A common technique, made popular by well-known websites such as SEOmoz, is turning off comments on your new blog until you get a sizeable amount of readers. There are several good reasons why one might do this, as was adressed by SEOmoz. There are some other factors that SEOmoz failed to mention, however. Before turning off your comments temporarily, you may want to consider some things first. In some cases, even if your blog may appear “lonely” with 0 comments, you may not want to keep it enabled.


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Analyzing the Reason of Disabling Comments Initially

There’s some credible reasons as to why one would want to turn off comments. The main reason, that most would consider the key point, would be that it makes your blog look less like a ghost town and unpopular. This is a reasonable thought due to the fact that comments are one of the best ways to interact with your viewers openly. When you don’t have any comments, “some” may get turned off by that and quickly leave. When you turn off the ability for others to comment on your blog, you are trying to hide what your blog really is. Therefore, you may convince the reader that you are doing so because you want don’t want to deal with spam type messages, or you are too busy to keep up with comments.

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Does it Really Matter?

At the end of the day, one should contemplate…does it even matter to turn it off? If one has a majority of tech-savvy viewers, won’t they recognize what you’re doing anyway? Sure, some will be convinced you have other motives, such as what calacanis and stevepavlina stated, but arguably, the majority will know why you really are doing so (especially if you do not exclaim your motives like the examples above, in which they had genuine reasons to do so) regardless.

Too Much Focus on the “Popularity Contest”: Keeping Your Comments On

The previous paragraph brings me to my next point, being authentic. Some may think that I’m getting too worked up on this subject, but one should consider multiple sides of each action. So, does being authentic having anything to do with this?

To reiterate, the main theory for disabling your comments is so your blog will be portrayed as popular, or at the very least, not a desolate wasteland. If you keep comments on, sure…most likely you probably will initially have no comments. My theory on this however, is that it doesn’t matter if your blog comes off as being unpopular, but sticking to being genuine as well as not so circumstantial.

So maybe you do turn off comments and wait until you get that big traffic to turn it back on, which does happen. What if there is a long stint of post with no comments, are you going to resort to turning it off again? I just don’t think it’s necessary at all in the first place, in most circumstances. Consider the following:

• Do YOU focus on the comments so much to the point of leaving the blog solely on that fact alone? Personally, I focus more on the content. I don’t know, maybe I’m not tech-savvy enough to instantly reject a post only because it has no comments.
• Your content. No need to say more…well, I’ll just say another sentence. If your content is unique, interesting, informative, valuable, and targeted to your readers..it won’t matter if you have 0 comments or 100 comments…your content will surely “shine” through.
• Comments can be motivational. Understandably, one can lose momentum when keeping up with their blog, especially in the beginning. By disabling comments, your eliminating that chance of motivation. Even one comment can lift your spirits, and make you keep going at those crucial moments.

By no means is this the concrete answer, and it could very well lead to an open-ended discussion. It can be argued by many that it’s best to disable comments, but I believe otherwise and I gave a different view. In my opinion, the pros, even if their not 100% certain to come to fruition, outweigh the cons. Consider this…if those shallow viewers are leaving solely based on 0 comments, are you going to missing out on much anyway? I say, good riddance.

*Update 02/29/08*  AbleReach made a good point on StumbleUpon in regards to my post:

“There are phases in the startup of any new thing when paying too much attention to the reactions of others can take attention away from more productive areas. Enabling comments can go either way.” 

Indeed, using comments can go either way, and some thoughts should be considered beforehand. There is no right or wrong answer, merely what one deems is the best route. I consider the benefits of enabling comments outweigh the negatives. In regards to the comment above, certainly many things could potentially be counter-productive, but it’s how you manage your time and how you measure “productivity” that one should think about. Personally, I do not mind spending a part of my time tending to the reactions of others. I get to interact and make connections with my audience as well as possibly add more value to my post.