Should you turn off commenting on your blog? Have you ever read a blog post and went to comment only to discover the feature was disabled? Turning off comments is an option that all bloggers have, either for their blog in general or specific posts. But you might be wondering why they would make such a decision.

While the reasons each blogger has for turning off or keeping on comments is individual, there are pros and cons to shutting down comments. Below are just a few to help you decide which choice is best for you.

Should you turn off commenting on your blog?

The Pros to Turning off Comments

Few Readers Use the Feature

While you might think that comments are a vital part of keeping your audience engaged, the truth is that only a fraction of your readers—even your most dedicated readers—will use the feature. In other words, you are not losing much interaction by turning them off.

Moderating Comments Can Become a Burden

Despite the low rate of use, it is inevitable that someone will use the comments to share something you are uncomfortable with—personal criticism, political diatribes, advertisements, and other items. To protect against this, most bloggers will set their comments to requiring approval before publishing them, which means you must take the time to read each and every comment within a short amount of time so you can approve them before they are no longer relevant.

Comments Can Easily Go South

Never read the bottom half of the internet: In most cases, this is sound advice. Comments sections tend to offer the most extreme viewpoints with little tact and care, with sane and helpful individuals buffering them. While this may not be the case on your blog, the bigger you get, the more likely it is to be true.

The Cons to Turning off Comments

Comments Give Your Readers a Voice

This is probably the biggest reason to keep the comments on: Without comments, your readers will struggle to have a voice. It will be more difficult to gauge their reactions and feelings about your content, making it more difficult for you to tailor your posts to their wants and needs.

Without Comments, You Interact Less with Your Readers

This builds off of the first point but is less about knowing them to target them and more about knowing them to build a relationship with them. With comments, you can have back and forth discussions with your readers, engaging them on a personal level.

Turning off Comments Can Feel Like Censorship

Finally, some readers may see turning comments off as a form of censorship, making them less likely to keep following you. While this is likely to be true for those who have regularly commented on your posts in the past, it can also be true for those who have never commented at all.

So which choice is best for you? You will need to weight the pros and cons to decide