Comments Manager

Following the November 2023 Core Update, Google appears to have a growing preference for user-generated forum results (like "Discussions and Forums") in its SERPs, primarily because their content is relevant to the specific search queries. Typically, these forum answers appear on longer-tail keywords and questions, often providing responses that directly address a user's needs.

Moreover, these user-generated contents are not AI-generated. Meaning, while Google struggles to regulate and identify AI-generated content in SERPs, user-generated content serve as a reliable source of authentic and human-made content.

In order to facilitate discussion on a webpage, a comment section is typically added at the bottom of the page where readers can leave their thoughts, questions, or feedback. It is meant to foster a community, encouraging sharing and active discussions, and can help with a website's SEO.

To further elaborate, an active and engaging comments section sends a positive signal to search engines that readers find the content valuable enough to participate in and spend more time on the page.

Furthermore, as mentioned by John Mueller, Google's Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst and Search Relations team lead during one of the Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangouts:

Google doesn’t differentiate between your own content and user-generated content like blog comments. In Google’s eyes, comments are part of the content on the page. - John Mueller

In other words, this is a double-edged sword; the long-tail keywords found in "good" comments can help your article get traffic, while spammy "bad" comments may lead to a decrease in the quality of your website.

Hence it is important for website owners to:

1. Decide if a comments section is even necessary for their blogs
2. Have full control over the comments section on their website, where comments can be managed

To answer the question of "Do all blogs need a comments section?" Website owners should consider what the goal of their website is, how likely their target audience will engage in discussions, and how much time they are willing to spend on comment moderation. These should help answer if a comments section is necessary on your website.

In order to let Konigle users have both the choice of selectively adding a comments section on their website and also have full control over the comments on their website, we have built a comment manager plugin within the platform. 

The comments section for pages within the Blog folder is enabled by default for convenience. But fret not! We have made it just as easy to disable comments; simply toggle a button while editing folder details.

Next, the comments manager plugin dashboard can be accessed by simply chatting with Tim. From there, you are able to get a good control of these user-generated contents by moderating posted comments. Using the blacklist feature, if a comment contains a certain word or a similar word on your blacklist, it will not be visible until you review and approve of it.

Additionally, there is an automated A.I. system that detects spam and automatically makes the comment invisible on the website.