Seriously, fuck rel=”nofollow”.
Ok well, maybe not completely. But I love my commenters. It makes me feel good when people comment on my little homebase blog here. That’s why not only have I created a spiffy “Frequent Commenters” widget, but I have purposely excluded the nofollow attribute from the links in the list.
Spammerzzzz
Nofollow is a non-standard HTML attribute value used to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of spamdexing (manipulating the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine), thereby improving the quality of search engine results and preventing spamdexing from occurring in the first place.
The problem is now blog authors are sticking nofollow on everything. Any external link that isn’t generated by the blog author — and sometimes even a majority that are.
I say to you, “Why?” Stop it. How about giving some love back, people.
I’ve been very successful with Akismet and as such, I don’t feel like I have to worry about some bastard spammer grabbing some Vocino love without my consent.
Every Bit Helps
Granted, my blog isn’t like being linked on Slashdot or making the front page of Digg. But it is a PR5 site, which will get you a decent vote in Googlebot’s cyb0r brain.
Not to mention, although not many people freaking comment, my site does get a decent amount of traffic. So who knows, maybe your next lifetime reader or adult friend findee is just a click away.
Back Scratching
So that’s it, you comment and I nofollow. If you see something half-way interesting, feel free to say so — or maybe just tell me I’m an idiot and was probably drunkposting. Either way, right now it’s pretty easy to get your snazzy name and linked URL onto the Frequent Commenter list, so get in while the gettin’ is good.
16 Responses to “If You Comment, They Will Follow”rss
Stephen Caudill, on October 3rd, 2007, said:
makes a mad dash for the Frequent Commenters list
I’m with you. I think nofollow is teh lam3. There’s a time and a place for it, but a personal blog, 80% of the time is not it. Same with ads on blogs (another gripe of mine, evidenced by Ex Dolo’s prominent promotion of the Ad-Free Blog)… most of the time, they’re just not warranted.
So yeah, long live
rel='follow'. We’re sporting the same love over at Ex Dolo.By the by, I think you might mean: “So that?s it, you comment and I follow.” Which in my mind pretty much seals the case on the drunkposting question.
Sara Sioux, on October 3rd, 2007, said:
So wait, are you saying that if I make it on your top commenters list, it’s going to increase my Google Rankings?
Helllll yeah. Way to bribe the audience. And thanks for the email subscribe it revolutionized my vocino.com experience.
Brianna, on October 3rd, 2007, said:
I love a bandwagon.
Also, I felt the need to comment and include my URL, so you won’t hate me.
Mission: Accomplished. Now where’s my American flag?
Travis, on October 4th, 2007, said:
I’m loving the love guys, really. Touched.
Travis, on October 4th, 2007, said:
BTW, the comment SQL error should be fixed now. :)
XIII, on October 4th, 2007, said:
Hi, wandered in here through BlogCatalog. Nice looking blog, and I have to agree on the nofollow linkage. It was a nice idea to stop spammers, but it totally missed the mark and now it’s counteracting the way the web is supposed to work.
I’ll add a dofollow plugin today as well.
David from Dig-n-Share, on October 5th, 2007, said:
Its funny the way the whole ‘dofollow’ thing’s turning out. There are some sites now that list dofollow blogs e.g. http://www.bloggingmix.com/2007/08/dofollow-blogs-with-good-google-page.html
Anyway, I’m glad that the time I put into commenting gets a little bit of extra reward now :-)
(on the good blogs anyway ;-)
Ian Adams, on October 5th, 2007, said:
You know, I hadn’t thought of that. I’d just been blindly following the “nofollow” practise since I first opened up commenting on my site, when I would get a fair amount of comment spam. These days I’ve pretty much got the spam problem under control (how many people can say that?) and I think I’ll start implementing a “dofollow” as well.
Meg H., on October 6th, 2007, said:
Amen on the nofollow BS.
If you find it worthwhile to link to… shouldn’t everyone else?
AntiBarbie, on October 6th, 2007, said:
I think the “no follow” idea was doomed from the start. It doesn’t really stop spam. I’ve noticed most spammers don’t even check and just keep on trucking. So all it’s really doing is keeping the faithful return visitors who comment on your blog from getting a little PR juice. Google really angers me sometimes.
Anyway, I’ve used do follow since day 1. If someone takes the time to leave me a thoughtful comment, I am more than happy to give them a little boost if I can. Have a good one!
Czecho, on October 7th, 2007, said:
Interesting info, i am not too technical myself, and am not sure whether I follow or nofollow, will look into it. But, I do prescribe to back scratching.
Good Luck!!!
Michael, on October 21st, 2007, said:
It’s gotten to the point where people think they only have so much google juice to give out. I was approached by a guy that wanted to change blogroll links and we were focused on the same area so I agreed. I was checking google for backlinks and I noticed that it wasn’t in google so I pulled up his page. He added me to to his blogroll and manually added no follow.
He quickly fixed it when I asked, but it has definitely gotten out of control.
My blog automatically had no follow on comments when I installed, but I’m going to see about taking it off. You’ve got a good idea.
Toly, on November 8th, 2007, said:
that’s awesome! joining the club - just implemented this plugin in my wordpress! Thanks!
P.S. Everybody is welcome to me to comment as well :):)
AzGun, on November 11th, 2007, said:
Good and really useful post for all readers and specially for me, thanks!
;)
Edward, on January 5th, 2008, said:
Do- follow rocks!
José, on November 7th, 2008, said:
Hi,
I’ve never added any nofollow tags and I don’t even know how blogger handles this by default.
I’m in favour of dofollow, but there shouldn’t be a “bleeding” of ranking (if that happens).
Good luck with your blog.
Best regards,
José
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