Precautions Related with User Generated Content!

User generated content plays an important role in the SEO and popularity of your website. What is your take on user generated content? Read on this blog post of mine to understand precautions related with user generated content.

You all know the importance of content in the SEO of your website or blog. We always say this phrase that Content is the King. But then did we ever realize the importance of user generated content behind the popularity of your website?

Honestly there are two types of content you can find on a website or blog. One is the content generated by the site admin. The blog post which I share on this blog is exactly of the same type.

On the other hand there are some user generated content which are being posted by someone else than the site admin. In our case it is the comments being posted by you.

There are some websites which are totally built by user generated content only. It includes the sites like discussion forums, web directories, article directories, etc. while there are sites which consist of both the types of content. Simply my and our blogs fall into the same category. So sites which have both the types of content can be a product selling website, or service selling website, or a website on some particular topic with a blog and discussion forum into it, etc.

 User Generated Content is Whose Responsibility?

We sometimes say that since this content is being generated by a third party, how can we take the responsibility of the same? Though it is true up to an extent, but being the site owner, every piece of content which we publish on our website or blog is our own responsibility.

Let me tell you an example, one of my readers once posted a comment about someone cheated him, and that someone was actually a legend. That was the time when I was using an automated system to approve the comments, and since it thought that this comment was posted by a human being, it approved without giving me any chance to see for it.

Unfortunately I saw this comment when that someone filed a legal case against us, us includes my website, myself and the comment poster along with a few more websites where this particular user posted similar types of thing. Though this legal case does not lasted for long, and did not even impacted us much as the judgment given by the court was to delete the comment from our blog and issue a sorry note to that someone, which we accepted happily.

During the moment when I was fighting for this case, I came through this fact that no matter what sort of comments are you getting on your website, you cannot simply ignore them on the basis of the name of user generated comment, and you cannot even claim that it is their personal feeling which they shared with us.

 Precautions Required Related with User Generated Content!

So why am I telling this incident to you all while it was an incident of around 2010?

The main reason being the fact that I wanted to tell some of the precautions which you should take while developing your website or blog, and those are:

 Illegal User Generated Content

One of the toughest things which we cannot understand normally is which user generated content can be considered as an illegal one. Now for this we will have to decide from our own.

We will have to understand, if a person is sharing any post on your discussion forum, or a comment on your blog, or a comment on your products or services page, then it should not have any abusive language, or anything which might fall it into the category of illegal comments.

The limit of precaution which we give to our own written content should also be applied to the user generated content as well.

Never ever allow any comments or blog posts submitted by user or forum posts submitted by user to go live without your consent. Put moderation for everything. There is no harm in it, once you can be sure of your users then it can go live, but still it is your duty that you should keep an eye on it.

 Poor Quality Content

As per Panda update of Google, poor quality content is damaging for your website. We started taking care of the quality of the content of our website also. But do you know that a single comment given by a user might also make it as poor quality content?

Amazed, no?

You should not be, after all the comments made by any user of your website are actually participating for the on page content of your site. So it is your duty that you should not approve any piece of content which can devalue your own piece of content.

This was the reason why I came up with this blog post: how to do comments on blogs?

So, like you take care of your own content, do take care of the user generated content as well. Do check if it is grammatically correct, spelled correctly, or not having anything which can damage the reputation of your own content.

 Links Associated with User Generate Content

To be very true users mainly post content on others website for the sake of getting a back links to their website. I guess I usually get around thousands of comments on daily basis, and just seeing the name used for it along with link I can simply ignore them. Similarly if you ever managed a discussion forum you must be aware of the fact that how many spammy posts and comments you receive on it.

Honestly I once quit managing a forum too, just because of these spam posts and comments.

I need to delete that forum and convert it into a blog where you can manage or moderate things in a better way.

But then the basic question is that what should be needed to do with the links associated with those users generated content?

Well, honestly I will say if you are thinking that this link might damage your own website you should ideally delete it, or make it a no-follow one. Never allow Google to index any poor quality content or links from your website.

Try to edit comments, links or posts uploaded by any user, so that it should not ever become a poor quality post.

Precautions should also be given on the guest blogs if you are allowing on your website. Don’t ever publish anything on your website or blog. There should be some quality check which should be applied on any piece of content going live on your website or blog.

What is your take on user generated content? Please do share your opinion with us about it. I am keen to hear your comments on user generated content and how you normally tackle them?