Are you having a Top Commentators widget on your blog? The purpose of having this widget is to give some credit to our top commentators in our blog. The link list will be reset weekly, monthly or yearly, depending on the blog owner’s decision. Most of the blogs will reset on monthly basis. Only some blogs will reset on weekly basis. Many give reason of reset is to give opportunity for new bloggers to be on the list.
Personally, I think the main reason is to protect the link sales from our blog. If you reset your top commentators on monthly basis and sells link on side bar at $10/month. I would definitely write about 10 – 15 comments to stay on top of top commentators widget for the rest of the month which saves me $10. It is good to have the top commentators widget reset on more frequent basis compared to monthly if you sell links too. This way, links sales will have better chance of survival.
I have experimented for nearly 2 months on this blog. Most of the advertisers end up commenting multiple comments at once and say bye bye to my blog. The proof: I could’t sell more than one paid link on featured in 2 months time. If you have better idea on how to attract the buyer to purchase link on my sidebar, please share it. Maybe, I’m out of luck for last 2 months in link sales.
* Please add rel=nofollow tag on all links that you get paid. This might save your PR from getting penalty.
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I think resetting the top commentators list more often is annoying. It is a kind of deal between you and your reader , they contribute to your blog and you give them a link. You can spend more time on filtering comments.
I agree on that, that’s I made this blog a dofollow. Giving out too many links is not healthy if we don’t get good backlinks.
Maybe you should cut out your top commentors widget and see if your link sales increase.
It’s a good suggestion. I’m considering of it. Thanks for your opinion.
One way is to place your Top Commentator widget at the bottom of your blog, where few tend to visit giving your sidebar it’s own place with advertising.
Current template don’t allow me to do so. I will be switching to new template soon where this is possible. A good idea there. Thanks to you.
I use Blogger and there is some RSS widget that displays my top commenters. Debating if I should keep the widget or not I think I’d like to offer it to those who are regular contributors to my posts. My name has knocked some of them out of rank but I also think there are too many ways to get one way links at no cost. You really have to monitor where comments come from and I do a sweep every few weeks.
Decide which is more important getting paid or PR. I’ve read articles that mention that although they don’t condone it they do it anyway. Selling links that is.
Selling link is one of the way a blog survive. Advertising space too. However, some advertiser still seeking dofollow link on paid links. It can get the publishers penalized in terms of SERP and PR from google. I think it is best to stay clean by giving nofollow on all paid links. Top commentators surely a good widget that gives exposure for most active blog members.
One more thing. You can’t have a weekly refresh for top commentators when you only post 1-2 times a week. This gives your readers only 1-2 chances to comment. Unless you like your post comments to look like a discussion forum, which is also fine.
Try to post more frequently like 3-4 times a week. This also gives the paid links more exposure in terms of total time spent by people reading your blog.
Thanks for the advice. I use to write 3 post a week. Recently, entangled on personal issues drag me away from computer. I’m will be posting more frequent again soon.
Last time I just wanted to be on the top commentators list. Now, I comment on dofollow blogs regardless if I end up in the top commentators list. The reason is this: individual posts can have pagrank too and the competition is less with less outgoing links on post pages. What do you think?
I agree with you. The competition to get on top commentators list is high. But, in long run it is not easy. Commenting on dofollow blogs with keyword certainly will pass some page rank juice with SERP help. I think this is the best way of link building on google earth.
I see the “nofollow” tag from your sidebar links. Maybe this which restricted the advertiser from buying your link. I personally want dofollow link if decides to buy a link
Google gives penalty on those publishers who sells link with dofollow attribute. I’m not willing to take the risk of losing PR or getting SERP penalty by doing it. It is depend on the blogger actually. Some bloggers have 100s of blogs and losing PR on one wouldn’t hurt that much. For me, this is my main blog. I prefer to stay clean.
Like I said before, weekly resets are annoying and just results in someone making more comments, just to get re-listed.
I’m doing experiment with the results in google analytics too.
It’s such a shame that some people abuse the Top Commentators widgets and post SPAM onto the comments section just to get listed, I reset mine monthly, but will be experimenting with the widget between now and the next PR update to see if any changes can be made with my Google analytics.
You and me on the same boat. I’m experimenting it too on google analytics. Just changed the reset option to weekly.
I think you need to remove the top commenter plugin. Its a nice gesture but if you want to sell sponsored links you really create competition for yourself.
Another option is to sell a review of the sponsored site which is far more valuable than just a sidebar link.
Good luck.
Thanks for the advice. I will consider on removing the Top Commentators widget.