Bye Bye DoFollow
May 25th, 2009 by Stephen Cronin (8,125 views)Over the last couple of years, I’ve been a big supporter of the DoFollow movement, but the time has come to say goodbye to DoFollow comments on this blog.
I’m not alone in this move. Several bloggers that I follow have also turned off their DoFollow plugins in recent months. First K-IntheHouse turned off DoFollow as part of a redesign of Shankrila, then RT turned off DoFollow as well. Sometime previously, Terence Chang also turned off DoFollow.
So why are people abandoning DoFollow? The answer is comment spam.
I still believe in the DoFollow concept, but there comes a point when the amount of spam comments outweighs the number of good comments. For me, I’ve reached this point. I need to spend 20 to 30 minutes each and every day, just moderating comments. If I miss a single day, it’s a major job to catch up. I just don’t have to time to do this anymore.
Note, I’m not talking about automated comment spam – my anti-spam plugins prevent that. I’m talking about real live people who have targeted my blog just so they can get a link.
Many of the comments I receive are worthwhile and I don’t mind giving a link to these people. However, for every two or three people who take the time to make a genuine comment, there’s someone who does one of the following:
- Leaves a trivial "nice post" comment
- Obviously hasn’t bothered to actually read the post
- Just copies the text of another comment
- Leaves a flat out spam comment (read about topic x here)
- Leaves spam comments on dozens of pages in one session
- Links to a dodgy website (ie adult or pharmaceutical)
- Doesn’t use the KeywordLuv functionality as required
I have to spend a lot of time cleaning all of these up. As a result, I have very limited time to actually respond to anyone who leaves a comment. As K-IntheHouse points out:
I often see that I had missed replying to a genuine question or concern from a reader whom I could have helped in a timely manner
My thoughts exactly!
I’m also going to be turning off KeywordLuv on this blog, except on the KeywordLuv home page. This will remain nofollow so commentators won’t get any link love (thereby inviting spammers), but it will allow prospective users of the plugin to try it out.
I remain convinced that KeywordLuv and a DoFollow plugin are worthwhile, especially when you are starting out, but there is no doubt that it makes you a target of the spammers. I get hit pretty badly because I rank no 1 for KeywordLuv, which is what a lot of spammers search for.
The KeywordLuv / DoFollow combination is great for newer blogs that want to get some traffic. Also, some commentators will stick around and become valuable members of your community. The question is whether the number of spam comments is manageable.
They no longer are for me. Bye bye DoFollow.
Tags: Dofollow, KeywordLuv, spam
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I think that everybody has there own opinion but I am still using DoFollow these days. I was think of quiting it though but as of now, its still works for me.
You’re not selling to robots or animals. You’re selling to people whocare about the seller. Get what you want by first giving unconditionally. Manage what people think or feel about you and you’ll get what want easily. show them their profit and their expenditure is on safer part and they are getting better then their expenditure,
i was using dofollow as well and i will still continue to use this only
Sorry it had to come to that, but there are way too many people abusing your good nature as they abused mine.
The dofollow is supposed to be a reward for a contributing comment. When the spam comments outweigh the real comments by 10 to 1, all for the sake of a quick link, something is wrong.
Hi RT,
I’m sorry it had to come to that too. You’re right, something is indeed wrong with the situation, so I had to take this move. I really would like to reward people such as yourself, who leave genuine comments, but it’s just got to the point where it’s too much.
I may end up bring CommentLuv back (and making it dofollow) at some point in future, because at least that only works with blogs and that will presumably get rid of some of the spammers. We’ll have to see though.
I was sad that I had to go that route too. As you, RT and many others here have mentioned, DoFollow and KeywordLuv can definitely help a blog in its starting stage. But, once the spammers have caught on to your blog, the inevitable removal of dofollow is just a matter of when. I feel more at peace with less spam comments but it’s funny that there are still a few spammers who have their sights turned on mine even though I say above the comment form in bold that I have discontinued DoFollow & KeywordLuv! :-p
Ah the make money online niche has brought such wonders to our life! Though spammers are a scourge on the blogging world. Sure get your anchor text in but leave a meaningful message!
Over at my site my TC is dofollow, though I am lucky not a lot of people know about it, so yes I get the occasional anchor spammer but overall a PR5 link helps the real commentators.
Hi Donace,
Yep, if everybody left a decent message, then there’d be no problem. It’s just so many people don’t make the effort.
I agree with you. But not every poster is a spammer? there may be legit people trying to make a comment (with a link back to their or any other site) and get their link promoted here because YOURS blog is good in traffic. You’re getting this automatic benefit. Its still your choice to discard any comment.
I would prefer and suggest for DoFollow.
Hi sofomor,
In theory what you say is right:
In practice, there’s just too many comments for me to be able to check them all anymore.
You had spam protector..And if u are afraid of human spammer then u wait for some days and see who are giving comments to ur blog regularly approve them as dofollow and made others no follow(use comment luv otherwise…)
Hi Rohitk,
I have excellent spam plugins – it’s only the human spammers that are causing the problem. There are so many of them now that I can’t tell who are the regular commentators anymore. In an odd way, removing Dofollow will help me work out who the regulars are. They’re the ones I really do want to reward – I may bring back dofollow in some form in future to reward them. But not in the short term.
I think you’ll need more than 1 post a month to see us regular commenter about
But… but… I’m here for the DoFollow Comment!!!
Actually, I’m not joking… It’s shameless, but that is why I’m here. It doesn’t mean I don’t read the entry and try to leave a worthwhile comment though. Turning it on can bring some good visitors who might even return. Comments do need moderation though. If comments can’t get through without a moderators approval, it’s greater incentive for the comment spammer to actually read the post.
I do tend to agree with you. The amount of irrelevant comments i get on my blog just dilutes the decent comments I receive. I slightly see the sense in Sofomor’s comment. You do get good traffic with dofollows.
Hi, sorry to read you have to take this measure. Apart form anti robot tools like captcha and Akismet isnt it possible to write some sort of quality rules that comments have to meet, like for email spam protection?
For example:
minimum amount of words
stopwords xx not allowed
etc.
I now this starts a ongoing war between comment spammers and the rules, but it can work out?
With the kind of traffic you already get guess it makes sense. I think a lot of us will miss the links though! All the best.
It’s truly unfortunate that people abuse the comment area and push there adult sites or attempt to sell cheap drugs over the internet. It ruins it for all of us SEO’s. Yes I am trying to get a backlink when I make comments but at least attempt to write a meaningful comment.
Hi,
I think do follow link is useful to build a linking on a new established blog but I think your blog has ‘famous’ already. By the way I’m still using the dofollow link to my site.
Well.. I think you are right, I am not using it for the same reason!
:-p as if asking what 5+7 is doesn’t make it hard enough lol.. but seriously I came here looking for good content, I found it and I read it.. I also bookmarked your site as a worth while site to participate in because of your views on dofollow, which I also utilize on my sites.. Getting a followed link is motivation for me to come back to a site and take the time to participate, that is what encourages me to comment. I read a lot of sites, but I will admit I am about 3000% more likely to comment on a site that doesn’t say I don’t count by nofollowing my link.
Just my 2 cents
wow..damned that spammers…they doesn’t respect the do follow’s owner…sigh..spam is still the biggest problem on the do follow blog I think..
I found that in many blogs when we comment it jus appears or they don’t get accepted at all. Even if we comment something related to the topic. Because I don’t like to spam by just saying anything and keep my link there. I don’t know why the blogs chose such a plug in where we can’t even know if the comments are sent.
I use dofollow quitely, just because I think it is the right thing to do, but I do not use the phrase dofollow on my site to reduce spamming.
nofollow just makes nonsense. i dont understand what google mean to do this. but i can understand bloggers using nofollow. ithink dofollow better as long as it is used right.
it is not a problem, dofollow or nofollow. give a good comment and useful, and leave the web address for you. example: myweb.com – The Internet Marketing Mastery. just like that. comments good and interesting, visitors here will also be interested to see your web
I thought to enable this on few of my sites, but now I decided otherwise.
Maybe I will even remove website field, those who feel that they need to say something, will say it without website field or with it.
Hellas,
I suggest keeping the website field. It helps you learn a little more about the people visiting your site.
Bye Bye do follow! Well if it takes 20-30 minutes a day of your time up to sort out the spam comments then i don’t blame you for turning it off! Hopefully this blog will still be just as successful without do follow.
Thanks Paul,
I appreciate the wish.
I don’t think, that it makes a big difference, if links are dofollow or nofollow. Google does know it better anyway.
This is really sad that dofollow movement is dying. I think all the people , whose ibjective is only getting link from dofollow blogs no matter their comment is making any contribution to the post.
As a owner of your site you have all rights to maintain your blog as do follow or nofollow. you are absolutely right that it is difficult to moderate spam comments daily. Some peoples just wants to use your blog for link promotion… that is worst thing.
Yeah you right…. spam comment these days just like a virus, they never stop for spreading from one blog to another blog. Even you have great plugin in your blog for fighting a spammer but they always find another way to spamm again. Maybe this reason all bloggger is not active their dofollow pluggin again. Get lost you spammer…
Yeah James,
It’s such a pity that they spoil it for everyone…
The interesting thing is, all blogger who reply here saying they still with dofollow are actually nofollow . I don’t know, why they lie.
Easy, because alot of people go out searching for dofollow blogs to comment on. They find the comment (with the lie), and go to the blog to post a comment with link. Most of these people do not take the time, or do not have to knowledge, to look through the code to check if it really is dofollow…
For those calling people liars, please keep in mind that there are other reasons why your “attempted spam” comment is still nofollowed even on a dofollow blog. It could be by the site owners choice, it could also be due to other restrictions/requirements in place for comments.. don’t be so quick to throw out names when you don’t know what you are saying
If you go to a dofollow blog and see comments that have followed links and your isn’t there is a reason for it.. Honest participation is the best practice, try to be a turd and you will be found out, that’s just how it is.
You may have a point there Jesse, thanks for the enlightenment!
I still dofollow but used a plugin (lucia’s?) to wait after 3 comments prior to giving dofollow. And of course, a captcha plugin works wonderfully to keep spammers at bay.
I don’t know, but isn’t there a new google rule about the line between dofollow and nofollow getting really thinner now?
I finally came around to re-activating Keywordluv and Dofollow on my blog. With a strong comment policy in place, the spammers have been 90% careful not to waste their time commenting on my blog. Most of my traffic come in via Google using phrases with keywordluv in them so I’ve deactivated all comments on my Keywordluv Rocks! post. Surprisingly enough, ever since the implementation of my new comment policy, like 60% of commentators actually leave their names and not keywords.
This is hoping Keywordluv survives all wordpress upgrades since you ain’t developing it again. I would really love to have it on my blog forever.
I understand why some feel being dofollow eventually takes too much time. I have many great regular readers and commentators who make visiting my blog a priority because I use CommentLuv and KeywordLuv.
Everyone is tight on time and must get the maximum return on what they do with it. I feel that offering dofollow is one way to keep visiting and commenting in my blog on their to-do list.
Reaching businesses is a priority for me so offering them a link with their choice of anchor text is a good way to encourage them to read and hopefully even implement the ideas I offer on growing their traffic and conversions.
You could consider using Lucia’s Link Love plugin and setting the number of comments required to make them dofollow between three and ten. That will shut down many drive-by spammers.
This is the only reason people are turning off the no-follow attribute from there site. My friends are facing the same problem and that’s why I have also suggested him to use no follow index. In my opinion blogs helps to increase knowledge and also to share our views for a particular topic. We must use it in the genuine manner not by irritating posters and visitors both.
I knew this day would come, i see a lot of blogs do the same thing,
I created my own blog not just to long ago, with do follow, now i know how anoying it is for admins to clear up all those worhtless comments.
Wow! A lot of information, and having only started blogging less than two months ago, and already getting loads of spam to moderate, I’m now nervous that I have dofollow on my blog – well, I think I have it, lol I’m still learning about blogging – but one person on my blog who commented said I have the “all important URL option” to encourage people to leave a comment, so I presume he meant dofollow?
I also added Comment Luv as was hoping to encourage even more people to leave decent comments, now I’m not sure if I should delete these options, or hang in there for a while – since, I’m still new (my blog, lol) and I see it mentioned above that newbies may benefit, at least at first, from using dofollow etc, but I don’t want to sit up night and day moderating spam either! Hm, what to do?
I’m just learning about the value of linking and KeyWord Luv. I can certainly understand your plight in sifting through the crap. We only have so much time…
Hopefully there will be a new plugin or work around to better eliminate those time wasting activities. Thanks though for the info.
Steven,
I was going to write a big long post about how shameful it has become that so many bloggers are doing this. Promoting a product, but not fully allowing the benefits of it themselves. But I realized it is an exercise in futility.
Steve, You have a great blog here. Every time I have come here I have always learned something new. I hope you pages continue to rank highly.
Thanks for your work.
William
You’re giving too much inmportance to comments in your blogs man..
i have dofollow in all my blogs and haven’t had any problems with that whatsoever.
Spammy comments are there with or without dofollow, just stop doing a big deal out of it!
You’re gonna have to moderate comments anyway, and what’s the problem with somebody puting a keyword instead of their name??
I’m gonna be laughing of you and all the people “you read” when Google eliminates the nofollow tag from it’s algorithm.
Hey guys, how would you have survived the web before the nofollow tag? You would have killed yourself!
Pathetic!!!!
Hi Publicidad,
Thanks for your comment. Short answer: I used to spend 30 minutes a day moderating comments, now I spend 5 minutes. I agree spam will always be there, but for me it’s about minimizing it.
I have been there always for dofollow blogs. Making comments and making it for sure that it is worthwhile staying on their sites. That is why i have come across with your site because of this. All of us has some opinions and belief that others may not follow. Will they follow if they don’t believe you?
Spam has been around since the internet has become what I consider to be “modernised”.
Spam was here before WordPress and will be here after WordPress and anything I can do to minimise the amount of spam whether its askimet, captcha i consider a godsend!
I have done an experiment on all my blogs using nofollow and dofollow over 3 months and there was no increase or decrease in the amount i received. I use dofollow on all my blogs to encourage comments but there also has to be a line drawn somewhere…
My blog is still do follow.I can understand you have turned yours off because you obviously have a lot of traffic.I manually approve all comments, this is how I take care of the spam problem.
Is the keyword love plugin better to use and will it increase comments?
Aw.. sorry it had to turn out this way..
This is interesting to me because I just made my site Do-Follow. I have one question: If I go back to having a No-Follow site, are all of the good commentators’ links on my site now worthless, or just their future comments?
-Tourq
(see my earlier post too)
I couldn’t work out if my blog was do follow or not, then somebody told me it wasn’t, but I was wanting it do follow, at least for a while – worked out how to see in the coding if it’s do follow or not, and saw it wasn’t. Then got a plugin – a while ago now, I think a wordpress plugin but it made only the url visitors leave in the comment block do follow – it didn’t affect the the person’s name above the comment (which links to their site) – I would like to know how to make this do follow automatically – I can do it manually in the coding, but would like it automatic. When trying to submit my site to do follow lists it is not accepted because I don’t have it automated in the name section. So many people seem to still have do follow, but I can’t find where to do this, or get it from. I’ve even asked the question on my blog, but nobody has told me how to sort it out yet.
Until my traffic gets really high, I don’t mind using it and akismet is helping with my spam.
Hi Stephen
Great shame but it’s the way of the world… a few spoil it for the rest of us!
I was thinking of using CommentLuv on my site but was in two minds.
Interesting that you differentiate between established sites and new sites.
My site is only a few months old so I may still use CommentLuv.
I can totally see where you are coming from. I also have a few blogs and get a fair amount of spam posts but the fact is some are actually useful for readers to find products and offers that might not have the big marketing budget as some of these national brands. I didn’t think it was a big deal and was in the practice of leaving them in I did try an experiment and when I did turn off do-follow the fact was I received much lower quality postings after the fact.
Oh dear, that’s such a shame. Sounds like you were a victim of your own success as it were. I think dofollow, commentlluv and keywordluv will still be helpful for less popular blogs or perhaps ones that are less associated with comment spam keywords. It’s such a shame that some people have to leave inane comments that spoil it for everyone else.
I can appreciate that rationale. It is a shame that some people take short cuts – I mean how hard is it to read and post something intelligent? It’s too bad because I’d love to get a follow link for making an intelligent, insightful comment that contributes to a discussion and I’d like it if my blog didn’t look like a ghost town in the comment area. So I must be dofollow and accept the “great article” spam or have no comments whatsoever. You have a quality problem
Hi Jeff,
Yeah, it’s a bummer. I have the same approach on other blogs. I’d like a link, but I’m willing to actually take part in a discussion to get it. I won’t leave a throw away comment just for a link – but there are many who will.
How about using something that only makes it dofollow after 5, 10 or 20 comments? This way you still reward the loyal readers but lsoe the spammers?
Lucias Linky Luv does this I believe?
just a thought!
Keep up the good work.
Hi Olly,
Actually, what I found was that people were all over my site, leaving 20+ comments in a session… Those people spoiled it for everybody.
Since this blog is not do follow anymore why not check out my list of do follow sites instead.
Ask me..My domain is 1 year old…it was a static htmla site..which was quite abandoned…now during my last year i got some time ..i revamped it as a blog…and within 3 days i got 20 s*x related D**gs comments and some forex comments..I mean my blog was not indexed also…but i still Do-Follow..u cant refuse good comments what they deserve…i use comment luv,,and is downloading keyword luv..i think spammers will always attack for the sake of their “black hat” ways which never yields in long run…but that doesnot mean that we shud give up some thing gud as dofollow..
I recently created a post about the “no-follow” tag and for some reason, I’m getting 50+ “trackbacks” on this post alone. I’m still kind of new to all this blogging stuff although I’ve managed websites for years and it still blows my mind how much spam is out there.
Even though the sites that these trackbacks come from aren’t always legitimate, I don’t mind the extra links out there.
My blog still remains somewhat of a do-follow blog. I don’t use the do-follow tag, but I also don’t use the no-follow tag. The few automated spams I get always get deleted for me and lately, the only human spam I’ve gotten has been minimal, so I’m not too overwhelmed at this point.
I wanted to ask you one thing, is it possible to keep a blog nofollow but still issue selective dofollow to some commentators? Is there any way to do this? I am asking this keeping in mind your point that you don’t mind giving some dofollow links to people who are sending valuable comments. How can I reward those readers/commentators?
Well the, riddle me this….
If you’re not willing to spend 20 or 30 minutes to remove what you call spam comments, why should I spend 20 or 30 minutes reading your site, and clicking your links?
i understand what you saying, actually im always going around blogs to send my link, but i always take the time to read carefully what peopple are talking about. If you have many spam, as you sayid, how you will awnser to those who really came to see your content.
But on the other side, you got to think you still geting people to read you blog, even if they come just to get a backlink, some will read, some not..
but.. some will accept some not.. i respect your opinion.. and i think i wouldnt have a dofollow blog.. for the same reason as yours..
Thanks.
I definitely know how you feel when talking about spam/worthless comments. I was away for a while only to come back and had 100′s of bad comments all aimed at viagra, levitra and the like websites and some of them were downright offensive. When one of the posters found out I wasn’t approving them, he started filling my comments up by telling dirty jokes and it went on for quite awhile. It’s nice to see the posts from some of the good people on this site but I don’t blame you one bit for protecting your time. Too bad the self-righteous part of society ruins it for everybody. Thanks for letting me sound off about that here. Have a good one.
Nice post!
Hehe, just kidding!
I actually cant believe the amount of people who actually think that “Nice post” or “Hey, great website” are actually going to get approved? I just doont understand? But then I think, well surely they must get some links out of it otherwise they wouldnt bother right? To be perfectly honest, I would just feel to embarrsed to write that and I think it also gives a bad perception of the website you want a link to, because people will just think you are a an annoying spammer and will rip you off!
Do you think that someone will ever invent something that stops spam 100% and we can just enjoy the online blog and forum community without annoying people making more work for blog and forum owners?
I blame Google! If they didnt exist there wouldn’t be comment spam. Oi, Google…its your fault! Hehe, only joking, dont sue me Google.
Over and out.
I know. I have commentluv and on another blog I have 50+ comment spam and it’s not even do follow.
What do you when people leave comments in another language? I kept the ones on mine because I was going to google translate them but I’m too lazy sometimes.
Hi Meili,
Actually I’m not consistent. I do sometimes look at the sites to see what they are, but at other times I just delete them. But these days I never just keep them – in the past, I found that some of these were linking to pornography sites and I didn’t want that.
I will support to dofollow…
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