Author: Steven Aitchison (382 Articles)
The owner of this blog. Proud father, doting husband, blogger, hire me as freelance writer, and addiction worker
Taking the NoFollow off
I have decided to take the ‘NoFollow’ attribute off the comments. Basically
this means that anybody that leaves a valid comment will get a link from a
PR 5 blog.
The original thinking behind the NoFollow attribute was to disregard any link
that had the NoFollow attribute for pagerank purposes. This was to combat
the growing problem of spammers leaving messages and getting credit for it,
so in effect it would reduce the number of spammers leaving comments. However,
to date, I have over 16,000 spam messages eaten by SpamKarma which
shows it is not stopping the spammers leaving messages.
I have tried to use the TopCommentators plugin
to encourage readers to comment however it keeps messing with my blog so I
have taken it off. So I have resorted to taking the NoFollow off after
a bit of research on the subject.
So now you can leave a valid comment and you will be linked to and get credit
for it. However I police the comments on my blog very closely and will
delete comments I feel are there for the link, so no ‘nice blog’ comments
please.
I have used the sem-dofollow
plugin. To take care of taking the NoFollow off. It was really
easy to install and I have used a lot of Seimi-Logics plugins before and
trust them.
Feel free to leave a comment about this
More information on NoFollow
Preapre
for more comment spam not less
NoFollow
No Mo’ – Removing NoFollow from Wordpress comments
NoFollow
is not as bad as you think
NOFOLLOW:
A good try, poorly executed
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting, Steven. Wikipedia instilled the nofollow tag on their external links a few months back and the jury’s out on that one.
You might also think of installing a captchka system (those number/letter images people have to type into a box) in case you are dealing with spam bots.
Personally, I think it’s good that you police the comments on your blog. Often, the best part about reading blog posts are the comments people leave. If you can keep them relevant and spam-free, it’ll only increase the value of your blog to your readers.
Steven, I think that is a good decision. The web is all about good links betwenn good things. Why should we “work for google” when setting the nofollow attribute introduced by them?
Steven,
Lifehacker.com has an invite-only comment system. The commenter has to contribute something comment-worthy via e-mail, before receiving a login. Without knowing their behind-the-scenes maintenance cost, it seems to worth rather well.
Some kind of commenting system requiring e-mail sign up might reduce the level of spam as well.
I dont know if have looked into them, but the websites that are listed at the bottom of your blog post don’t have “dofollow” enabled.
As for the spams, all I can say is that use Akismet Plugin: no more spam!
Steven, if you look at google search: “site:stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog *** -view” you have way too many supplemental pages. Need to convert them, you know
Yup I have removed it too. No bad stuff happening as yet!
I am VERY glad to see so many people waking up to the fact that Google should not be dictating how we run our sites. They introduced the nofollow attribute allegedly to help combat comment spam and have since twisted it and manipulated it to get webmasters to do even more of their work for them. I think it’s time I remove the nofollow tags from my blog as well.
Can someone explain how dofollow works? Do I have to put a link in my comment in order for a link to be attributed to my site or does the link I provide in the comment form under “website” get atrributed? Because I comment all the time on these do follow blogs (I’m talking legitimate comments here), but links are being attributed to my site. At least I don’t think they are. I’m not writing links in the comment box. I just thought if I commented, period, I’d get the link attribution.
Hi Brett
when you are submitting a comment and you have inserted your web address in the appropriate field it will add a link from this blog, simple as that. No need to do anything else. so you now have a link from this blog.
Hope this helps.
Hey check out this new plugin I made removing nofollow only from trackbacks:
http://www.turkhitbox.com/wordpress-seo/dofollow-trackbacks-plugin.html
ofollow Trackbacks plugin allows you to share your link love only with the people who has found your post valuable enough to link it on their blog.
Thanks, for the quick response Steven!
Have you joined the Dofollow community on Bumpzee?
yeah… !
Wonder what happen if we all use nofollow on our websites? And how about DMOZ & Yahoo directory.
Have a good one.
Good To hear you remove no follow tag. My blog doin the same thing. It can increase comments and it good for your SERP Too
Hope dofollow is producing traffic and comments for your blog. Thank you
Its ironic that many bloggers talk about this but then they actually use no follow.
Well, if it was a bad or good idea is blowing in the wind; you will notice it in the near future. Anyhow let us know then.
I just posted some new Free U Comment I Follow Buttons & Badges on my blog for anyone who wants a dofollow badge that’s a little more Web 2.0
google introduced nofollow to sell paid search through adworld
Well, in either case, you can still call it spam. Whether the visitor IS interested in your blog/post and comments with interest or not and just wants a link. In other words, it depends on the blog owner himself/herself whether (s)he is willing to appreciate the comments and accepting the links in exchange or just as a sign of appreciation, simple as that. If not, then by all means, removing the ‘URL’ field takes 2 seconds! Google that out. Don’t leave the URL and then judging people for spamming, most are not spamming, they post with interest and once they see the option of leaving their website URL, why not?
I’m all for DOFOLLOW or just remove the URL field! Don’t leave it with nofollow, that’s more a trick in making some people comment without interest. So anyway, all for dofollow,
Cheers!
Hello Steve, Its a good move !. I too have plans of promoting the Do-follow movement. But I haven’t yet thought how I could do it with my kayaking site. I shall soon figure out.