Do Follow Blogs
July 18th, 2007 by Lynn LittleThere 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.
Lynn Little wrote this on July 18th, 2007 and filed it under SEO Updates, Link Building |
July 30th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Choices like that are really dependent on how much time you have for the site. Sure if you have a tech-savvy industry it is a nice thankyou, but the increase in spam that you can expect has to make it worth your time. A number of popular blogs don’t even have comments at all because of the time it takes to manage..
Is your time better spent moderating comments or working on content?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
we have the same idea, for me as long its related to my blog i will let it put their links.. theres no big deal for me.. but if thinks that its like a spam… who ever want to spam your blog right. sorry ill delete it..
November 6th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I’m a little torn about this subject. I mean, I think it is a very nice thing to reward your most frequent readers and best commenters by letting them link, but you’re also right about people wanting to abuse the privilege, but isn’t that true about almost anything?
Comments can really enrich your blog people love reading what others have to say. Their insights and opinions about whatever was posted is really what differentiates blogs from regular news websites - the fact that people can give opinions and the information is not one-sided.
I really think that the trouble that spammers bring on is well worth the benefit that great comments can bring to a blog, and people who constantly give great comments deserve to be given a little something back.