SEO UPDATES

There is a movement going around the blogosphere encouraging bloggers to remove the nofollow tag that is automatically added to comment links. The nofollow tag was implemented by Google to deter spammers from comment posting since their link wouldn’t count towards a vote for PageRank.

Looking to reward those who leave legitimate comments, bloggers have begun to install plugins or make other adjustments to their blogs that remove the nofollow attribute from comment links. It’s sort of a “thank you” gift to the person leaving the comment. There are even do follow badges that these bloggers can display on their blog showing that they do follow. It is a nice sentiment but it is being exploited by some leaving comments. These unwanted comments have caused some bloggers to go back to using nofollow on comments. Others are wondering if they should do the same.

The do follow movement is a good idea. It can help smaller blogs to build one way links and also encourages people to leave comments. The badge is a bad idea because it doesn’t take long for spammers to target those do follow blogs. This already seems to be happening and causing some to leave the fold.

Better spam plugins are being written everyday to combat those who try to exploit do follow blogs. It’s discouraging to see those trying to do something nice for their readership being exploited. Hopefully the do follow movement will survive since in theory it can be a great way to build one way links to your blog.