Gary Illyes from Google said on Twitter that having a thriving community helps with rankings. He said "a healthy, thriving community on a site, that can help a lot" when it comes to Google rankings.
Here is the set of tweets in context:
@jenstar yep. In general if we see that there's a healthy, thriving community on a site, that can help a lot
— Gary Illyes (@methode) April 27, 2016
So all of you who comment here, thank you. No, the image above is me not calling you trolls - or is it? :-P
How important are the comments on your site and the community on your site relative to links or content? Not as important at all. Gary laid it out:
@jenstar it feeds into general quality. Say, there's good content, 5 points, great links from great pages, 2 points, thriving community, 1pt
— Gary Illyes (@methode) April 27, 2016
But still, having an active comments and community helps. I wonder what Gary means by "healthy"?
As you know, comments can also leads to issues for sites.
Forum discussion at Twitter.