Someone asked me about this and I said I don't like moderated blogs because I feel that they interfere with conversation flow. If a moderator only gets around to approving comments every day or two, people may not revisit if they check back and still don't see their comment. So, it may reduce traffic. On the other hand, spam and inappropriate comments are a valid problem, especially for people who have a blog connected to their business. I am a web designer and I want to give my clients good advice. Would you recommend moderation or not?

Yes for moderation...or the spam will dilute any value from the comments...

yah it is fake.

Originally Posted by weddingflower

yah it is fake.

Could you explain what you mean?

people may not revisit if they check back and still don't see their comment. So, it may reduce traffic.

real visitor dont think like that, they are visiting your website bcoz they find its worth and maybe find what they lookin at, and for those who think it just for commenting purposes then they dont see its worth instead they just want to benefit themselves..

"real visitor dont think like that, they are visiting your website bcoz they find its worth and maybe find what they lookin at, and for those who think it just for commenting purposes then they dont see its worth instead they just want to benefit themselves.."

That depends. Some people may value the content and may not be too interested in commenting but a lot of people do like to offer their opinions and have conversations with other blog users. If they can't do that they may go elsewhere where they feel they can do that. I personally prefer unmoderated blogs because I feel like I can engage in discussions, much like in a forum.

But I do understand concerns about spam. I have clients who are in businesses like real estate and law. They want to have active blogs but worry about the effect spam or inappropriate content may have on their business. It is my opinion that moderation may hurt traffic flow. I honestly have no idea if it does or not. That's why I am asking the question here and I have asked it in another forum as well. I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

I have just gone to the trouble to set up an account here to respond to rypher21. Many people value blogs, not so much for the posts, but for the back and forth among commenters. My favorite blogs are ones that have very active comment sections. There is one very active blog that I visit a lot. I rarely comment but I visit regularly to read the what others are saying. In fact, I rarely read the posts. I often scan them to get the gist of what is going on in the comments.

Can moderation stifle that back and forth exchange of ideas? I think it's possible. If the moderator is checking and approving comments several times a day then it wouldn't be a problem. But how many people can do that? I visit a few blogs often. They are all unmoderated and all have very active comments. I think it would be harder for a blog to really have that active back and forth if the moderator is approving comments only every couple of days and even worse possibly censoring legitimate comments they personally disagree with.

Originally Posted by rypher21

real visitor dont think like that, they are visiting your website bcoz they find its worth and maybe find what they lookin at, and for those who think it just for commenting purposes then they dont see its worth instead they just want to benefit themselves..

you are definitely right about it.. If you write blog that is well informative, something that would definitely catch the attention of your audience you don't have to worry if they will still comeback or not

people may not revisit if they check back and still don't see their comment. So, it may reduce traffic.

I do moderate my own blog, and to avoid that, I always made it a point that I visit my site everyday and update it.

Of course this is part of everyday task that every blogger must do.

In this day and age you have to moderate your blogs, or the spammers will have a field day

Then of course. It's a must especially in comments.

To stop spammers install a facebook/twitter/linkedin profile commenting, [i.e. they can only post comments using their social netword ids via an api], set these comments on autoapprove as spam is likely to be very low on these.

But still allow name/url comments for everyone else but manually approve those comments.

I have a plugin that can help you in moderating your blog comments in blogger. Spammers abuse the rights of having a free privilege in commenting blogs.

just moderate yourself

Originally Posted by fokerss

just moderate yourself

What are you trying to say?

yes, i moderate comment section. It is very important. It is the only thing which leads more subscribers..

always!! too much bots spam comments

Moderation is essential, this will not only help in removing spam from your blog but also discourage spamming all over the web and people would go for genuine ways to get a page rank with actual interests in blogs.

I disabled comments in the sites I have up now because they're just general information and I don't expect many return visits, they're just aimed at common search terms.

But in a month or so I'll be launching a blog that I would like to build into something big. For that site I hope to have lots of interesting discussions going on.

Right now I'm planning on moderating it manually, and participating on a daily basis.

i read every comments and if it looks like he just want a link that the comment isn't even related, then i delete it. i approve some which i think is related. then reply to it.

as simply as that. if i can't i handle it anymore becuase the blog receives about 400 comments a day, then i install akismet