The Importance of Comments

So while procrastinating, I checked out one more RSS feed, and I notice my name. Curious I head over to Thrasher’s Wheat to take a look. Apparently a comment I left has been elevated to full post status. I must have written it during one of my more lucid moments. So many of my thoughts are unproductive.

Thrasher’s Wheat is a much more widely read blog than mine. It is a valuable resource for music fans, particularly Neil Young fans. It has replaced HyperRust for me as the place to monitor online for Neil Young news. I’ve reblogged stories from Thrasher’s Wheat previously:

1. I’ll never understand how some people think
2. 100 Greatest Living Songwriters

Commenting can bolster your reputation

I’m not sure this comment is the most insightful thing I’ve ever written but I did use some well chosen words. Where this will get interesting is down the road when this comment/post starts to show up in search engines. Although it is unfortunate there is no link back to my site, and it uses my blogger username which is simply Muskie rather than Muskie McKay, it still could prove useful for self marketing or search engine optimization purposes.

I’ve written before about the power of the Blogosphere and how participating in it by following other blogs and leaving insightful comments can help with your self marketing and even your search engine rankings. I’ve also written about the fact you are always writing for your future boss, and unless my future boss hates Neil Young, a potential employer will find little to complain about in this comment and blog posting.

Anonymity

This sudden elevation of something I wrote above the rabble and white noise shows how it pays to be yourself online. Some advocate anonymity when blogging or participating in online discussions. Some people have legitimate fears and reasons for this, others are just trying to be cool, or use their handle to act differently online. Anonymity and the allowance for obfuscatory handles has been a boon to people like pedophiles and other creeps.

Commenting for Search Engine Optimization

I want to thank the management over at Thrasher’s Wheat for allowing me to try and illustrate a point I’ve been trying to make forever. Blogging isn’t all bad, and can if you’re careful and focused, (more careful and focused than me). It can also be used for self marketing as can search engine optimization. Hopefully this posting on my blog will create a trackback to Thrasher’s Wheat and allow some Googlejuice or search engine mojo to trickle back to my own humble domain. And maybe some of the readers of Thrasher’s Wheat who thought I might have something insightful to say about music, or marketing, or technology, will stick around or at least dig through some of my previous posts, the best of which are highlighted in my sidebar.

Alas trackbacks and other forms of comment spam have ruined a lot of threads and apparently trolls are an even bigger problem on social media such as Twitter. I had to overhaul my blog and install plugins to fight spam now very few legitimate comments get left but you’re welcome to leave one.

This entry was originaly posted on December 6th, 2006, it was last edited on April 24th, 2024 and is filed under: Advice and tagged: Blogging, Neil Young, SEO.