Anyway, regarding the reputation side of things, you are right but there are times when it could be seen from another point of view. Take what I am doing right now for instance. OK, it hasn’t turned out that way but I just came here for a free link…a link to my business directory. Surely that tells people that my directory is being promoted and if it isn’t already, it may be heavily linked to and backed up with links in the future?? That is what people want from a web directory where they’re are in turn advertising their businesses. I think as long as it’s done sensibly, then posting in blogs can sometimes be seen as good.

I engage on blogs that I love and I join the conversation with my commentary. I think I respect the value in comments because I’m a blogger myself and have to address the issue of comment spammers.

When it’s appropriate I may link back to a specific entry when there is a need to do it. Otherwise I retain my links back in the comment forms. I also leave my Twitter ID (@JoeManna) in the comment too.

When it comes down to it — you need to give a damn. Give a damn about the blogger, the conversation, your contribution and yourself. Otherwise, you may just end up in my Akismnet filter.

~Joe

I’m ok about people including a link in their post – so long as the info’s good I see no problem.

The Internet is just a series of links – I am always MORE likely to allow a link than to not allow one.

I even have posts on this blog where I TELL people to tell everyone else who they are and what they do – This one’s had 430 comments:
http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2008/12/11/building-your-twitter-network/

Please feel free to add your details.

Some pingbacks are fine, others are links to sites that have copied your post and are seeking to get a link – from your blog to theirs.

Check the pingback link and if you like it – allow it.

Contributing EXPERT content to websites that rely on UGC to drive traffic is hardly free advertising….

Treat others as you would want to be treated and we will take all the EXPERT UGC that we can get…Not spam but QUALITY content…

On YAHOO answers, we are selected the best answer 95% of the time. Elsewhere, we are selected spam 95% of the time…Same content…IMHO Blog and forum owners are nuts to allow YAHOO (and GOOGLE) to benefit from our content while they turn it away.

The irony is that we are the ones who are actually concerned about posting to all these sites because we are basically helping them generate expert content that costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to produce and that will ultimately compete with us for top placement for competitive keywords.

We’re not looking to fight with anyone and certainly arent looking for anything “for free”. We’ll contribute our content where we’re appreciated and do our best to add as much value to those “partners” as we can.

I also got a comment that said words to this effect, “Love your blog. By the way, if you are interested in…” with a link in the text to their site. Is that also something that I should be deleting?

Since I’m still new, the thrill of seeing someone seemingly take interest in what I have to say is still there – do these folks instinctivly look for people who are obviously new with the hope that we’ll just “approve” the comment?

I hope I’m not appearing too paranoid about this! I just want to incorporate best practices right at the get go.

Thanks for your insight.
Kath

Regardless of who you pay to do this for you, it’s still YOU using another person’s blog to provide YOU with free advertising.

They are not going to like it, hence the deletes.

I think it’s also likely you will find your sites URL blacklisted if enough people ‘SPAM’ your comments!

If you pay someone to mass-comment on other people’s blogs – you are deliberately using these blogs as unpaid advertisers. This is not about commenting at this point, it’s about advertising.

That’s going to hack-off a lot of people and might be why you find yourself getting deleted?