Recently I have noticed quite a bit of ‘do-follow – no-follow’ talk, especially on the SEO blogs. On many of these sites readers are advised to search for and comment on the so-called ‘do-follow’ blogs. What these articles do not say is that it would only be good manners to ensure that your own blog is ‘do-follow’ before you follow this advice.
In the short time that I have been blogging I have noticed that there seems to be a very selfish attitude amongst numerous bloggers. It seems that these guys will do something for you if you are prepared to do something for them. Preferably, they would appreciate you doing something for them without them having to do anything for you. The entire ‘do-follow’ issue proves that this type of attitude exists.
WordPress blogs are particulary susceptible to this type of thing because of the many plugins that make it easy to make a WP blog ‘do-follow’.
The thing that worries me about all this is that there could be people commenting on my blog simply because of the ‘do-follow’ link they are receiving for their trouble. Doing something like this is nothing else than bad manners and I for one am not going to allow it anymore. On this blog, I would much rather have less comments than have those comments that have been made with greed as the motive.
I have removed the ‘commentluv’ plugin from this blog but the comment links are still ‘do-follow’, if I make them so. From now on I will only provide ‘do-follow’ comment links to those sites that provide the same for their readers. I think this is only fair. No-one can expect anything if they are not prepared to offer the same.
This action of mine does not in any way mean that I want to punish commenters just because their sites are ‘no-follow’. Some bloggers have never even heard of this entire ‘do-follow’ thing, but then they are not commenting here with the aim of getting that link. The guys I plan to stop are those that knowingly come hunting the ‘do-follow’ links without wanting to do the same for their readers.
This greedy attitude is the one thing that spoils the entire blogging experience, or for me anyway.
This same attitude is found all over, allow me to give you a further example. I have been dropping 300 cards every day on Entrecard for about two months now. This has generated quite a bit of traffic for my site (between 250 and 400 per day). I am not getting into the quality of this traffic here, as this is a topic for another article. All this dropping means that this blog is on many a ‘top droppers’ list.
Just yesterday I had lots of work and did not even get to turn on my PC. Guess what happened, my return drops fell away to virtually nothing. I think this proves my case. The one day I am being praised for being a ‘top dropper’ but the very next day I am ignored as if I had some sort of contagious disease. This greed has to be stopped in some way and this blog will try and do its little bit to help rectify the situation.
Till next time.
I can understand your frustration…
I do hope that the people who left comments on my blog, actually read my posts and comments because they want to say something rather then just getting a link back to there sites!
About Entrecard.. Well, I try to drop every day however I don’t get to do it everyday.. BUT.. I have bookmarked 10+ blogs which I try to read and drop daily!
But like you already mentioned…If you don’t drop you don’t get that much drops back.. But then again..It keeps you off the street!
Next time I struggle to get my drops done I will remember your works – at least it keeps me off the streets.
It is great to get a link on a do-follow blog, for it’s SEO value. The problem is it encourages spam and that leads to comments of lacking any value.
I tend to look for niches that my blog is related to and comment on. I will comment for a couple of weeks, and if they don’t comment back on my blog, then I quit commenting. I figure it is a two way street, so they need to participate.
I use the no-follow because I feel that the do-follow somewhat is a bribe to get comments. I want comments which aren’t spam, so I will settle for less web traffic over comments. I think in the long run, it will work out for me.
I also hope that there is or someone will design a plugin which lets you decide which commentators get a do-follow or no-follow tag. I haven’t seen anything which is based upon the commentator.
I think you just used the magic phrase – it is a two way street. Your case is actually a good example of what I have tried to say here. I know your site is a ‘no-follow’ site but that does not mean that I am going to turn the ‘do-follow’ off for you. I know you are a regular commenter and you are not just commenting for the link. If I was to stop you from getting the ‘do-follow’ you would still comment, so what would be the purpose.
You can visit Social Networking|Turnip of Power for a nice explanation of how you can use an existing plugin (NoFollowFree) to control just who gets ‘do-follow’ links and who does not.
Lyndi,
I have the plugin installed and setup. Time will tell how this will work for me. I am thinking that there will be an increase of spam comments, but we’ll see what happens.
Oh, check your comments, they are do-follows now.
Thanks for the information about the plugin.
If the spam comments do increase you simply increase the number of comments before the ‘do-follow’ kicks in. This normally acts as a deterrent.
Lyndi,
Do you have any suggestions of the amount of comments to obtain the do-follow link, or did you go with the suggested defaults?
I halved the defaults. I might change this in time.
Controlling nofollow manually is counterproductive overkill. It’s best to decide a policy once and forget about issue forever.
My policy is dofollow only.
I am not planning to do this checking manually. I do already have some changes in place with the rest to follow soon. Deciding on a policy and then sticking to it is exactly what the guys without manners are counting on.
I could see that it would be a problem as my blog grows, to manually approve comments. So, I can see your point that one should decide on a policy and stick to it.
Thanks. I must say I appreciate the fact that you always go digging into the older posts on the site. This is an example I am also going to try and follow, it shows the blogger that you spent at least a while on their site.
Lyndi: Great post as usual. I make it a point to drop cards on blogs I like whether they drop on me or not. I’m sure I dropped on you at least once, and maybe 3 times yesterday. This whole comment spam for SEO is extremely annoying. The same people who do it have their own blog set to nofollow. Very ironic they missed the whole point of networking, that being both parties benefit.
Thanks, that explains the three drops received yesterday
How do I know if my blog is a do follow blog or not? I don’t get many comments – yet, but the people who do comment obviously read my posts and I don’t mind if it gets them backlinks. I only comment on posts which interest me and I believe deserve to be commented on, or if I have a question relating to the post so it would be nice to get a backlink for my effort. I agree about entrecard totally, although I must say it has led me to some interesting blogs.
Your attitude proves that you are doing things the way they should be done.
By default, most blogs are set up to be ‘no-follow’. This means that the comment links on the blog are set up to not be followed by the search engine robots. In simple terms, Google does not know about the links. Some blogs decide to change to ‘do-follow’ links. Google (and other search engines) now pick up the comment links.
What some people are doing is ensuring that their sites are ‘no-follow’ (they give nothing away) but then they search for ‘do-follow’ blogs and then make meaningless comments on these just to get themselves noticed by the search engines.
Thanks for a very nice comment.
PS. Your blog is ‘no-follow’, the same as most. You do not have to change this unless you are really interested in search engine optimization.
I actually have 5 blogs in Entrecard, but don’t drop with all 5 on the same day.
I know of three, I will check this out.
I really do not have time to think about these “do follow” and “no follow” stuff, I am lazy when it comes to this kind of things. When the article i have read warrants a comment, then I comment. I comment without thinking about the “do follow” stuff because to tell you honestly, i do not see its importance. The best thing to do to make one’s blog visible to Google is to write good content, comments made of “do follow” blogs have very little effect in the way Google sees one’s blog.
In the end of the day you are most probably correct but this does not excuse the guys trying to gain something they do not deserve. Thanks for your comment.
I’m sticking with the default policy of nofollow on my comments. However, I don’t think it has worked a damn to solve its original problem (comment spam).
I think as a general rule of thumb that nofollow on a comment makes sense, because it’s not an organic link. It’s not you, the blog owner deciding that my site has something of value to link to.
To go ‘no-follow’ is just fine as long as you then realize that you will most probably receive the same.
Well said Lyndi. I’m experiencing a similar situation. I vist some sites regularly and I started dropping on their sites. I have come to know about the Entrecard concept only recently.
But, I get the traffic only when I drop. Otherwise, I don’t!
I have not been involved with EC for long neither. I have however found that it is hard work if you want to gain any traffic benefit from it. Who said blogging was easy
As long as I have time I continue to blog no matter what. I started this as a hobby and I’m loving it.
Traffic or no traffic, doesn’t matter Lyndi! Easy or tough, doesn’t matter too!
I wish more bloggers had your attitude.
Since leaving comments automatically leaves a link to your own site, why all the fuss on “dofollow” and “nofollow?” The more someone likes what you say in your comment, the chances of your site’s link (your name)being clicked on increases.
So the answer really should be, leave great comments in hopes that people will click your sites link.
BTW, put me as nofollow. Have a great weekend!
The ‘fuss’ has got nothing to do with readers following your comment link back to your site, it only controls whether the search engines follow the link or not. As requested your link was made ‘no-follow’.
I used to be a follow blog but I ended receiving lots of comments of the “Really cool information here, I’ll be back!” variety, so I made my comments nofollow. I don’t think I’m hurting anyone because 99.9% of my commenters don’t even have blogs.
I don’t think a ‘no-follow’ can hurt any blog. There are in fact some that argue it is better for all concerned. My gripe is just what you have mentioned, those ‘irrelevant’ comments just looking for the link. In the end I can see this blog going ‘no-follow’ as well.
That reminds me, I visit your blog regularly but I never comment. It is not that I don’t enjoy your articles, it is because I do not understand ‘baseball’. Here in SA the game is not very popular and if I had to comment I would just be making a fool of myself. Actually I’m lying, I do not comment on your blog because you have gone ‘no-follow’
I’ve enabled do-follow links on my blog, and I’ve also recently begun using Entrecard. As others have mentioned, my traffic has increased via Entrecard, but it is directly proportional to how many “drops” I make.
My thought is that if I focus on visiting and advertising other Entrecard sites related to my niche, I’ll discover new ideas for content, build relationships with other bloggers, and ultimately I will benefit from their non-Entrecard visitors.
EC does hold some rewards for those that work hard. Thanks for visiting.
I found your blog via Entre Card. Because of the great content (which I’m interested in) I subscribed.
You might want to investigate a plugin called LinkLove (http://www.allpassionmarketing.com/software.html#linklove) where you can set the number of comments that need to be left before you’ll allow the “link love” to flow!
Thanks, I will give it a try.
Your comment just reminded me to get rid of the ‘justify’ on the comments, it does not look good. I do not know how that crept in.
Sorted, that awful stretched look is gone. Thanks for the reminder.
As you know, I’m using CommentLuv as well as nofollow free plug in on my sites. I also have in place that I have to approve first time commenters. If that first time comment is a “nice site” then it gets consigned to Askimet as spam which means that person’s future comments also get consigned to spam.
Since I also review every spam comment, if someone then decides to leave me a legitimate comment that had previously been consigned to Askimet purgatory, I’ll mark it as not spam and they’ll get the benefit due someone leaving real commentary.
Like you, I respond to every comment left on my sites, although it may take me a day or two. I was out of town this weekend, so did no blog reading, entrecard dropping, comment responses or postings
and now have a lot to get caught up on!
ê¿ê
Thanks Margaret, I know the feeling. It takes forever to catch up once you are behind. I regularly run into the same thing on Google Reader. Today I am lucky, so far I only have 33 unread articles to read this evening.
My blog is also do follow blog. I agree with you. sometimes i get lot of comments like “nice post”
and i have seen lot of readers without reading the whole post, they just leave the comment so that they get the back link…
I suppose we just have to learn to live with it, or make our sites ‘no-follow’. Simply deleting comments like that could also be a way out.
Orangeinks is a no follow blog from the very beginning. I do have commentluv but it is not activated. For some reason, it can’t get it to work with my previous theme. But hey, people come and comment anyway. I don’t really care if the comment is nice post or great article or a simple thank you. I share and write about apps/sites that could be useful or interesting to some if not all, comments like those are to be expected. I really don’t have the luxury of being too choosy with comments since they are “no- follow.” For me, a comment is a comment no matter the objective behind it. Like Ben said, if you get tons of “nice post” comments, you may have done something right, right?
You’re right. You are now the second or third person to say you stick with ‘no-follow’. This might just be the easiest solution in the end. Much less hassles that way.
Hey now
I sat and thought about a few things and will just say that I wouldn’t change anything until after the next google page rank update which I suspect will be just prior to Thanksgiving;)
Other then that I feel like Gandhi now compared to a while back when I would get upset,disappointed,angry,vengeful at all kinds of things that bloggers would do and not do and now I find myself just keeping a nice calm pace
and peace
DO Follow no follow I think when it’s all said and done doesn’t matter Google either likes you or not.
Send all those losers bugging you over to me I’ll keep them entertained
You’ve got ‘em. I just hope they are reading this.
Hi Lyndi, I’m new to your blog. Your article is timely since I am thinking about turning my blog’s comments into “do-follow”. I want to increase reader participation but I’m afraid that people will just comment for the sake of commenting, simply because they want to promote their own blogs. I prefer it if people make a comment because they have something valuable and informative to contribute, not because they want linkbacks to their blogs.
I have added you to my bookmarks and hope to read more informative articles from you in the future.
Thanks for the bookmark. I am afraid you do not have to be afraid that something like this is going to happen, it most probably will happen. The comments on his article has changed my way of thinking slightly. It would seem as if it has got to be ‘controlled do-follow’ or ‘no-follow’.
Thank you for explaining this is easy to understand terms so many people don’t explain this in easy to understand terms. Someone had asked me if I was Do-follow and I had no idea what it was. I am thankful for finding this article.
I am glad you found it useful. Thanks for visiting.
Nice Post!
Just want to wish you well on your new found path to enlightenment. Dropping hard-core on EC is now really a waste of time and spending that time on building your network is much more important.
Good choice, and did I say nice post?
EC was fun, I agree, unfortunately it is no longer worth the effort. I have subscribed to your feed and will come check out your articles. Thanks for the good wishes.