Are You Getting Paid To Comment On Blogs?

Written by | Posted in Blogging | Posted on Date 26-05-2010 | Comments 29 Comments
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I often see a lot of paid to comment jobs on Freelancer.com, and so even though there are a lot of spammers, I have been noticing actual legitimate comments from businesses that normally I would find as spammers. In fact, these comments are real and I cannot deny it – even if I reply to their comment and they never respond.

How are they real?

They actual show depth in thought and also provide feedback concerning the topic. It is not a lame comment at all!

I can see why paying someone to go around and comment might be nice, but is it truly effective? Are these people actually given a list of sites that might convert visitors into customers. If by what I have seen lately with these people leaving real comments, I think there may be a real case.

The purpose of these comments are primarily placed so the blog owner and readers of the site will by chance visit. It seems harmless and I have no problem with that.

However… how do we define that versus comment spam? Do you just delete an honest comment that has everything to do with your post just because you have a feeling it was actually a paid comment, or do you keep it?

Obviously, it is easy to spot comment spam. A lot of it does not make any type of sense. Some of these people are asked to use a different email address and such. For me, I have a problem with that because you should proudly represent your comment, even if it might be paid. I like it when a company is open about their dealings and this would be hiding it. Is it shady? It depends on what your preference is. Right now, I am just coming to acknowledge this slowly growing trend.

I am almost wondering if those comments will eventually need to be disclosed like paid posts.

What are your thoughts about people getting paid to comment on sites? If the comment seems legitimate, should it be allowed, or should it be considered comment spam?

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Related posts:

  1. Indentifying And Taking Care Of Comment Spam
  2. Etiquette That A Paid Commenter Should Follow
  3. How To Identify Tricky Comment Spammers

About Nile Flores

Nile is 30 year old female from Southern Illinois. Nile is a mother of 1 son. She is also a web and graphic designer, who exclusively designs using WordPress. She is currently a student working for a Bachelors in Business. She also blogs at WPAddict.net and FamousBloggers.net

Connect with Nile at: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Nile has written 602 articles at Blondish.net.

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Comments (29)

  • ohamyorg says:

    I don't really mind the paid comments. As long as they pertain to my post and I don't disagree with what their link is peddling, I will approve it. I won't visit the site myself (unless it's to check on what it is), but if they are willing to take the time to post a real comment and someone else that sees my blog wants to click on their link, I don't see why it should bother me.
    My recent post 8 Ways To Stop Me From Reading Your Blog

  • Is this really happened? I didn't know that there are people paid to comments. I left comment around everyday, I'm sure I'll be rich through my comments :D
    My recent post How To Targeting Local Search?

    • Nile Flores says:

      Yes, this does happen everyday. lol… that would be cool for those wanting to make some cash.

      • chandan says:

        Hey I know that there are freelancing jobs which pay for making comment on dofollow blog. On DP forum you can see many deal on this topic. Freelancer even fix their price according to the number of comment they will make on dofollow blog. This is for the purpose of building link to the websites.

  • Jenn says:

    I get paid to comment by two different comments. I'm allowed to use the title of the website as my name, and the "contact" email address associated with the website, which in my particular case does make the comment look more authentic. And even though I'm being paid to comment, I do put my heart into writing comments that relate to the blog entry and are worth the space they take up.

    On that note, I don't mind paid comments on my blogs, so long as they are genuine, and show that the person who wrote them did take the time to read my entry and come up with a worthwhile response!

  • Jenn says:

    I get paid to comment by two different comments. I'm allowed to use the title of the website as my name, and the "contact" email address associated with the website, which in my particular case does make the comment look more authentic. And even though I'm being paid to comment, I do put my heart into writing comments that relate to the blog entry and are worth the space they take up.

    On that note, I don't mind paid comments on my blogs, so long as they are genuine, and show that the person who wrote them did take the time to read my entry and come up with a worthwhile response!
    My recent post Baby, I said, it’s all in our hands.

  • Nimil says:

    how on earth would you prove that you've made a paid comment? especially if the comment got filtered by something like akismet or other spam guarding plugins O_o seems like it would be a really hard thing to make money off of. not to mention, it also seems a bit shady in my opinion!

    • Nile Flores says:

      Exactly… unless you watch where your referring links come from. However it happens everyday. I see it in the freelancer forms way too often.

      The buyer pays usually for so many comments to be posted. Some give a list of sites to comment on and some allow the user to do what they like.

      To me, after so many years, it is usually obvious if it was comment spam or even a paid comment considering the majority of my visitors are usually within the blogging community.

  • Dana says:

    Yup, it is happening. I my self even get some offer for this paid commenting. As my experience, they usually target dofollow comment form.
    My recent post American Idol 2010 Final 3 Answers The Biggest Blogging Question

  • ileane
    Twitter:
    says:

    Hi Nile, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I think I've seen these comments before but now I will be more on the look out.
    I find it amazing to learn all of the various ways someone can get paid online and this is one that I might look into. Do you have an idea how much the commentators are paid per comment?

    My recent post Find Fonts on Your Computer

  • Tola says:

    Oh my goodness, paid comments??!! What will they think of next? And paid legitimate comments too???
    I don't like the sound of it, but I won't say I'm against it. I think I'll rather not know whether it's a paid comment or not, ignorance being bliss and all.
    I think as long as the comment is legitimate then it shouldn't be classed as a spam comment. And by legitimate I mean the comment showing that the commentator has actually taken out time to read the post, not just something like 'Nice post…' :)

    My recent post Black Hat SEO Techniques and Karma Pt II

  • Tola says:

    Okay, I think you need to do something about your spam filter, it just says here that my comment (which I actually thought was insightful) has been deleted!!
    My recent post Black Hat SEO Techniques and Karma Pt II

  • i am happy as far it is related to my post may it be positive or negative.

  • As long as you have no-follow comments you don't have to worry about paid for comments :-)
    My recent post How to Land a New Gig with Twitter

  • ashok says:

    I think this: somethings are just outright ridiculous, and this "paid to comment" stuff is pretty ridiculous. In some ways, it's worse they leave thoughtful, interesting comments. People need to be paid to read, critique and comment properly? One needs to be paid to be a "rational animal?"

    That having been said: if some business is crazy enough to pay for this, good for the people taking the money, and I do hope thoughtful comments flow. Maybe we can get colleges to pay for thoughtful comments, so that way they can pay their students back for the debt-load they gave many of them.
    My recent post “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins

  • Good point that you brought this up, I have seen lots of comments that are very legitimate and even show the person actually read my article, yet I can tell from the URL left that it is just a company looking for a backlink and advertising. In these cases, I still approve the comment and I only reject or block if the URL is one that is something really awful.

    • Nile says:

      I really agree with that type of policy in regards to paid comments or obvious link juice marketing. Some of the ones I have seen that were comments I knew fell in this category were done right and makes me wonder if there is hope yet. Even in most spam filters, or even plugins, some will get by… so this makes me have to go through my spam folder just in case.

  • Good point that you brought this up, I have seen lots of comments that are very legitimate and even show the person actually read my article, yet I can tell from the URL left that it is just a company looking for a backlink and advertising. In these cases, I still approve the comment and I only reject or block if the URL is one that is something really awful.

    Companies that are large enough probably just have their own staff to handle social media, commenting…etc. Small companies with only one or two employee's may not have enough time to build online presence and have to outsource, in this case I don't see any problem with it as long as the comment left isn't from a specific person (like an impersonation of the company owner). That is just my view, but from the point of the commenter if you can make some extra money just visiting websites reading a bit and leaving a comment (why not right?)
    My recent post Is it Spamming to Promote Content Many Times on Social Media?

  • For some reason my comments say "This comment has been deleted by the administrator." the moment I click the submit button, am I banned?
    My recent post Is it Spamming to Promote Content Many Times on Social Media?

    • Nile says:

      Your comment is up… I went ahead and even you you on my Whitelist so your comments are automatically approved. Somehow I think there is a glitch or some of the Intense Debate settings in general were changed. However… your comment is showing up. :)

  • I tried using my site URL of DragonBlogger twice, was going to share my input on the paid comments thing. I was saying that I think its fine for companies to hire people to leave breadcrumbs as long as they are legit comments and don't impersonate a specific person. From the side of the commenter, if you can get paid just to read some posts and leave comments why not?

  • Emily says:

    For some reason my comments say “This comment has been deleted by the administrator.” the moment I click the submit button, am I banned?
    My recent post Is it Spamming to Promote Content Many Times on Social Media?

  • Twitter Comment


    RT @blondishnet: Are You Getting Paid To Comment On Blogs? [link to post] I get them too

    Posted using Chat Catcher

  • M. Edward Borasky says:

    If you are getting paid to comment on blogs, you *must* disclose that. That's one of many reasons I turned commenting off on my blog.
    My recent post The Top Five Open Source Projects of 2010

    • Nile says:

      You do not have to disclose there. However, if you have a site, you should have a disclosure policy that also contains that you may take paid comment opportunities. Also, for taxes too.

      I do not close off my comments if someone came by and put a real comment. I do not agree with turning off comments unless it is not necessary to receive feedback from clients and readers. Believe me, I have seen some paid commenters come by who were not spamming and left legitimate comments, even coming back to reply.

      This is still a new concept to me, but as I have been looking around, I have been seeing exceptions. Same for paid to blog. There are even guest bloggers getting paid too. A lot of things are changing in the blogging community.

  • @LiveUrLove says:

    I can not see myself paying to someone to comment on my blog or getting paid to comment.
    The only thing I can justify (up to a point) would maybe be paying someone to be an assistant and comment on blogs for you.
    But this is something I would not let anyone do as there are certain blogs I love to read and love to leave nice comments on. So paying someone to post "Great post" instead of me probably would not work.

    My recent post Site Build It! review – How to build business with the right tools

  • Anonymouse says:

    Hi Nile, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I think I’ve seen these comments before but now I will be more on the look out.
    I find it amazing to learn all of the various ways someone can get paid online and this is one that I might look into. Do you have an idea how much the commentators are paid per comment?

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