Per la versione in lingua Italiana clicca qui.
UPDATE: 5/31/2009 – after a considerable and prolonged debate and discussion I’ve been having with myself and ever increasing amount of lame comments just to have a backlink I decided to draw the line and remove the DOFOLLOW plugin. People just don’t know when to stop …
The rel=nofollow attribute has been around now for a few years, and was introduced to discourage abuse perpetrated by those who would aggressively post comments to blogs for a link: The objective was to discourage and hopefully put an end to comment spam.
If you have been running a blog for more than 6 months you know just how bad the situation is: without some sort of protection your blog is exposed to some of the worst spam out there. Just a few months ago Minister of Education here in Italy (Fioroni) set up his blog and was inundated with porno spam making him look like the fool on a hill.
Spam is here and is not likely to disappear in the near future unless global action is taken against spammers and it’s gonna be a cold day in hell before that happens. So while we are all so busy trying to find new ways to network and promote our sites, we are missing out on a great opportunity to increase our exposure and, if we are good at it, our reputation. What’s the missed opportunity ?
The nofollow on our blogs. Just think of all the comments you have left on blogs where your link was neutralized by an automatic rel=nofollow. So I’ve decided to do away with the rel=nofollow – the hell with it. What are the disadvantages to eliminating the rel=nofollow attribute? You’re giving away some of your link juice. What are the advantages to eliminating the rel=nofollow attribute? I think they outweigh the disadvantages by far – let’s take a closer look:
- Releasing your link love into the web is an open act of honesty that will pay: what goes around comes around.
- Bloggers will be more inclined to leave a comment on your blog. Let’s be honest, you’ll take the time to leave a comment if you’re really motivated or I get hot under the collar because of something that is being said. In all other circumstances you’re really not motivated to leave feedback, and we know that search engines take into consideration comments that are left on blogs as an indicator of relevance. We all ask ourselves what’s in it for me ? He gets a comment and I get a dead link – big deal !
- Eliminating rel=nofollow increases your exposure. As these links are now active they will be used by the search engines and technorati . People looking at back links will find links coming from your blog and perhaps pay you a visit. It’s another way of promoting your blog.
I stripped the rel=nofollow from my blog – yes that’s right, if you leave a comment you’ll get a legitimate link that you’ll see as a backlink to you in the search engines and technorati. I do moderate my comments so if you wish to leave your considerations on the i follow movement please do – but remember it’s gotta be relevant and good quality. Here are some site you’ll need to visit for more information on do follow.
And now to some link love … If you’re a wordpress blogger, here is the link to the do follow plugin. The DoFollow Blog list is courtesy of Courtney Tuttle and was created originally by Coleen as the D-List. You can find some do follow buttons here.
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Nice blog. I’m liking how the dofollow movement is really gaining steam! You bring up some good points, but I agree that the pros far outweigh the cons.
Thanks for your comment and remember: Think out of the box !
I think that the whole concept of no-follow is crazy. I like do-follow so much. It is an amazing method to help all of of us communicate better and understand what each of us have to offer. What have you found so far?
As you can see there are a number or reactions here and I am having very positive responses to the DoFollow movement – let’s keep thinking out of the box
Yes, bloggers are more inclined to leave a comment if it “pays out” with a backlink, however, i did this on my blog and now have tons of pretty useless comments, made obvious just for the sake of the link, not because they have something to say.
i agree with you, but there is a way i thought of. yes i am coming to put my link it is my site so if i post why not get a link. but to really fight spammers you can give a link per post only the name, no html in text. you should not let people replay with less than 10 words at least to avoid “great post” comments.
yes in fact I am NOT publishing comments with a few words – some people just give it a try with short prhases like
Great post !
or
Really helpful links !
You gotta earn your link if you want one
yes you can not fight them they are expert at these sort of things better sit down and find a new solutions
I do hope this ‘No Nofollow’ movement really takes off.
I think your list of the positive advantages will help.
Keep up the good work.
Hello,
Congrats, your site is now listed on the updated Do Follow List!
Regards,
Nicusor
I have a real estate website, and have just started a real estate blog, and I am finding out about this rel=nofollow stuff. I do see the idea behind it, but I think it does not do a proper job. Spammers are pretty smart,so I think the search engines need to come up with a new idea that will make everyone happy.
In fact that’s why I got rid of it …
Another interesting approach to using nofollow (and I’m sure there are plenty more to be found)…
If blog comments had a useful/nonuseful voting mechanism (similar to Amazon’s review helpfulness, or SEOmoz’s thumbs up/down), then all comments with a net positive rating over some threshold could render free of nofollowness, while those under (either new or negatively rated) would include rel=nofollow. This would, of course, require that sufficient commenting and comment-rating traffic visited the blog in question, but…
Just pondering schemes that might mitigate the issues. I understand the reasoning for the creation of nofollow, but I also agree with the view that it can have a negative impact on the very Web-ness of the Web (and the core manner of Google’s effectiveness) if overused…
Thank you for your considerations – quite interesting your idea to allow users to vote on comments – if the comment is good then they get the back link, otherwise they don’t.
Unfortunately many do try forcing their way in with pointless comments that are deleted – your idea is great and I hope to turn it into a plugin !
I’m downloading the plugin now. There is absolutely nothing to lose by doing this. Thanks Sante.
Thanks for the opinions and info. There are so many reasons on both sides to nofollow or to do follow. It gets kind of confusing for new bloggers to decide which they want to do. I even read a few places that people feel if blogs do not conform to doing nofollow, then Google will eventually begin to penalize blogs that do not use nofollow… who to believe, who to believe.
Encouraging comments would be a huge help, but that’s added moderation to make sure no one post “K. well love the post, your great…yatta, yatta” I think I may still have to think it over still, but yoru argument has almost swayed me to the dofollow side.
These are good points. There are quite a few website owners who would like to have a backlink, but not all are spammers. I like to read about different things and when I see that someone has taken the time to publish their thoughts, I like to leave a response. Adds to the “content” of the blog.
I have created an “about me” page, showing who I am, where I live, and shows pictures of the area and my pets. This is my “online introduction” of sorts. That’s what I link to in my comments. That way, I have “introduced” myself, and I get a backlink. It’s a win-win
Angela
Thank you for taking the time to join the conversation Angela, For things to work out it’s always gotta be a win-win situation, we are all asking ourselves the same question: “What’s in it for me ??”
I face the same problems on my blog too. I have no difficulties deleting comments that add no value to the discussion. However, I have struggled with editing parts of comments that are obviously advertising, but other parts with genuine contents. Do you think it is ok to delete the advertising parts while keeping the contents?
I follow, but I’m using drupal
Dear,
How Many Back links Web Site Contains Is Not Accurate Till Now.
I Have Used So Many Tools There Is Lots of Difference Between Those Results.
Does Google Show All Back Links Contains our Site ?
There Is Large Amount of Difference Between Google And Other Webmaster Tools.
I Would Like To Know That Links Are Having No Follow Attribute Couldn’t Help For Getting Higher PR or Shown More Results in Google ?
Nofollow Attribute Is Using Many Ways Simply External, or Nofollow, or External Nofollow. Is There Much More Difference Between Those Attributes ?
I absolutely follow. Share and share alike.
J
The essential issue here is – how to stop spam? The nofollow idea is messed up in one basic issue – the Search Engines think that by removing the “incentive” to spam, they can remove spam, which is not true. It also removes the incentive to comment for other bloggers.
I quite like the idea – this leads towars the initial ideas of web2.0
un saludo.
R
Thanks for the great article…. and for going DOFOLLOW!!!!
That was a good posted topic, i do also hate spam commenting but we have to consider for those users who no bad intension for your site/blog only they want is to leave a word of appreciation or sharing their knowledge and taught. In web design and development we all know how it help the commenting to our site but we must also be responsible for the comment we put, its should be knowledgeable, informative and relative to site/blog you leaved a comment. Its a giving and sharing for both parties not for own good interest. hope everybody get my point…
Excellent information you provided over here.
But why people hates nofollow too much.
Main advantages of rel=”nofollow” links is you can use in your website on pages which are not important too much.
We can place Great resources on the web by creating such links on website using proper anchor.
Those links are crawl able so it would definitely bring traffic towards to that page which is not much more important, and visitor may look on other web pages also, ultimately we need traffic towards the website, though we hates these nofollow too much, i thought its very bad.
Regards,
James.
Welcome to the dofollow movement. My blog is a dofollow and I have been surprised that I have not had too much in the way of spammy comments. I was fearful at first – but wanted to get more comments on it. Still not too many comments.
Yes, I too see a great benefit to the dofollow movement — but not just for the people leaving comments, but for the owner of the blog site as well — people forget that the WHOLE PURPOSE of blog sites is to create dialog. A dialog is a two-way communication, not one-way. Anything that helps foster that will help the blog site owner, in the end, to have a more popular and relevent blog site. LONG LIVE DOFOLLOW!
It will be possible to you interestingly, here we discussed about dofollow:
http://www.randomjabber.com/blog/article/why-are-the-comment-links-on-your-blog-set-to-nofollow/
Spam is just like crime, and will always exist as long as there are people out there who want the easy way out. You could moderate your blog or develop a public monitoring system like the one that Craigslist uses to weed out unwanted comments.
yes i agree with you, we all don’t like spams.. but i thought we have to appreciate people who left good comment.. but basically i like your idea, nice blog..
it was a really helpful post. I now have clear idea of difference between nofollow and dofollow. thanks a lot
you’re quite welcome
funny enough I was reading a controversial post just on this topic and how DOFOLLOW may hurt you, but I disagree quite a bit and will get back on the subject in a new post, probably tomorrow – stay tuned and subscribe to my feed to keep informed on the NOFOLLOW – DOFOLLOW as well as other search engine and technology related issues – and thank you for your comment of course !
Thanks for Providing useful information for No follow and do follow, this will really help me in seo.
Blog sites was created for interactions and create dialog. I understand the point why people used nofollow as spammers tends to leave spam comment. But so far my dofollow site doesn’t seen to have this problem. I will rather monitor my comment erveryday than make my blog nofollow.
I think that those of us that have “do follow” on their blogs also have certain anti spam plugins installed then everyones a winner.
Great blog list , if we make good comments and increase there blog quality then both will be happy.
This DoFollow movement is great. I appreciate what everyone is doing it makes our jobs a lot easier and everyone wins. Just make sure you have the high quality anti spam plugins so no one takes advantage of ya.
JB
I do see the idea behind it, but I think it does not do a proper job. Spammers are pretty smart,so I think the search engines need to come up with a new idea that will make everyone happy
So please keep up the great work. Thanks for very interesting article…
I definitely think this is the right direction to be going. It has clearly showed that blogs still having/using the nofollow tag is still being spammed. Just have some good spam protection and you’re all set.
A dialog is a two-way communication, not one-way. Anything that helps foster that will help the blog site owner, in the end, to have a more popular and relevent blog site.
I totally agreed with do follow. Thanks you for this post.
Thank you very much. This is the easiest way for get backlink for bloger. but most of people just miss it.
I have no difficulties deleting comments that add no value to the discussion. However, I have struggled with editing parts of comments that are obviously advertising, but other parts with genuine contents
Yes that is correct – it gets hard sometimes to identify genuine comments from SPAMMERS out there just for the link …
Nofollow really is iniquitous – undermines the whole point of linking, and allows big sites to hoard their links.
Other methods are much better at blocking spam – like akismet, blocking posts with multiple URLs, and only letting people post freely once you’ve moderated one comment.
really usefull a plugins.thank you. and the spam protection is wonderfull
I’m using Blogger so I can’t do anything to use dofollow attribute.
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