Mueller: Blog Comments Can Affect Search Rankings

Google’s John Mueller recently advised Google SEO experts to avoid removing all of their comments from a website. This is because doing so can negatively affect a website’s Google SEO rankings.

In a Google Search Central SEO hangout on 5 February, a website owner sent a query to John Mueller, asking whether or not blog comments affect a site’s search rankings. They asked Mueller if there is a way to remove the comments from their website without risking a significant drop in their rankings.

Google does indeed factor comments into a web page’s ranking. Moreover, it is unlikely that one can remove comments from their site without affecting their rankings. Mueller answered the question in more detail.  

He said that the search engine treats comments as part of a webpage’s content. Therefore, if a comment from a reader contains specific information that another searcher is looking for – something that was not mentioned in the content – then it can help the webpage show up on the top page of search results. Therefore, webmasters can take advantage of their readers’ comments to help other searchers find their website more easily.

In this scenario, the comments from other readers have become a valuable part of the webpage content because they contain additional information that was not mentioned in the main content. However, this is not always the case; most of the time, comments have no value.

Therefore, Mueller said that it is up to the Google SEO expert to decide whether they want to remove comments on their website or not. But first, he said that it helps a lot to know if these comments actually help other searchers find their website easily on the search results engine pages (SERPs).

To help them make wiser decisions when deciding whether or not to remove comments, Mueller gave specific details about how Google sees comments on a webpage.

He told SEOs to examine the questions that attract readers to their webpages to find out if deleting the comments would impact their search rankings. Moreover, he says that webmasters should also consider the type of comments that their webpage content has, as well as the amount of comments that they have.  

They can study the information from the comments on their webpages and determine if these assist searchers with various queries. Depending on the information, they can make well-informed decisions for their site.

Mueller concluded the discussion by saying that Google SEO algorithms do not completely ignore all of the comments on a webpage. For this reason, SEOs should not blindly delete all of the comments on their webpage, thinking that nothing will change. Moreover, he left a warning, saying that SEOs should expect a few changes in their SERP rankings if they are going to remove comments.

Here at Position1SEO, we have a team of SEO experts that can help you determine which elements of your website need to stay and which ones should go.

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After this has been completed, we will discuss with you some of the SEO tasks that you want us to do, making your package completely personalised and suitable to your business’ needs and budget.

Lastly, we will calculate the final investments and start improving your site traffic and search rankings. We will also ask you to choose specific key phrases that will help potential customers find your website on the SERPs.

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