Should I delete comments from profiles that no longer exist?

1. 72

   Thomas Swanposted 9 years ago

   On a number of hubs, I have comments from hubbers who no longer have a profile here. When I click on their names, a page comes up saying "Sorry that user no longer exists".
   
   I suppose these links aren't "dead" but they are very poor links to have on a hub. Might search engines penalize this? Or are they set as "nofollow" by hubpages?

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   1. 76

      tsmogposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I have never considered that point before. The Hubber link is an outbound link. I would think regarding the bots crawling the whole and complete hub it will examine that link, however it will I presume look at if there is or not any HTTP errors. How that within the complexity of the algorithm is beyond me.
      
      I did a little research when reading the OP. I discovered an interesting article, even though it is kinda' beyond me how to interpret it. It is about inbound and outbound links.
      
      At that site itself are additional internal links at the left pointing to topics for understanding Page Ranking. Even though I do not see a publication date, those principals IMHO will apply to today's algorithms and seems relevant. Here is the link to that article:
      
      http://pr.efactory.de/e-outbound-links.shtml
      
      Reading through it I can grasp what is occurring enough to see the values of inbound and outbound links regarding a page ranking. At least with the math they share those to be determinate values rather than obscure.   
      
      Unsure if that answers your query, but of least myself I gained from the OP. Maybe you and others will too. I dun'no . . .

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      1. 72

         Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the interesting response tsmog. That's a good resource.

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         1. 76

            tsmogposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Sharing a bit at the personal level Thomas after reading the entirety of those articles I get it now. Maybe I am left brained when it comes to understanding things . . . I dun'no :-) I easily understand the Big Picture now that I understand the details more thoroughly. I realize the 'values' of links to and within my articles.
            
            Particularly the the value of inbound links by authoritative sites contrast any site regarding page ranking. Even though that inbound link may not necessarily determine traffic, it affects ranking. I have a better understanding how the Google Algorithm may be altered for an impact with PageRanking especially the dampening factor.
            
            Interesting enough I always thought the name PageRank was related to the actual Webpage. My eyes opened once I learned it is from the algorithm formulated by Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin.

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   2. 0

      calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      commenter profiles are not clickable unless you are logged in, thus the majority of your readers will not know if the profile exists or not.  bots crawl the site as a non-logged in reader.

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      1. 72

         Thomas Swanposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That seems like a good explanation to me. Cheers.

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      2. 76

         tsmogposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Good point! I was not aware.

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   3. 74

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It would seem to me that HP would automatically delete comments from people who have left the site, but if not, they should.  It would be a lot of work for a writer here to sort through every comment to see if its writer was still on the site.
      
      I also feel this way about followers.  People who followed us but have left should not have their follows on our lists.  This is another thing HP should do automatically.
      
      These things keep the site "clean", save money for the team and avoid confusion for people.
      
      Glad you brought this one up.

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      1. 0

         calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I completely disagree, what does a commenter's account status have to do with the quality of his comment?
         
         Outside readers can leave comments as non-logged in users (if the hub author is savvy enough to configure his hub settings to allow it), should those also be eliminated?  There's essentially no difference between a comment left by a user whose account was deleted and a comment left by a reader who is not a member.
         
         Hub authors can delete comments based on whatever criteria they want, so if a particular person does not want comments showing from profiles that have been deleted or banned, that's his prerogative. But HP should not mass delete them from everyone's hubs.  I have received plenty of useful comments from former members who, for whatever reason, no longer have an account.

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         1. 89

            agvulpesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Another reason for 'not deleting' comments is that the deletion may interrupt the context of the 'conversation' going on in the Comment section and cause the conversation to make no sense whatsoever?

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      2. 87

         Lipnancyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Yes but how would HP know if a person has left the site for good? For example, I left for two years and returned.

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