I'm Sorry nigel but it is a part of one of those 200 signals that determine Google rankings. Page Rank Does Matter, its measure of credibility for Search Engines.
Before penguin update blog commenting was so good to get a number of quality backlinks. But now after penguin and panda 20 update it is very risky to comment on blogs. I am not doing any blog comment right now. I always tracking if found positive response then i will continue.
Blog Commenting is one of the best seo offpage activities for get the best high quality backlink and traffic your website. But dofollow blog commenting is more beneficial for websites.
In my opinion Blog commenting is famous technique for link building. It improves your site rank by bringing quality backlinks. It improves your knowledge and you get traffic .
In Internet marketing, Blog Commenting and Link Building are two different as well as important tasks. In link building you don't need to share your views on any topic, before adding links.
Blog commenting should be used for two purposes only: 1. To engage readers on the blog with your expertise on the topic hopefully enticing them to visit your blog while not reducing the impact of the bloggers post. 2. To engage the blogger in a conversation/relationship for the opportunity to do guest blogging, JV partnerships, and increase you and your sites recognition in your market. To claim it has SEO benefits today is nearly ludicrous. To claim it can generate traffic, increase market penetration, and improve your influence in your market is nearly brilliant.
I agree! It is very important to show that you're not, only interested to building links to your website but genuinely interested in the topics being written on the blog.
Blog commenting is theplatform where you can write your opinion on the blog subject anddrives more traffic to your website.
Blog commenting - NOOOOO. Please avoid this unless it is completely relevant. This is so spammy and doesn't add value unless your comment will drive traffic. What's more, a comment you make on a 'good' website now, could easily be spammed tomorrow.