Allowing Do Follow On Blog Comments
Again, this blog post is intended for those who are already blogging and for those planning to blog among my readers. The subject is an old issue among bloggers but being a newbie on blogging who wants to inform and be informed, I decided to write about the NoFollow link attribute (rel=”nofollow”) which was originally created to block search engines from following links in blog comments to minimize if not totally eliminate the amount of blog comment spamming.
In my research on the subject, I saw that the issue that Google worked on and gotten support from practically all blog platform developers way back in 2005 was hot until 2007 when negative opinions about the anti-spam effectiveness of NoFollow link attribute on blog comments came in loud and gained followers among bloggers who turned their backs and implemented the DoFollow rule.
I also noted the reservation of some bloggers to implement DoFollow link attribute on their readers’ comments was due to fear of getting their PageRanks to suffer reductions (PR leak) because of links on spam comments by lower ranked sites of their commenters. However, such fear of PR leak due to spam comments could be easily contravened by using effective spam filters and doing 100% moderation of blog comments.
In the old articles that I read, it was believed that some bloggers who write contents on their sites and make comments on others’ work may not even know that the links on the comments they make are of nofollow attribute and therefore useless in their efforts to build-up backlinks to their sites. Most people in the blogosphere agree that this is unfair to those who give serious and worthwhile comments.
Knowing the above arguments and the fact that the WordPress platform that I use for this site is by default has nofollow attribute on any link that can be found on my readers’ comments, I researched for a suitable plugin that would make the author links on my blogs dofollow. Towards this end, I found NoFollow Free (NFF) plugin the most suitable for the purpose. The NFF plugin is very easy to install and set-up with the following features:
- replace nofollow on author/text link (ON/OFF)
- replace nofollow on registered author/text link (ON/OFF)
- replace nofollow only if the visitor or the registered users had preset number of previous comments
- put back nofollow if blacklist words are matched
- display number of comments by author
It is also believed that a DoFollow link attribute for comments in a blog would encourage more readers who will toil to make useful comments. I could just hope that this will be true to my blogs here.
NOTE: Your comments are welcome here but you may wish to proceed to Café Forum for your questions and comments.
This is a very informative article. Now I understand the difference between the Do Follow and No Follow links.
By the way, I read your comment in the Adgitize home page about this, which I followed thru this site of yours, and I also noted your comment when you decided to advertise in the Adgitize. That’s a good decision. I believe your visitors have already increased because of your advert in the Adgitize. I often see your ad in the publishers landing pages, like in my blog.
Regards.
Eli
http://businessphereconsulting.com
We have recently added a wordpress dofollow plugin to our blog http://www.johnsonteamrealestate.com/blog The result has been an increase number of people commenting. One of the concerns was if we would be innundated with spam comments but fortunately that has not happened. it would appear that it’s been a win / win situation for us.
@ Eli – Thanks for the visit and comment. Knowing about the effects of the DoFollow and NoFollow link attributes on blog comments, you may now decide whether you will install a DoFollow plugin or not. Let me say that even before I install NoFollowFree (NFF) plugin, some 1,760 spams were already filtered by WP SpamFree plugin on this six-month old blog. Also, I confirm that my blog traffic increased as expected when I advertise with Adgitize.
@ Rich – Thank you for the feedback on the effect of adding DoFollow plugin. Now, I can be more relaxed and just wait if more people will comment on my blogs. I hope they’ll do so because they like my blog’s content rather than because it has a DoFollow link attribute on comments.
You made a great improvement to your blog brother. Love your blog! How’s your Cafe?
.-= Another Blogger´s last blog ..On-page Optimization: Meta Tags =-.
Thanks again for the visit and the nice comment, brother. How’s my Cafe? You forgot again that I am already an eX-ICafe owner for which my username stands for.:) I know you are a café owner in your country. I hope you could share some matters about how the industry is doing out there.
thanx for this great information.
Thanks for posting this info. I just want to let you know that I just check out your site and I find it very interesting and informative. I can’t wait to read lots of your posts.
.-= mirc´s last blog ..Havadan Ýnceledi =-.