
Facebook announced a modification to its algorithms that will have an effect on the reach of comments on a post. Comments that have specific quality signals will be highly ranked. Low quality comment practices might lead to less reach.
Comment
Ranking in News Feeds
Facebook noted that not only are posts ranked in news feeds however comments also are ranked as well.
Posts with comments that have positive quality
signals will be seen
by more people. Posts with low quality signals will have their news feed reach
reduced.
Facebook
Comment-Quality Signals
Facebook noted that their updated comment algorithmic rule has four features:
- Integrity signals
- User indicated preferences
- User interaction signals
- Moderation signals.
Integrity
Signals
Integrity Signals are a measure of authenticity. Comments that violate
community standards or fall into engagement-bait
are negative signals. Violations of community standards are said to be removed.
Engagement
Bait
Facebook engagement bait is a practice that has four features:
- React baiting.
Encouraging users to react to your post. - Follow and Share baiting.
This is described as telling visitors to like, share or subscribe. - Comment baiting.
Encouraging users to comment with a letter or number are given as examples. - Monetization baiting.
This is described as asking for “stars” in exchange for something else, which could include something trivial like “doing push-ups.”
User
Indicated Preferences
This is a reference to user polls that Facebook conducts in order to understand what users say they want to see in
comments.
User
Interaction Signals
These are signals associated with whether users interact with a post.
Moderation
Signals
This is a reference to how users
hide or delete comments made in
their posts.
Here is how Facebook describes it:
“People can moderate the comments on
their post by hiding,
deleting, or engaging with
comments.
Ranking is on by default for Pages and people with a plenty of followers, however Pages and people with plenty of followers will choose to turn off comment
ranking.
People who don’t have as many followers won’t have comment ranking turned
on automatically since
there are less comments overall, however any person will decide to enable comment
ranking by going to their
settings“.
Facebook
Targeting low quality Comments
One of the stated goals of this update is to cover low quality posts
from people’s Facebook
feeds and to promote high quality posts by
people you might know.
This is how Facebook described it:
“To improve relevance and quality, we’ll begin showing comments on public posts more prominently when:
The comments have interactions from the Page
or person who originally posted; or The comments or reactions
are from friends of the person who posted.”