is it ethical?

[FifthDimension5]

Somebody makes a blog post on a subject - "Cool places to travel in mexico" or "free wordpress magazine themes" or something like that - you know of another place where they have a equivalent if not better coverage of the subject, would you post the link in the comments? Would that be ethical? I mean the author is just trying to garner up traffic for his or her blog, would it be right to point readers at competing resources?

[Ebbi]

IMO there's nothing wrong about posting it. The owner of the website really has got
everything out of the visitor at this point. The visitor has found his website and even
read one of his blogs. If you REALLY have a better source for the information I would
just post it.

BUT if you can see that he's promoting his affiliate link I would probably skip the
comment, you could try to comment but I don't think he would allow the comment to
go live.

Also, if you are thinking about doing this and posting your affiliate link!! Then I don't
think it's ethical but doing it is a proven method of getting backlinks and sales so
it's really just up to you m8.

Take care.,
Ebbi

[Mike Anthony]

If it compliments his post I'd do it. If its just a matter of showing what you think is better I think its a put down and I'd pass on it.

[theimdude]

If you would come to my review blog and post a comment with your aff link I tag it as spam. But if you goto a blog of mine that is there for adsense the purpose I would not mind but a link to your website and not a aff link. Aff link in blog posting I would say is classified as spam. It is all about contributing towards the content of the blog

[beninewie]

If you were talking to these people face to face what would you do?

Imagine you're at a party and part of a big group conversation. If someone was talking about a great place in Mexico they just went to, would it be cool to say that you also went to an awesome town in Mexico? Depends how you do it:

A: "That place was lame compared to the town I went to this summer. It was awesome and much better than that dump..."

B: "Wow that place sounds great, I wish I'd been there. Although I did go to a couple of cool places down that way, town X was beautiful and town Y had great restaurants, what did you like most about town Z?"

A makes you sound like a w#$ker and B is adding to the conversation. Same goes for online, if you can add a link in the context of the conversation you'll probably be fine. As previous posters pointed out, if the site is for affiliate promotions they probably won't post your comment anyways so not worth the time.

I always try to imagine that I'm talking to real people when posting online, that seems to take care of most ethical questions

Cheers,
Ben

[AndrewCavanagh]

It's not unethical but it's not really polite either.

You probably wouldn't stand in a shop telling people who come in that they can get a better deal at the shop down the street.

If it was my blog and you did it I'd delete your post (or not approve it).

And if you did it repeatedly I'd block you from posting.

Having said all that if you really think you're doing a service to the readers of the blog and you can get a away with it without having your posts deleted it would probably be worth doing LOL.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh