The Official Google Blog is a Blog Despite Lacking Comments

Posted on January 1, 2007

Here we go starting the new year with a topic we have seen many times before. Zoli's Blog says that Google's Blog is not a blog because it does not have comments.

TechCrunch followed with a post asking What Is the Definition of a Blog?

Yesterday Google posted the yearly stats for the Official Google Blog. Not bad - 294 posts, 7.6 million unique visitors and 15 million page views. Technorati ranks the Google Blog as the 16th largest among all blogs, and it is by far the most popular official company blog. Just one accidental deletion and a couple of hacks added a bit of spice and drama.

But today bloggers are starting to ask if the Official Google Blog is even an actual blog. The reason? It doesn't allow readers to leave comments. The Official Google blog does list links to other sites referencing any given post (a sort of trackback), but that's it. The conversation ends there.

We have seen this question many times before.

The topic always ends up with those supporting the "blogs without comments are still blogs" argument pointing out that blogs like Boing Boing, Seth's Blog, Post Secret and this blog (currently) are still blogs despite lacking comments. Technically, you can continue the conversation by pointing each blog post to Technorati or another blog search engine like we do at the end of each post. Trackbacks are another option.

Other bloggers will make counter arguments that Boing Boing, Seth's Blog, Google's Blog and Bloggers Blog are not blogs at all because they do not have comments. Still other bloggers will argue that these blogs are blogs but that they could be much better blogs if only they would allow comments.

Update 1-2-07: Mathew Ingram explains why he thinks blogs with comments are better. Meanwhile, a Lifehack post suggests adding or fixing comments as one of six improvements you can make to your blog.