*Click here to read Part 1 of the Series: "Do You Know Who is Cheering on the Sidelines of Your Blog Post?
What if the Cheering Section on the Sidelines of your Blog was Really a Fake? What if the comments posted on your blog were purchased comments written by a Ghost Writer? What if comments posted in response to your blog article were simply a clever manipulation to gain more exposure and readership for someone else's blog?
Recently, I was reading an interesting post on Pro Blogger by Darren Rowes entitled Buy Comments - A Sick New Comment Spam Service Launches. Curious, I visited the Buy Blog Comments site and also read the comment stream on Darren's post. Apparently, this New Service by Buy Blog Comments has been launched with the primary purpose of buying blog comments to enhance SEO.
Buy Blog Comments is the lazy bloggers answer to building the reputation of your blog on-line. The idea being that as you comment on other reputable blogs, your authority as a blogger will be enhanced. Which is true...with one significant caveat...Comments aren't being left by the blogger, but rather by "paid commenter" whose job is pretending to be a commentator. You can buy a package of comments for as little as $24.99 for 100 comments!
The idea of trying to figure out ways to circumvent the work of true communication is not new. There are services that you can pay to write a blog for you. However, paying for commenting as a way to increase back linking and the authority and exposure of a blog IS emerging as a new challenge for bloggers. How is a blog author to know if the comments "coming from the sideline" are really cheering for the content or simply using him/her to build someone else's reputation. Does this matter and should they care?
According to Buy BlogComments, their service enables bloggers to get backlinks without spamming. The process in their own words:
- What BuyBlogComments.Com does is pay people to write quality blog comments on quality blogs. They are hand written by excellent english speaking people in America and Canada. We have a really great system here at Buy Blog Comments. When you order one of our packages, our blog specialists look through the huge database of no nofollow tag blogs and then pick only the blogs in your niche. Then, they go through and comment on the most recent posts. They read the whole blog post so that they can leave a valid comment on the bloggers blog, so that your blog post wont get deleted. This way you save time and money.
Some might argue that this is a valid niche. After all, don't we all blog and comment in order to enhance our exposure? If the comment is on target and furthers the discussion, who cares if someone paid for the comment in the first place? In the real estate community, we often deal with leads that we purchase which are absolutely bogus. We buy packages from lead generation services such as homegain or housevalues or lending tree without any assurance that the lead we are paying for is a real person. The real estate industry trades on "wishful thinking" all the time. So, why is this a problem?
Well, this is why I think it is a problem. First of all, it seems inherently dishonest. If my audience were paid to listen or read my blog, it would be difficult for me to be convinced that I was making a genuine connection. Trust is a huge issue in a real estate transaction. When I make a comment on a blog, it is a small step in building a relationship and validating the work of another human being. If it became widely understood that the "conversation" on a blog post was largely manufactured, it would destroy the authenticity which makes blogging so powerful.
Lastly, I wonder how this really works. Buy Blog Comments claims that it's workers are hired from Canada or America, so they must pay at least minimum wage. If these workers are actually reading these blogs prior to making a relevant comment, they must be speed readers extraordinare! And if they are so brilliant...why are they not employed in real jobs, not faking and pretending to be someone else?
*Photo of "plastic people" courtesy of automicjeep on flickr.
*Copyright 2007 Audu Real Estate All Rights Reserved

Lola Audu, is the Designated Broker & Owner of Audu Real Estate. Our company specializes in helping people buy and sell homes in the greater Grand Rapids, West Michigan area. We've had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients succeed in their goals of purchasing and selling property including demonstrated success in the negotiation of Short Sale Transactions. You can contact us via e-mail @ info@auduhomes.com or by phone at 616-791-0511.