WordPress - NoFollow - Should I Follow?
July 27th, 2007 by Stephen Cronin (4,070 views)About a month ago, I learnt what the nofollow tag on links in my blog meant. Very quickly, I became aware of the No Nofollow | I Follow | DoFollow Community and the existence of plugins to remove the nofollow tag. The question is: should I follow suite and get a plugin?
I have been mulling this over for several weeks now. At first I was quite enthusiatic, but I’ve started having a few doubts about the concept.
Is NoFollow A Bad Thing?
One of the main reasons I’ve been holding back is that I’m not convinced that the nofollow tag is a bad thing. In fact, I think in an ideal world, it would be a very good thing, as it limits people’s ability to boost their own PageRank. Instead, they have to rely on other people liking their content.
Will Disabling No Follow Increase Spam?
Another reason is that there seem to be a few people who are removing their plugins and reverting to the default nofollow behaviour. Reasons given are largely to do with being targeted for spam.
I am less worried by this. Spam is a fact of life. Also, if I join the community, not only am I opening myself to spam, I am opening myself to other traffic. If someone leaves a comment on my site that’s relative to the post, that’s good - even if their motive is to get a link to their site.
Decision Time
So, I’m not sure I agree that nofollow is bad thing, but disabling it may increase my traffic. Should I stick to my principles or should I sell out? 
There’s something else: I have been checking out some of the blogs from the No Nofollow | I Follow | DoFollow Community and leaving comments. Although there is no requirement for me to do so, I feel that if I’m going to benefit from other people disabling nofollow, then I should follow suite.
So, mostly for that reason, I’m going to look at plugins. I’ll start at Andy Beard’s excellent list of dofollow plugins, choose one and give it a try.
Do you use a plugin to disable nofollow? If so, which one?
Tags: dofollow, spam, traffic, wordpress plugins
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I’m one of the quitters that gave up on the dofollow thing after 6 months.
Spam is indeed a fact of life and I already have it well under control. However, the “SEO spam” that you get drove me nuts.
Folks will drop by your blog after they find you on one of the “Do Follow” blog lists. THey’ll pick an article and write a reply. Most times, the reply is along the lines of “neat article” or “hey, I hadn’t thought of that before”. Something reasonably harmless. But, now they got a free link.
Sure, it’s trivial to just remove the link from their comment. But after 5 months, it just became too much of a pain. :-p
Now, most folks are a lot more low-key than I am… and for them, this is a great movement!
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comments. You make a good point - it will be annoying if I get a lot of “nice post” comments. I’m still going to give it a try though (you can tell me you told me so later!).
One site I visited (I can’t remember who’s) had a very clear comment policy statement, saying that he reserved the right to delete trivial comments such as these. If it get’s too much for me, I may consider doing something similar (although I’d prefer not to and it would still be extra work). We’ll see what happens.
Nice site by the way.
Good point Stephen - my policy is changed a bit now, but I’ve made sure there was a link to it right by that “Submit Comment” button.
@Stephen:
Chris made a good point. I got a lot of spam even since I removed nofollow. I also get a lot of “Great article … online casino .. ” spam comments.
I have never thought about the comment policy. I should have one. Thanks!
I am heading to China next month.
PS. What do you think about the subscribe to comment feature?
Chris, I will have to sort out a comment policy soon.
Terence, I always tick the email followup if it’s there, as I like to see what other people are saying. Sometimes, I’ll leave another comment - it can turn into a real discussion at times. Which part of China are you going to?
Stephen:
I will go to Guilin again and then the southern China. So you don’t have the “subscribe to comment” feature on your blog?
Terence,
I do have the subscribe to comment plugin now! I had it installed on my local site, but not on my live site. All fixed now. Thanks for pointing this out.
Have a great time in China - I’m up north in Hebei.
I’ve been using it for a few months, but I’ve been thinking of disabling it. I used to receive a lot of spam before, but now it’s ridiculous. I do use the disclaimer Word Press plug in, and I do delete comments that slip past the spam radar (Spam Karma & Akismet.)
Here is a new perspective on it for you that I haven’t heard people talk about yet, and the initial thoughts for a post in the next few days, maybe even later today…
My commenters are my guest bloggers
Regular readers of my blog know that on any topic I write about that gets a few comments, there will be just as much value to be found in the comments as in the original post.
Manual spam happens, but you could can easily spot the people going down lists or using search, because they post comments to discussions about Dofollow.
Join in a few on sites that have subscribe to comments installed, adn you will soon know know are “making the rounds”
A comments policy is a good idea and is something I have advocated for 8 months, but very few people do it, and even fewer read it.
I have even tried forcing people to read the comments policy, but something went wrong with the cookies in some browsers, so I had to scrap the idea.
Being such a prominent supporter of dofollow, you would expect I would get more abuse, but honestly I don’t.
It does take a little time to manage comments, but honestly it takes more to manage the trackbacks than anything else. It doesn’t take long to flag each new offender in Spam Karma, and they then become a none issue.
Some of the people who started out as “dofollow spammers” have actually become quite valuable active members of my community, giving me blogroll links and links from posts.
I have 2 additional dofollow blogs in the community that receive on average one comment per month… between them, because they are not being updated.
For a spammer they are worthwhile commenting on, PR4 and PR5, thus are a good control point.
Spam increases based upon an increase in posting and gaining links. I get nowhere near as much spam as Weblogs tools collection (also dofollow)
Andy,
Thanks for the great comment.
I agree with what you’re saying. There’s a lot of value in the comments section (you just proved the point). I have no problem with people coming to get the link love, if they’re leaving relative comments.
I will get a clear comment policy sorted out and once I do, I’ll delete borderline comments (like ‘great post’) which add no value, if I feel they are detracting from the post as a whole.
As for spammers turning into community members - that was the number one reason I disabled nofollow - because I’d started leaving comments on the Bumpzee no nofollow community’s websites and felt I should reciprocate.
Strange you’re not getting more spam. I’ll have to head over and leave some!
You’ve got a great site there by the way and it was the guiding light when I was toying with the idea of disabling nofollow.
“To follow or not to follow this is the question”:)
I do believe you will get more spam, but just thinking about it, I found a way to prevent spammers submitting to “follow” blogs..
A site with a database with all the IPs and e-mails spammers use and a wordpress plugin that scans the DB and reports any new spammer.
Hi Laci,
I’ve been getting some spam, but then so have other people who aren’t dofollow. I’m not convinced that dofollow blogs get much in the way of extra spam.
Are you talking about Askimet there?
I find I’m well covered by using the Math Comment Spam Protection plugin to stop the bots, the Simple Trackback Validation plugin to stop trackback spam, and Akismet to clean up the rest.
If you don’t like Captcha style protection, try the TanTanNoodlesSimple Spam Filter plugin instead of Math Comment Spam Protection.
This combination should result in virtually no spam getting through.
I have recieved indifferent results. Some of my blogs are now do-follow. And sadly i have experienced increases in spam. But then again, genuine comments have increased aswell. So im taking the good with the bad. Im gonna trial it for a few months, i advise you do the same.
Andy
Andrew, I agree: I think it increases traffic, good and bad. For me it’s worthwhile. I only get about 1 spam comment per day. I have gone through some bad patches where it increased to 100 or so a day, but it all turned out to be trackback spam. The Simple Trackback Validation plugin solved the problem for me.
At first I set it to mark what it found as spam and deliver them to Askimet, which meant I still had to go through them. After 3 weeks, there were no false positives, so now they just get deleted and don’t trouble me at all.
Hello, Andy, Andrew, and Stephen and others that are watching this thread of comments…
I am very interested in this concept of nofollow, dofollow, and commentluv I find so many different opinions that I am sure that the only way to really see if it is right for me is to test it out.
I have a few questions…if anyone has the time….What is a trackback…? What is the best way to find dofollow blogs with commentluv…I am assuming all blogs with commentluv may not be a dofollow…some may be a nofollow…
One final question…please look at the way I put my name in the name box and tell me if this is ok…or frowned upon..
I teach linking building strategies…most of strategies I am familiar with are article marketing…I do not want to pass on bad information…
Hi Deb,
The CommentLuv plugin itself has no effect on whether a blog is DoFollow or not.
The vast majority of WordPress blogs are nofollow as this is the default - they need to use a dofollow plugin to disable nofollow. So, the majority of blogs running CommentLuv are in fact no follow. You have to find those which also have a dofollow plugin.
To find such sites, you could try a Google search on: "Enable CommentLuv which will try and get your last blog post, please be patient" dofollow (including the quote marks). This should only find sites with the CommentLuv plugin active and with the word DoFollow somewhere on the page. You have to check each result to make sure, but many of these are DoFollow. Of course, as I said on the CommentLuv post, maybe someone will come up with a list of DoFollow CommentLuv blogs.
As for the name field: it depends on the individual blogger. I’d have no problem with what you’ve left. I think I remember Andy Beard saying that name and keywords is fine with him - if he can find out some information about you at the site (ie it’s not just a company site), but I can’t find where he said it now. However, there are others who would mark your comment as spam - see the reader reaction on Pearls delete or edit comments post.
To be safe, if your targetting DoFollow CommentLuv blogs, I’d recommend name only in the name field - you get a deep link with the post title (presumably containing keywords) from CommentLuv, so why risk being marked as spam. Unless of course you know the blog you’re commenting on is fine with it (check the other comments, preferably older ones which haven’t been marked as spam).
Hope that helps.
Imagine when you have a 6 PR blog and then join the do follow movement.
The traffic will skyrocket.
I pray for those who disable no follow for their blog, a good enjoyable life to come
debt advisor, as I said on the other post, there’s no need to wait…
DoFollow movement is rising in Russia now.
But it’s hard to understand real value of DoFollow. It’s simple if you sell something, but i don’t know is it good or not if you making blog not for selling products, and not for making money?
Ariston,
Dofollow links from blog comments aren’t great, as you can’t always use your keywords, the post may not be on a topic related to your blog (so less authority passed) and I think Google probably devalues comment links a little, but they are still better than nothing.
They have value for blogs because it will increase PageRank and your positioning in the SERPS, meaning more visitors. If you don’t sell anything, you can still make money from advertising (such as Adsense). If you don’t have adverts, it’s still good to get traffic! Even if you don’t want to advertise, its a good feeling to see your blog at the top of search engine results!
I think you can’t really blame the removal of the nofollow tag for spam, yes you might (most probably are) listed on a couple of no-nofollow lists and if you are you are most probably benefiting in terms of traffic.
From what I’ve read throughout the blog I think you’re a quite dedicated blogger, and take spam very seriously. I’ve also see you comment back and reply to questions on old posts like these. I’m quite sure that automatic comments by robots (If they manage to get past the math spam protection add-on) will get your attention and be removed.
Drunk Text,
I’m certainly benefiting from extra traffic - some of that traffic turn into regular readers, some leave a decent comment and then go on their way, some leave spam comments. The only real problem is the fine line between decent comment and spam comment. Apart from that, there’s no problem.
Hi,
Wonderful conversation
I recently upgraded my version of WordPress, and was surprised when I found the “nofollow” added automatically - not sure how I feel about this, but I appreciate the conversation above.
I don’t get a lot of spam, Akismet is doing a good job. I’m leaning towards adding the plugin to remove nofollow, just because maybe it’s a nice “thank you” for adding a comment. However before my upgrade, I was always manually checking the url of any comments, and I wasn’t always letting them through. So I am on the fence with this one.
What’s the name of the plugin that lets you “notify me of followup comments via email”?
Jill
The whole nature of the web is links. Search engines, especially google, try to replicate human behavior. I think a whole lot of nofollow going on definitely disrupts the search engines algorithms.
So in my opinion nofollow is a bad thing. It skews the popularity from what is really being talked about. This is probably pretty big as there are some pretty heavy hitter sites out there using nofollow. Wikipedia probably being the biggest.
It’s pretty disheartening to spend a lot of time keeping wikipedia up to date and providing valuable information and not get a little link love. Link love is great andto me reminiscent of capitalism. I love capitalism.
Phil
Well, I agree with no nofollow. I am in full support of dofollow blogs. The thing about it is not many people understand about anchored text. Anchored text is not a bad thing, which is why I’m in luv with you KeywordLuve plugin
It depends on what you want for your blog. I know a lot of people thrive on comments for their blogs. If you want comments, dofollow is a big plus. The only thing is spam control. Their are plugins that allow you to dofollow some links and nofollow the rest. Whatever the case, I believe in dofollow and use them on some of my blogs.
I’m not worried about spam for no nofollow. This is nothing that Akismet and captchas cannot take care of. If your blog relies on comments for fuel, than dofollow is the way to go.
I’m looking into the dofollow plugin that’s called link luv…i think. Anyway, you have control over which links you allow dofollowed and which links remain nofollow. Dofollow is a great reward for contributors. I don’t mind giving a dofollow link to someone with an appropriate site who contributes to the content and conversation of a specific post.
I don’t see any good value in Do-Follow. At least for me, I can’t see any increase in comments if my posts are Do-Follow or No-Follow. Dofollow only increases spam.
Deciding to remove the nofollow attribute from your links is a big step. On one side, you’ll get respect from many in the blogging community for passing juice to their sites. On the other, you can fall prey to scrupulous internet marketers.
LINK REMOVED: because of failure to use KeywordLuv syntax (name@keywords)
Stephen, I would like to know what plugin do you use to create hierarchical comments? I was looking for something like this but without success.
I am defintely for the Dofollow as it help many people self promote their site.
I know many sites that have money advantage and just pay an SEO firm to put anchor text links on high page rank sites making the competition an uneven plain field.
I have been doing SEO for the past 3 years for my various sites and after getting one of them to #1 in google out of 7,000,000 results one company is breaking google rules buying links.
So the i am will says that sites that help self promoting are great and helpig to add content and relevency to that site as well.
I believe in DoFollow as it helps many upcoming sites gain some valuable inbound links. I am working on converting my blog to DoFollow for commenters who regularly comment. I should be releasing a plugin soon for WP 2.5.1+ that should make it very simple and it will also include a very good and very simple spambot protection function as well. I have no problem with manually removing nofollow from certain comment links if the person leaves a valuable content related to the article. Just my .02
With automated software now doing the finding for you, do follow blogs are increasing in favor for all those looking to gain some link love. The blog owner on one hand can expect increased comment policing while at the same time increased viewership and some amount of back links from do follow lists.