Get Rid Of NoFollow To Grow Your Blog
wordpress March 6th, 2007A couple days ago I wrote about how the nofollow tag is useless. Before I continue, I want to clarify that when I mention the nofollow tag, I am referring to its use in links on a webpage. The nofollow tag that is used in meta tags to control the googlebot is actually useful.
Top Commentators Plugin
This plugin is quite popular amongst bloggers who want to build an active community. The only reason it is even necessary is because blogging software tags all links in the comments section with a nofollow tag. The Top Commentators plugin takes the top 10 most active blog commentators and lists them in the sidebar. Now at first this may seem useless and you may be wondering how the Top Commentator plugin encourages an active community to build and stay active. What the Top Commentator plugin does that is different is that the sidebar listing it produces rewards blog commentators with a link back to their blogs–links that do not contain a nofollow tag.
What The Hell?
So let me get this straight, we tag all links in blog comments with a nofollow tag in an effort to reduce spam. Spammers either do not know, or do not care about this nofollow tag so they spam anyway. Then, bloggers install the Top Commentators plugin so that people who are posting legitimate comments are rewarded with a link back to their blog. Meanwhile, because of such effective spam filters and moderation of comments, nearly all the comments that do show up on a blog ARE legitimate and valid contributions to the community. Why are we only rewarding those that post the most comments? what about those who are posting meaningful comments just once or twice per month?
Share Some Link Love with DoFollow
If you’re moderating your comments, and have a spam filter such as Akismet or Spam Karma, then there really is no reason to even have the nofollow tag on your blog comments. People who are contributing to your blog should be rewarded with a link back to their blog. As the administrator of your blog, if you feel that users are posting just to get a link back to their own site or blog, you can always moderate the comment anyway.
I have installed the DoFollow plugin here on my blog so anyone that does contribute by posting useful comments, and those who are linking to my blog posts will automatically get a link back to their blog. This link will not have a nofollow link, and will be indexed by search engines.
Installing the DoFollow plugin was quite easy. Just copy the dofollow.php file into your plugins directory and activate the plugin. The only configuration option is when links should be stripped of the nofollow tag. Here on my blog, any comment that is older than 1 day will automatically be stripped of the nofollow tag. The reason I don’t remove the nofollow tag on all posts is so that I can ensure my comments section is not being spammed.
How Is DoFollow Better Than Top Commentators?
The primary reason I did not install the Top Commentators plugin on my blog is that it promotes comment whoring. This is the practice where visitors to a blog post comments just for the sake of showing up on a top commentators list for the free link. While this may create a very active community, it also results in short comments without any substance. I would rather my visitors contribute something useful to my posts so other readers can also get some value from the comments. The Top Commentators plugin promotes instant-messaging like blog comments which I think are a waste of time. If you want to see a great example of comment whoring, look no further than John’s blog where in the first five days of March, some of his readers have over 200 comments. That is an average of 40 frickin’ comments a day from a single user!
With the DoFollow plugin, those who only post 1 - 2 comments per month are still rewarded for their contribution while the active commentators will build a large list of links back to their own websites. The DoFollow plugin will encourage users to post meaningful comments and not simple one or two word responses. However, those of you who are on the ball or have been running their blog for awhile will know that with the DoFollow plugin activated, there is now a new problem that is created.
Closing Comments on Old Posts
Now that everyone knows your blog gives out a ton of link love through every comment, you may attract the users who are out to take advantage of your blog by commenting on every one of your blog posts, including ones that you posted several years ago. You can help control this by installing the comment timeout plugin for WordPress. There are plugins and instructions on how to do this for other blogging platforms.
What this plugin does is allow you to configure when to close comments on your blog posts. The default is any post that is older than four months, or any post that has not had a comment in two months. The latest version will also close comments to ip addresses that have been previously flagged on your blog for spamming. I lowered the settings for my blog as it is relatively new, but I will continue to monitor my blog comments to see what the optimal settings are.
So there you have it. If you’re running the Top Commentators plugin right now, and have a fairly active commentator group but find that many comments are made just for the sake of increasing the comment count, then the DoFollow plugin is for you. If you have any questions, or comments, or think that I’m completely off base here then please share your thoughts! Remember, posting a comment will result in a free link back to your own blog or website increasing your link popularity!
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March 7th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Removing NoFollow attributes from hyperlinks in blog comments seems to be gaining some popularity (though it’s still done by only a small minority of bloggers).
I certainly think that it’s nice to “give back” to those who take the time to contribute to your blog’s community by commenting. But on the other hand, the blanket removal of NoFollow seems like a fairly blunt instrument. You’re essentially saying that anyone who takes the time to post something reasonably on-topic (so that you won’t exercise moderator’s privilege and delete them) has the right to “vote” in your name just as much as you do. In the long run, is that really in anyone’s best interest?
This question of voting in one’s own name has been a recurring theme in my own posts on NoFollow.
March 8th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
There is a sacrifice to be made when using the top commentator plugin and removing nofollow from comments. It’s a tradeoff between quantity of comments and their quality. I’ve definetly seen a drop in quality of comments being made on sites with the top commentator plugin.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Jamey: I am essentially extending my voting powers to contributors of my blog, yes. I feel it is a fair trade off for the time being.
The alternative solutions to encouraging readership to comment on articles results in a drastic drop in the quality of comments with a sharp rise in the quantity.
Whether or not this is something that will work in the long term remains to be seen, but you’ll be sure to see a follow-up post from me here in the future :)
dan1el: Most larger blogs have seen a sharp decline in comment quality as there is more to gain from showing up on their top commentators list.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:57 am
[…] I say, let’s ditch it. Let’s get rid of this little piece of code. And let’s start giving link love to everyone who comments […]
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Couldn’t both removing the nofollow attribute and adding the top commentator plugin bring down the quality of your comments?
Clearly that would happen with the top commentator plugin, but how does it change when you don’t have the nofollow?
Without the nofollow you don’t even have to worry about posting 100 comments on a popular blog, you just have to post 1 to get a link. So, couldn’t they both decrease the quality of the comments?
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
[…] was thinking about links today to find a post at Hate The Grind and a post at Yack Yack really got me thinking. There are a few ways, but I want to talk about […]
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:42 am
Bri: I suppose both dofollow, and top commentators can both potentially result in comment whoring but with dofollow users are not provided with an incentive to post 1 or 2 word comments. They only need to spend the time to write one meaningful comment and they will recieve a backlink.
You are correct that commentators now only need to post one comment to get a link back but remember that I now only need to delete one comment to remove the link if the comment seems spammy.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Excellent post and I couldn’t agree more that DoFollow combined with Askimet is a great idea. Glad to see the DoFollow movement is continuing to grow. I found your blog while researching for my latest challenge the DoFollow Pingback Challenge. Hope you pop over and take a look, either way glad I found your blog.