I personally love getting a ton of comments because it adds a sense of community to a blog and makes it feel more active – plus they tell me that people read my very well organized words. Yet some hate the huge amounts of spam that leak trough the filters or their blogs just weren’t built for comments. So why would some one go and turn comments off on their blog? Great question, here are my answers.

1. Too Much Spam.

This is actually an issue that I face every day here. Since my start here at Blogict last year I have gotten more than 20,000 spam comments. Now just imagine the kind of spam sites like Smashing Magazine and those big name bloggers get. Now imagine some bloggers going through all their comments manually – they would spend hours upon hours a day on each of their blogs. Hours that could be spent making their blogs better.

2. I’m A Blogger That Doesn’t Reply.

This – I feel – is a reason most of those I’m too cool to talk with you people need to start disabling comments. John Chow is a perfect example of the type of person who should go ahead and turn off comments – as they really serve no purpose.

3. Personal Attacks.

No one wants comments that attack either a specific person, race, or religion. I’m not talking about getting comments that are critical of a thought in your post but rather – straight up slander and blatant attacks. At one point this had actually become a problem for CBS News back in 2007 when they disabled comments on all posts about Barack Obama – they’ve since enabled them – but this could become a big enough problem on your blog that you may want to turn comments off.

4. You Blog Wasn’t Build For Comments

Some of you may have automated blogs – or sites that basically run themselves. These types of blogs typically don’t need or use comments so it might be smart to disable them completely.

5. Your Posts Are Old.

This is common practice nowadays – comments automatically turn off – not allowing new ones to be made. It’s a good idea if you have a blog with tons of posts – since it cuts back on spam as well.

6. You’ve Got Forums.

You might have forums working hand in hand with your blog to create that sense of community I was talking about earlier. With these forums you can move, or relocate, the conversation from the blog and into a thread allowing for more interaction which will benefit readers more. The down side to this is that unless everything is amazingly well connected it could hurt interaction.

7. You Get No Comments.

I see this from time to time, some blogs just don’t have any sort of reader interaction. These blogs may have hundreds of thousands of readers and visitors but maybe two comments per a post. Sound familiar? Usually those big name news blogs are like this, I personally thing they should just take that function out completely.

8. You Shutting Your Blog Down.

It’s just good practice to shut off comments if you ever decide to close down a blog.This way you don’t waste peoples time when they try to participate.

Like I said at the beginning of the post everyone has their reasons for turning comments off . So now its your turn to tell me why would you disable comments on your blog.

Image by Mwichary