blog comment backlinks

Why they carry little ranking weight

Google’s spam policies list “forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature” as an example of link spam, so pasting keyword-anchored links into comment threads is exactly the pattern Google was built to discount. Since 2005 sites have been able to tag visitor links with rel="nofollow", and most comment systems (WordPress, Disqus) apply it automatically. Google now also recommends rel="ugc" for comments and forum posts. When a link carries ugc or nofollow, Google says it “will generally not be followed” and treats it as a hint that the link should not pass ranking credit.

That does not make every comment pointless. A relevant reply on an active thread can send referral clicks and put your brand in front of a real audience. The damage comes from scale: dropping the same anchor and URL across dozens of unrelated blogs. That leaves a footprint Google reads as manipulation, so at best the links are ignored, and at worst they build up a spammy backlink pattern you later have to clean up.

Example: a comment reading “helpful, here is cheap running shoes [link]” on a cooking blog is textbook comment spam. A genuine, on-topic reply that happens to link a resource is fine, just expect it to be nofollowed and to matter for referral traffic, not ranking.