allow these comments to pollute your site? They add nothing to the discussion and are often made by those looking to promote their own website via a back link.

I think one of the main reasons these comments aren’t deleted is because of the perceived value in having a high number of comments – the thinking is that it’s much better to have lots of poor quality comments than no comments at all.

But is this really the case?

By allowing others to post these poor quality comments it can lower the credibility of a site and encourages others to do the same thing.

Instead of including every single comment on a site, why not moderate them? Tell people what the “house rules” are and that only the best comments which add something to the discussion will be published.

Avoid the temptation of including pointless comments just so you can have a high comment count – that’s not the goal of a comments section.

Of course, moderating comments does not mean you should only post the ones that say something nice about your site and leave out those that are negative.

If the negative comments are constructive and interesting then show them – they can help others too and it shows that you’re not biased towards positive feedback.

Take a look at the comments section on your site. Does it contain lots of superficial comments? What value are these comments adding to your site? Do you really need them there?

Your comments section should be something that adds value to your site – be ruthless in protecting it from spam – remove anything you feel doesn’t add to the discussion.

By taking this approach your comment count wont be as high – but that’s a good thing! It’s not about the number of comments you get, but about the quality of those comments.

You’re better off having 4-5 really insightful, interesting, and thought-provoking comments than 40+ that say nothing.