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can allowing comments lose "link juice"

by craigylad
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi

I have a site that was about midway on page 1 of google for a given keyword. This has now dropped to page three. What I have noticed, is that I have allowed comments to be left on some pages.

Hundreds of people have left comments with a link back to their own sites.

Now, how will google "weigh-up" fresh content in the form of people leaving comments against people leaving links to their site, thus draining "link juice" from my site.

I dont know whether the fall has anything to do with out-bound links, or if its just google shuffling things up, or even other sites becoming stronger. I havent had the time to dig into it yet but any advice and thoughts would be most welcome.

I look forward to your take on this as I have been pondering this question for quite a while.

Regards

Craig
#allowing #comments #link juice #lose
  • Profile picture of the author Nickolie0990
    In a single word, YES, having a ton of links on a page will loose link juice for that page.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by craigylad View Post

      I have a site that was about midway on page 1 of google for a given keyword. This has now dropped to page three. What I have noticed, is that I have allowed comments to be left on some pages.
      The first point to appreciate here is that websites don't "have page rank". Pages have page ranks.

      When you say that "your site" was in a certain SERP's position, you're perhaps talking about the home page? The position of that page isn't, in principle, going to be influenced much by outgoing links on other pages.

      Originally Posted by craigylad View Post

      Hundreds of people have left comments with a link back to their own sites.
      What this does is to reduce the linkjuice of each link on that page.

      The linkjuice of a backlink (benefit to the page linked to) on any page of the web is in inverse proportion to the number of links appearing on the page.

      Unless Google de-indexes or penalizes sites for "supplying spammy links", or something as gross as that, additional links on pages of your site shouldn't significantly influence the ranking of those pages themselves.

      However, just as linkjuice to the pages linked to is reduced by a plethora of backlinks on a page, the linkjuice of your own site's internal linking structure can also be weakened, and this is one way that "allowing comments" could have some negative effect on your own pages' SEO. At the very least, in theory. How significant that's going to be will depend on the extent to which your site's internal linking structure is responsible for its rankings (which is never going to be easy to know with confidence).

      Originally Posted by craigylad View Post

      Now, how will google "weigh-up" fresh content in the form of people leaving comments against people leaving links to their site, thus draining "link juice" from my site.
      It's not quite as simple as that.

      Contrary to what's (so categorically but rather misleadingly) stated in the post above, putting outgoing links on a page doesn't, in principle, in itself, drain anything from that page.

      If the moderators decide to delete this thread, it may be because you should really have asked in the SEO folder: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...cussion-forum/
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Guzman
    The question is not whether allowing comments will cause you to loose ranking juice, the question is will you loose link juice? If you allow them to have Follow Links then it could make you loose a little Link Juice.

    If you want them to have comments then I would suggest using the Facebook comments system. This not only allows you to interact with your commenters on your page, it also has a viral nature. It also does not take away any link juice, but instead sends people to your page when they see their friends comments on Facebook. Just a suggesting, hope this helps.


    Alex
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  • Profile picture of the author Tadresources
    I thought that having a ton of people trying to back link from your page would only effect the page in question, and not the entire site.
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  • Profile picture of the author marketwarrior06
    Banned
    Yes. it will suck your Link juice and pass to other's site
    But remember good quality comments are the heart of a website. like a discussion.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Links drain nothing from the page, but they may
      affect your internal linking value. I value internal
      links a lot.

      Why gum up a perfectly good site with junk?

      No reason.

      Google has recently come out against comment pages,
      at least for adsense sites. Adwords users bid on a site,
      and comments that change the content is not
      what they asked for. Yes, they do quantify this, but
      not for joe and moe.

      Granted, some sites are just better with comments. But
      then those sites are not worried about SEO. Like yahoo
      new stories, for one example.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    The pages PR will not be reduced, but the outbound links can/will reduce the effectiveness of that pages PR when linking to other internal pages.

    So basically having lots of outbound links is diluting the PR that you could be passing to your own internal/external pages.

    Like already suggested, If you really need comments on the page, use the Facebook Iframe code to keep your page clean from all the non-optimized comment clutter & spammy links.
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