As laid out by BloggingPro.com, the question is simple. Should you close comments on older blog posts? While their article goes into specific reasons as to why or why not, I’ve personally been a fan of closing comments on articles that are 180 days old. I think the bulk of the conversation that is going to take place on any particular post will be within 7 days of it being published. Therefor, I don’t feel the need to have the form open if the conversation is over with. Another major reason I opt to go this route is spam. Back when I used to write for other websites, I noticed that the majority of their spam comments were for articles buried deep within their archives. Every now and then, a legitimate comment would show up but that was the exception rather than the rule. As a site administrator, closed comments on older articles also provides an easier administrative role. Instead of wading through pages of comments caught within the Akismet queue to check for false positives, I normally have only a page or two at the most.
With that said, as a site administrator, how do you have your comments configured and why did you chose that configuration?
It really depends on the content of your site. If you’re truly writing timeless pieces (i.e. tutorials), then please leave comments open. The content is relevant today, 180 days from now, and maybe even 2 years from now. If you’re curating your content and keeping it up-to-date, leaving comments open on old posts is even more important.
But if you’re running a news site and the content (and conversation) is outdated after a period of time, there’s no harm in closing comments.
In the end, there’s no hard-and-fast rule that will fit for all sites.