Using disqus for a website (question on SERP and backlink)

Question

I am building a website and am trying to decide between writing my own commenting system and using Disqus.

One of the main deciding factors is that (obviously), I want comments left on my page to be show on SERPS. However, I remember reading somewhere that Disqus loads comments into a page using AJAX - and therefore the comments are "invisible" as far as Googlebot and other SE crawlers are concerned. Could someone confirm or refute this?

The other question I have is about whether (as a commenter), When I place a comment on another website using Disqus (including any links I may add to my comment), do the links in my comment count as a back link (in other words are they "dofollow" or "nofollow" links)?

Answer 1

Disqus has a blog post about how using there tool helps, http://blog.disqus.com/post/9956511178/disqus-research-how-comments-drive-traffic.

In the comments, Rob Webb asks the Disqus team about the SEO drawbacks of using Disqus because of the JavaScript not being seen by search spiders. The response from Disqus says that they aren't even sure if there are SEO drawbacks and that there are some ways around them, depending on the tool you use. Specifically, WordPress uses Disqus' data synchronization to resolve the SEO issue. The tool is something you could use to integrate Disqus.

I am not sure how difficult it would be to integrate Disqus with data sync but I do know creating your own commenting system is not simple. Here are the big concerns you need to be aware of if you write you own comment system:

1. User Authentication - You need to use CAPTCHA or an authentication API (e.g. OAuth, OpenID) to weed out bots.
2. Comment Review - You probably will need to review comments before they are posted due to concerns about bots getting around authentication or troll type users then you need to setup email and a allow/deny comment system. Even if you don't think you do now, that could change quickly after comments go live. For it to be easiest, the notification emails sent to admins should allow for them to respond to the email to allow/deny the comment.
3. Comment Following - Some users like to follow comments by email or an RSS feed. That means you need a system that allow comment subscription that is thread specific and an RSS engine that will create RSS feeds for comment automatically for each page that gets added that uses Disqus.
4. Hack proofing - Make sure users cannot enter any code into comment box that could hack or break your site.

All of these things can be done but they are not trivial and if you write the code yourself you run the risk of making the same mistakes that people have already made meaning there will be bugs and break-ins caused by your home grown comment system, that using something like Disqus will avoid.

Answer 2

Google has since announced its algorithm now allows it to crawl Disqus comments although it may take longer to show than traditional comments and any links in the comments.

Answer 3

Links in comments have "nofollow" added by Disqus.

Answer 4

Whether it uses AJAX depends on if you are using the Universal Code version, which is a JavaScript snippet, or installing it on some other platform, like a WordPress plugin. If you install it on a platform that runs it on the server then the comments won't be invisible.

Links in comments have "nofollow" added by Disqus.

Answer 5

"Google has since announced its algorithm now allows it to crawl Disqus comments"

It is easy to verify! This is not the case actually.