In what ways can the use of HTML comments impact the functionality of PHP scripts, and what best practices should be followed when incorporating them?

Using HTML comments within PHP scripts can cause issues as PHP ignores HTML comments and may still execute the code within them. To prevent this, it is best practice to use PHP comments (// or /* */) instead of HTML comments within PHP scripts to ensure that the comments do not interfere with the functionality of the code.

<?php
// This is a PHP comment
echo "Hello, World!";
?>