May
6
I Dofollow Comments
Filed Under Blogging, Wordpress | 18 Comments
My nofollow comment status is coming down.
Dofollow Comments as a Linking Philosophy
A good conversation is worth fistfulls of gofollows or nofollows or any kind of follows. Why? Because people who have participated in or read a good conversation on a blog are likely to come back and do it again. Unlike Search Engine algorithms, people develop loyalties, and blogs live and die by loyalties. Develop the network and the links will come. Use keywords and the Search Engines will also use those keywords - to make sense of the links.
Putting links before people is backwards, especially for blogs.
Risks of Removing Nofollow from Blog Comments
I've been thinking of removing nofollow for a while, and I've had reservations. I don't like the idea of being sought out by quasi-commenters who search specifically for dofollow blogs. I imagine them using the search status plugin for Firefox to see just how "dofollow" a blog's comments are, and deciding to make some lame link drop comment based on that.
I'd really rather never deal with link drops. Ever. Anywhere.
The fact remains that though a blanket nofollow on comments may make sense where comments aren't carefully moderated and the blog's owner isn't around much, that's not the situation here. I'm in here every day, and I'm a compulsive spam zapper. As as a forum moderator I have some serious practice at being consistently and conscientiously compulsive about such things.
And, the forum thing also has me predisposed to going the extra mile for a readership.
Once in a while someone will leave a comment that has a bit of their heart in it. For that, I'd like to hand out party favors or pour 'em a second cup of coffee, but being as this is a blog and I already serve up full feeds, the tender I'm intending to add to the pot is a little thing known as dofollow.
I'm removing nofollow from the comments on this blog, with some caveats.
Dofollow Comment Spammers Beware
- I'm not allowing signature links to bad neighborhoods, no matter how wonderful the comment.
- I don' wan' no stinkin crazy quasi SEO signature link text
- Dofollow only kicks in for those who have been commenting here for a while
- Last but not least, no "junk" comments. Some kinds of one liners with sig links are not comments.
"Thanks for sharing. Great blog." Is not enough of a comment to disarm my anti spam radar. Likewise to a "Look here for your answers" that stops short of adding to the conversation here, and links to your own services. If you're out searching for dofollow blogs that also have green fairy dust page rank, tread gently when commenting. I am a generous linker when someone has established themselves as a generous contributor. Otherwise, don't poke the bear.
In short, I'm putting Lucia in charge.
Lucia's Linky Love
Lucia's Linky Love is a beautiful dofollow plugin. Check out some of the configuration options:
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Dofollows are added to the author "name" and links in comment text after a commenter leaves some minimum number of comments. The blogger can set this minimum number to anything between 3 and 10. This encourages regular visitors to comment, but discourages spammers by forcing them to visit your blog many times before they get "dofollows".
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Gives peace of mind. Dofollows will not be added to comments left more than 14 days after you published your most recent post. This is a safety feature that prevents your blog from becoming a link farm should you ever be unexpectedly absent from your blog due to illness or any other major life event.
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The blogger may refuse "dofollows" to "names" that contain too many characters. This can be used to avoid giving "dofollows" to commenters who claim their name is "cashmere dog sweater".
More About Nofollow and Dofollow
Ultimate List of Nofollow & Dofollow Plugins - Andy Beard's February 2007 post is still a good resource, over a year later. He has this to say about Lucia's Linky Love: I was going to liken this plugin to a Ferrari, because it is built to be fast, but it is probably more like a Subaru, not just fast but designed for rugged terrain and can handle the twists and turns of comment spammers without slowing down.
Tags: 101 Posts
Comments
18 Comments so far
I should really do a 2008 edition of that post, but whilst there have been quite a few new plugins released, none have improved significantly on Lucia’s for features, or the originals for simplicity.
Thanks for stopping by, Andy. The plugins may have changed, but the thoroughness of your review still gives insight on some things to think about when choosing a path of action.
And, Lucia is still the queen of configurable.
I may not need all Lucia has to offer, but all those choices are a good way to get my foot in the dofollow door.
I have been thinking of doing exactly the same thing lately. I’ve noticed another plugin Kim Bock and Mark Dykeman have been using… I think it’s called Comment Luv… serves the same purpose I believe.
Looking forward to the follow up post that graphs the rise in spam comments
I’ll make my decision based on this.
Welcome to the club, Elizabeth. I use straight DoFollow so I set the bar a little lower. However I have Akismet, which I leave to keep out some without any checking whatsoever. I then only leave individual comments live if I feel my readers will appreciate what is written. If anyone feels their ‘gold standard’ comments have been unfairly deleted, then I may it very clear they should contact me. So far no one has complained.
@ James, any follow up graphs about spam are likely to include three factors above all else:
1. Perceived quality of comments
2. Number of return (quality) commenters
3. Perceived magneto-field of the great time-sucking vortex
@ Barry, If forums are any guide, most who leave link drop style comments are drive-by commenters and won’t bother to come back and try to engage. I hope. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well with it.
I’ve been mulling over my commenting policy as well especially as my site increases in PageRank and gets on every “do follow” list out there.
I don’t mind sharing link love with reputable commentators, but I’m getting a bit tired of deleting spammy or vacuous comments that add nothing to the thread.
Sometimes what seems like a good idea at first should be given a second look. Do follow is one of those ideas whose time may be over.
Now hear me out before you gun me down
I used to have dofollow on my blog but I was under constant attack so I removed it. I don’t get many comments now but my ranking have never been better.
Hello, thank you for the excellent article about dofollow. Just thought I would chime in to share my current, comprehensive list of all dofollow-related plugins for WordPress. Hopefully it will further help your readers get involved with the dofollow community. Cheers! :)
I have 3 blogs, 2 of them have the dofollow plugin and attract some serious spam. I found links to my blog on webmaster forums that have lists with dofollow blogs.
@ Matt, Paul and Mathias – I feel your pain, and I anticipate an evolving balance. I wonder if we’ll see a two-layer dofollow situation, where blogs that are trying to get conversations going will dofollow, and those that already have lots of comments will a) go nofollow, or b) get less generous about which comments get published.
At this point I imagine myself in camp “b”.
There will be judgment calls along the way, and I’ll want to get a comment policy put together ASAP, so that I don’t feel the need to re-explain my logic if someone complains.
@ Jeff – Your comment illustrates something that may be a time management concern. Though I know you’re not here to drop a link (nice list, BTW), linking out to one’s own sites in a first comment is something I’d expect from spammers. Unless the link is to something obviously spammy, those links will need to be checked out manually, and that takes time. On a busy day, a comment that contains links is more likely to remain unpublished.
My humble apologies. I felt the link was relevant and potentially useful to your readers, especially given the topic of the article. I see your point, however, and will refrain from sharing resources here at ablereach.com in the future. Please feel free to remove the link, comment, or both. Kind regards to you and your site.
@ Jeff – Nooo, LOL – the link was relevant, you are not a spammer, and your participation is appreciated.
What I meant is that as I start getting on dofollow spam lists, I may need to make some judgment calls about time management. I’d rather manually check out a link than not publish a comment, just as I did with yours.
I guess I am a big contributer to those dofollow spam lists out there. Oops. Don’t really mean to be. I have skated over the black hat, spam line a little in the past, but am against spam. But it figures. If a tool can be used for evil, it will, no matter the good intentions.
I am actually starting to wonder if Google and other’s will start devaluing links from the comment sections of blogs. But according to their own rules, if the comment was moderated then it was a decision of the site owner to add the link and not an automated link submission.
I don’t know. I guess you take the good with the bad. I have two dofollow blogs now. Not much trouble with spam. My biggest problem comes from those comments that just sit on the line. You know someone commented three times in 5 minutes, you know they aren’t very long comments, but you can also tell that someone actually typed them.
Sometimes I don’t what to mark comments like these for spam since I use Akismet and this will cause the person issues at other blogs since the blacklist is central. So I let them through a wait. Only once did I get hit with 20 more comments from the same guy the next day. After which I marked all as spam and sent a much bigger flag to the blacklist.
It’s a battle. I can’t imagine getting as many comments as some of the big bloggers get. Crazy.
[...] I Dofollow Comments [...]
Congrats Elizabeth. I guess what I’d like to see is WP changing the protocol for people to have to no-follow intentionally instead of the other way around. Many people are not aware of the follow/no-follow issue until they get much deeper into blogging because they are focused on serving their audience (and rightly so).
I dofollow on my blog and I haven’t noticed any appreciable increase in spam, but then my blog isn’t hugely well read.
I think if you end up on one of the dofollow spam lists then it may be too much effort to moderate though.
Great article. Nice blog. Keep it coming. Mike
I have seen do follow come and go over the years since the nofollow was implemented. I have dofollow on a few blogs that I own and I haven’t noticed a lot of spam. Of course I use Akismet and that gets rid of A LOT of spam for me. I don’t really even bother to look in the spam comment list, as if it ended up there, then your comment didn’t add anything to the discussion I imagine.
Anyway, maybe it does depend on how much your blog is read to experience the dofollow spam attacks.