I hate the feeling after reading each news article from the BBC website for one thing – that site looks cold and as dry as a desert! Why? They often ask readers to go to Facebook to comment, after reading on their website! That hurts!
Sometimes, I can jump to a YouTube video page for just one thing – to see what people are saying in the comment field. Comment is one of the few ways to give readers an opportunity to express their views on certain issues. I understand that some website owners, especially WordPress hate comments due to spam.
If you are getting unrelated comments that advertise website links on a WordPress comment, then you are probably not using Akismet. Captcha is also a way to stop the abuse of spam. Others just ignore comments to avoid abuses. You really need to do your best to avoid the abuse of your comment area, but that doesn’t mean disabling comments entirely is the solution.
Integrating third party comments such as LiveFyre, Facebook Comments and Disqus could be a perfect way to reduce load on your server, provide good user experience and take advantage of the anti-spam systems already built into these comment providers.
One thing you must not do is taking off a visitors comment because it counters your view. It is their view, and as far as it doesn’t break any rule, let it be.
Comment is a good way to keep visitors returning to your website, even to a page they have read before, just to reply to a comment. In the long run, you will see visitors even contributing more tips and facts than the original article through the comment section.
Never ever ignore the importance of comment.