How to Choose the Right Content Marketing Agency in India
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Blog Commenting in SEO: What Actually Works (And What’s Just Wasting Your Time)in SEO: Does It Still Work?
You leave a comment on a popular blog. You put your website URL in the field. You hit submit. And then you wait for the traffic to pour in. It doesn’t. So you wonder — is blog commenting in SEO even real, or is it just one of those things people keep repeating because someone said it in 2015? The answer is more interesting than a simple yes or no. This article breaks down exactly how blog commenting works for SEO, when it helps, when it’s a complete waste of time, and what you should actually be doing if you want results. Does Blog Commenting in SEO Actually Work? Short answer: yes, but not the way most people think. Blog commenting can help your SEO — but not because every comment you leave magically boosts your rankings. The way it works is indirect, and understanding that changes everything about how you approach it. Here is what actually happens. When you leave a genuinely helpful comment on a relevant blog, a few things can follow. The blog owner notices you. Other readers notice you. Some of them visit your site. Over time, if you are consistently showing up in the right conversations, you start building a name in your niche. That reputation leads to real backlinks, collaborations, and mentions — which are the things that directly move rankings. The comment itself? Usually not a direct ranking signal. But what it starts? That can be. Think of blog commenting as a door-knocker, not a shortcut. The Nofollow vs Dofollow Problem Nobody Explains Clearly Almost every article on blog commenting for SEO skips explaining this properly. So here it is, clearly. When a website links to another website, search engines like Google follow that link and count it as a vote of confidence. This is called a dofollow link — it passes what SEO people call “link juice” (basically, credibility points that help rankings). A nofollow link has a small tag in the code that tells Google: “don’t count this as a vote.” The link still exists, people can still click it, but it does not pass SEO value directly. Here is the thing — almost every blog commenting section uses nofollow links by default. WordPress does it automatically. That means the URL you drop in the website field of a comment form is not giving your site any direct ranking power. So why bother at all? Because nofollow links are not worthless. Google has said that nofollow is now a “hint” — meaning they may choose to follow and consider some nofollow links anyway. And even if they don’t, the referral traffic, brand visibility, and relationship-building still happen. A nofollow link from a highly read blog in your niche can send you real visitors who actually convert. Just don’t go into this expecting every comment to be a ranking boost. That’s where most people get disillusioned. What Makes a Comment Worth Leaving (And What Gets You Ignored) This is the part that separates people who get results from blog commenting and people who give up after two weeks calling it useless. Most comments that people leave fall into one of three buckets: Bucket one — Spam. “Nice post! Very helpful. Do check my website too.” Every blog owner has seen thousands of these. They get deleted in seconds. If your comment reads like this, you are wasting your own time. Bucket two — Generic. “Great explanation of on-page SEO. I learned a lot.” This does not get deleted, but it also does not get noticed. You blend into the noise. Bucket three — Valuable. You read the article. You add something the article didn’t say. You share a real experience, a counter-point, a practical tip, or a genuine question that opens a discussion. The blogger responds. Other readers engage. Your name sticks. Only bucket three works. Before leaving a comment, ask yourself: if I removed my website link from this comment, would it still be worth posting? If yes, it’s a good comment. If no, you’re just link-building in disguise — and that’s rarely effective. How to Find the Right Blog Commenting Sites Not every blog is worth your time. Commenting on low-traffic, irrelevant blogs is the SEO equivalent of shouting in an empty room. Here is what to look for when finding the right blog commenting sites: The blog should be in your niche or closely related to it. A comment on a food blog is useless if you sell accounting software. Check if the blog actually gets traffic and engagement. If there are comments already and some of them have thoughtful replies from the author, that’s a good sign. Dead blogs where nobody responds are not worth the effort. Look at the Domain Authority (DA) of the blog. DA is a score from 1 to 100, created by Moz, that estimates how much trust and credibility a website has built over time. Higher DA generally means the site is well-established and respected. Commenting on high DA blog commenting sites gets your name associated with credible spaces online — even if the link is nofollow. That said, don’t obsess only over DA. A smaller blog with 5,000 loyal readers in your exact niche can be more valuable than a massive generic blog with a DA of 70 but no relevant audience. Also, check if the blog moderates comments. If comments go live without approval and the section is full of spam, the blog owner isn’t maintaining it. Your comment will sit next to a hundred fake ones and nobody will take it seriously. Blog Commenting Sites vs Article Submission Sites: What’s the Difference? A lot of beginners mix these up, so let’s clear it up fast. Blog commenting sites are platforms or blogs where you leave comments under published articles. You are contributing to an existing conversation. The link you leave (in the website field of the comment form) is typically nofollow. Article submission sites are platforms where you submit
Article Submission in SEO: What It Is, Why It Works, and How to Do It Right
You publish a blog post. Nobody reads it. No traffic, no backlinks, nothing. That is not a writing problem — that is a distribution problem. Article submission is one of the oldest, most underused fixes for exactly this. Done right, it builds backlinks (links from other sites pointing to yours — a key signal Google uses to rank pages), sends referral traffic, and gets your content indexed faster. Done wrong, it wastes hours and might even hurt your site. This article covers everything: what article submission actually is, how it works for SEO, which sites are worth your time, and what mistakes quietly kill your results. What Is Article Submission in SEO? Article submission is the process of publishing your written content on third-party websites or directories — sites that accept articles from outside contributors and display them publicly. These platforms let you include an author bio or a resource box at the end of your article, where you can place a link back to your own website. That link is called a backlink, and backlinks are one of Google’s top-ranking signals. The more quality backlinks pointing to your site, the more authority Google assigns to it. It is not the same as guest posting. Guest posting means writing for a specific blog in your niche, usually with editorial review, and often getting a link within the content itself. Article submission is broader — you submit to directories or platforms that accept general content, and your link usually appears in the author bio section. Both have their place. But article submission is faster, more accessible, and a solid starting point if you are just building your backlink profile. How Article Submission Helps Your SEO This is where most guides just list “benefits” without explaining the actual mechanism. Here is how it actually works. It Builds Backlinks From Indexed Pages When your article gets published on a site that Google already crawls and indexes, the link in your author bio gets crawled too. Google follows that link to your site, which signals to its algorithm that another site trusts your content enough to reference it. Over time, these signals accumulate and help your pages rank higher. Not every backlink carries the same weight. A link from a high-authority article directory carries more SEO value than a link from a brand new, unknown site. That is why choosing the right article submission sites matters. It Gets Your Content Indexed Faster Google has crawl budgets — meaning it does not crawl every page on the internet every day. New sites and new pages sometimes take weeks to get indexed. But if your article is published on a platform Google visits regularly, it often gets picked up within hours. The link in that article then points Google toward your own site, speeding up indexation there too. It Drives Referral Traffic Referral traffic is visits that come from another website, not from search. If your article is genuinely useful and gets read on a submission platform, some of those readers will click through to your site. That traffic does not depend on your Google ranking at all — it is direct human interest. It Helps Build Topical Authority Topical authority means Google sees you as a credible source on a specific subject. When you consistently publish articles across multiple platforms — all related to your niche — it reinforces the signal that you know what you are talking about. It is not just about one backlink. It is about the pattern. What Makes an Article Submission Site Worth Using Here is something most guides skip entirely, and it is the reason people waste weeks submitting to sites that do nothing for their SEO. Not all article directories are equal. Some were genuinely useful once and are now abandoned or penalized. Some accept anything, which means Google treats them as low-quality content farms. A few are still actively maintained and carry real domain authority (DA — a score from 1 to 100 that estimates how much authority a site has, higher is better). When evaluating an article submission site, look at three things: Best Free Article Submission Sites That Still Work These are platforms that are currently active, indexed by Google, and accept contributor articles without a paid subscription. Domain authority figures fluctuate, so treat these as a directional guide, not a permanent score. Platform Type Key Strength Medium Blogging/Publishing High DA, massive readership, fast indexation LinkedIn Articles Professional Network Strong authority, indexed quickly, professional audience EzineArticles Classic Directory Long-standing, niche-specific categories HubPages Community Publishing Topical focus, allows author bios Tumblr Microblogging Good for shorter-form content, indexed well Quora Spaces Q&A + Content Niche reach, high engagement Vocal Media Content Platform Clean publishing, growing DA ArticleBiz Article Directory Free submissions, do-follow options GoArticles Classic Directory Simple process, broad category coverage IdeaMarketers Niche Directory Business and marketing focused One honest note: the classic article directory model has weakened since Google’s algorithm updates over the past decade. Sites that once held enormous power now carry less weight. Medium and LinkedIn Articles, on the other hand, have grown in authority and are currently among the strongest free options for both SEO value and actual reader reach. Article Submission Sites for SEO: What the Process Actually Looks Like A lot of beginners submit articles once, see no immediate ranking change, and conclude it does not work. The process is not that simple. Here is how it works in practice. Step 1: Write an original article Do not spin content (spinning means rewriting an existing article using synonym-swapping tools — Google detects it and the result is unreadable anyway). Write something genuinely useful for the niche you are targeting. 500 to 800 words is a reasonable length for most directories. Step 2: Optimize for the target platform Each platform has its own formatting preferences. Medium rewards longer, story-driven content. EzineArticles prefers structured how-to pieces. Adapt your format slightly for each, but keep the core content original. Step 3: Write a
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