I received a comment from a reader who seemed disappointed that my blog comments are nofollow.
For those who don’t know, nofollow means that my site’s PageRank is not transferred to your site when you leave a comment along with a link to your site.
In other words, the link from my site to yours, has no influence on your backlinks and PageRank in the eyes of Google.
To make a link nofollow you simply add rel=”nofollow” inside the href HTML code of your hyperlinks like this…
<a href=”http://www.anysite.com” rel=”nofollow”>Name of Site</a>
I’ve never even considered making my comments dofollow (the opposite of nofollow). In fact, WordPress 1.5 and higher automatically assigns the nofollow attribute to all comments, and most bloggers never bother to change this.
The major benefit of having a dofollow blog is you may get more comments. Many bloggers seek out these blogs, and there are numerous directories that list dofollow sites.
The downside to using dofollow, however, is that you could be inundated with spam. This also means you are flowing PageRank to potentially spammy/inappropriate sites, and this could hurt the reputation of your site in Google’s eyes.
So to preserve and protect my reputation and PageRank with Google, I use nofollow for my comments and sponsor ads.
The Obsession Continues
My personal opinion is that the dofollow/nofollow issue is blown out of proportion.
Of course, a few dofollow links from some very relevant sites can positively impact your backlinks and PageRank, but is it worth spending hours per day looking for these sites when you could be using that time to focus more on building quality content?
At the end of the day, if your site is useful, fresh, unique and you are promoting it effectively, you will naturally earn plenty of voluntary dofollow links from other site owners who value your content.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping track of your PageRank and backlinks, but when it becomes obsessive, you could be putting too much attention in the wrong areas.
Let’s also not forget that you can still generate plenty of traffic from commenting on nofollow blogs. Even though you may not be earning a backlink for SEO purposes, you can still build quite the traffic flow if you perfect your commenting strategy. (See How to Write Killer Blog Comments.)
Remember, you are not just working to please spiders. Humans read blogs too, and capturing their attention is just as important.
I wish people would stop obsessing over dofollow links (especially on blogs). Posting solid comments on nofollow blogs can still lead to dofollow links in the long run simply because people may value your site and recommend it to their readers.
The case study I posted last week is a great example. Because Kiesha has an outstanding blog that I wanted to feature, she still earned a voluntary dofollow link from a relevant blog.
Why did I feature her? Because she has an outstanding blog with fabulous content. Thus she was rewarded with a dofollow link. These are the results you get when you publish quality content.
You’ll also find that you won’t have to spend so much time actively seeking out dofollow links. Instead, they will find you.
Even though my comments are nofollow, most links in my posts are not. So I’m happy to reward and recommend sites that are worthy of a mention.
What Does Google Say About This?
Matt Cutts (Google’s lead engineer) published a video about this a few months back, and it made me even more confident that I made the right decision about nofollow comments.
What’s your blog’s linking policy? Why did you choose it?
I quite like the thing about putting your time into finding sites and creating links Vs creating great content.
Although I am currently at your site, and I am creating a link through a comment, my preference goes out to creating great content 😉
My site was Do Follow for about 1 year before I changed to No Follow. For the first few months it was fine but after that I got hit by automatic blog comments and hundreds of spam.
My site often appeared on Do Follow lists throughout the internet making my site a prime target for spammers.
I really love your blog.I also appreciate your hard work.thanks very much for publishing about this topic.Great work
Hi there, I’ve noticed that this post is half a year old, so I want to ask any of you, if there is “dofollow” solution for Disqus?
I really like this system, but also I want dofollow for the comments!
what if the link has no “rel=”nofollow””? Does it mean it is dofollow automatically?
I use ‘WP No External Links’ plugin, it makes all external links nofollow, so it’s perfect. You can manually set the setting to dofollow certain domains, so if I want to flow some pagerank to a friend, I can make those links dofollow.
On a side note, I do leave comments on relevant niche blogs, and sometimes one comment gives me 250 links, lol. That’s because of the way that the blogging program is written. My comment appears on all their pages. One blog now shows 1430 links to my site, but I only commented once:)))) Hehe.
I am actually thinking about adding the dofollow plug-in to my blog. I use comment love on most of my blogs, but have never gone fully dofollow before.
Blogs are always a main source of getting accurate information and provide you the handy results.you can get instant and reliable information which surely helps you in any field of your concern.your blogs fulfill these requirement ccent course and I really appreciate it.keep it up doing good work. i will come back to see more in future as well.best regards
I was thinking about making my blog do-follow, but what’s the point really? I don’t want the “nice post” comments, they are not productive…I think one of the main reasons to have a blog is to have real interaction with people. I’d rather have less comments and not waste time deleting the spammy ones.
The people looking for the do-follow links only are not going to leave anything but SPAM anyway.
You could try to use a Nofollow plugin on your blog. With the condition to moderate the comments, weeding out the dubios sites. Problem solved.
I’ve long quit trying to do what makes Google happy as that changes as often as women change shoes. I made my blog dofollow to reward people that leave comments. I routinely leave comments on blogs that are nofollow because I like what the blogger said.
I am still confused as to how it can hurt my site. Every blog post I have links to an article. None of the links on page are dofollow, not even my tags. Is this hurting my internal linking structure?
In most cases, you want internal links to other pages on your site to all be dofollow. What do you mean none of your links are dofollow? If they don’t have “nofollow” in the code they are automatically dofollow. You don’t have to add “dofollow” in order for them to be “dofollow”. They will be by default.
the case study is very much interesting. it showed valuable information. both a do follow and no follow blog has pros and cons. its really up to the person on what to choose.
Thaks for the nice post..I agree the valuable points to see here..Thanks for the informative post..keep sharing..
Pagerank is not actually “transferred” it’s more like a vote for a website if you give too many votes to garbage sites it can negatively impact you but to say it transfers your pagerank is not entirely accurate. If it actually did I doubt anyone would link without the nofollow, when you don’t use nofollow it’s like saying you personally recommend the site. I think google didn’t make this clear enough. They make it sounds like not using the nofollow will kill a site and to be honest if both sites are good sites and you don’t have all links “nofollow” it can be a good thing.
“Transferred” is the word Matt Cutts uses sometimes but yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks for clearing up any confusion that may have caused.
I use the commentluv plugin and the do follow links because I feel that bloggers and website owners should have some way of having backlinks and credit for the comments that people write on my blog.
I also use a plugin that helps prevent spam comments so I don’t have to do all the moderation myself. This particular plugin is called akismet.
This is how I have my comments and spam control set up.
thanks friend
hi i have read through this blogs! nice to see it!
Good read. We’ve been looking at this over the past few days. I can see the advantages of having do-follow if you’re active with your moderation and only allow valid comments that are linking to appropriate sites. The question we’re facing is that extra work worth it.
I’m a bit apprehensive to do this on our business site/blog, but we’re considering setting up a test site to see how this would work out, so if it’s a total failure then it won’t affect our main site 😉
And thanks for the link to the google video, was interesting to hear his viewpoints.
Thanks for the blog post, I agree the nofollow thing is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in the website design world. I have even seen people foolishly revert to blogs without comments due to the fact that they are sooo confused.
My personal blog is do-follow, and I keep things in line by using spam filters (although occasionally legitimate posts fall through the cracks). However, I must approve all new commentators, and in general I haven’t had many problems with spam. All the “great post” type comments automatically get caught in the spam filter, and for those that it doesn’t catch, I simply mark the comment as spam before it shows up on my blog, so no damage done. I think nearly all my commentators leave interesting and useful comments on my blog at this point, and I’m happy to share the link love! 🙂
personally, I feel commenting on blogs should be for the sole purpose of giving feedback to the author or adding value to what was written or even appreciating the author for the quality of the post. Commenting just to get back links and improve page rank for isn’t right because the motive isn’t right.
I personally hate those “great post, I’m going to bookmark you and come back” comments because its obvious that the person commenting didn’t even read the blog post and probably used that same comment on hundreds of other blogs. its so annoying and I delete them. when i make comments on post I make sure that I read the post first so that I have something of value to add in the comment and if I have nothing to add I don’t comment.
no follows shouldn’t put you off if you are truly engaged in the blog you are commenting on. People get too obsessed with making money and getting traffic that they forget why they started a blog in the first place, and if you started it for the right reasons then you should be more concerned about adding value than anything else. Blog because you love to write and because you love your topic not because of money, traffic rank, SEO etc.
Hey Lisa. Thanks for your post. There is something that I don’t seem to really get about this do-follow thing. How can people know that you have it do-follow or no-follow? I don’t think i really understand the do-follow concept. I mean if i have a blog and i place the link with this comment, the it will show my latest blog post under it. If you have your settings set as no-follow or do-follow, how does that make a difference? Sorry for the confusion. Great post anyways. Keep it rolling Lisa 🙂
Josh, there are several different ways, but many people view the source code and look for the rel=”nofollow” in the links in the comments.
There are also directories out there that list dofollow blogs. So that means the link to their site in their comments will not get any of your site’s PageRank transferred to their site. In other words, Google ignores the backlink.
I remove and reinsert my tag every so often. That way I know repeat comment leavers are sincere, not just looking for another point to add to their link score.
Like most others, I comment on blogs that have useful or interesting content. Even those that I take a different side to.
Judging from the number of comments regularly left on Problogger and some other heavy traffic sites, the nofollow tag doesn’t seem to be that big of a factor for many people.
I have both nofollow and dofollow links on my blog for the respected followers and commenters I receive. I filter the nofollow links for spam websites or comments that are irrelevant to the post, but dofollow for those that continue the conversation on and on.
the blog is useful.
Lisa, thanks for posting the Google Video. That is very helpful and answers my question. I am a newbie and was wondering if I should doFollow or noFollow. End up, I set mine as doFollow as I encourage people dropping by and leaving messages on mine.
Hiya Lisa and everyone. Funny that at the Sitesell forums there is talk about Matt Cutts even more recent video that says that this doesn’t bleed page rank anymore.
So really it’s moot other than, like you said, ‘not’ giving a vouch for any site owner that leaves more than 2 sentences as a comment – for traffic to their ‘make money tomorrow’ websites.
Thanks for the info, MJ. I figured it was only a matter of time before this would happen. I must’ve missed that video.
Nofollow blogs are helps only for increasing the traffic.
Hi Lisa, thank you sooo much for this post! I can’t tell you, I’ve been going back and for the a couple of months on whether or not to make my blog dofollow or nofollow.
I want to encourage commenting, but do realize that many bloggers will only comment if it’s a dofollow blog. However, since my target market are for the most part beginners of online businesses, this may not even be something they care about at the moment.
So I guess I can just relax and continue to give lots of value to my readers and let them feel impelled to comment because they are moved to do so and not b/c it benefits them with a backlink.
Yeah I agree, it’s very difficult to control it.
I still don’t see why you are using NoFollow. There are so many plugins like Akismet and Conditional Captcha that can a) find spam and b) delete it for you.
It’s not difficult to rid your blog of spam and deter spammers from approaching, so why not reward commentators like myself? I haven’t had a single spam comment on my blog in weeks since I installed the two plugins I mentioned above.
Never-the-less, great post, Lisa.
To be honest, I’ve never put much thought into it. It’s not that I don’t want to reward my commenters as much as it is transferring my PageRank / link juice to commenters who have sites I don’t want to “endorse” by giving them a backlink. And I’m not talking about spammers that Askimet will catch. I’m talking about real commenters who have links to get-rich-quick-ish sites in their comments.
Will that harm my site’s reputation in the eyes of Google? I’m not sure. But for now I plan to keep it as is.
But I’m really enjoying the feedback on this post. I never really thought about changing to dofollow but it seems that those who allow it haven’t had many issues thanks to plugins. One never knows, I may change my mind at some point! 🙂
Personally, I just comment on blogs when I have something relevant to say. I don’t worry if it is dofollow or nofollow. I have received plenty of traffic and lots of subscribers just by commenting intelligently in my niche – no this is not my niche 🙂
I have dofollow in my comments, but since I have a de-link plug-in and a very good spam filter I don’t much worry about it. I may revisit the issue one day but right I am more interested in developing quality traffic.
Thanks for another interesting post. I’m learning. Slowly. 🙂
Hey Lisa,
Greetings from London, England. To each his/her own.
I think the purpose of having a blog is to share ‘You[rself]’ with the world at large. Indeed, if you are a ‘NoFollow’ blogger you are a no-sharer and should not be on the net. Period.
Let’s ALL on here look on the bright side, though, 2 Create A Website is a ‘DOFollow’; so what more do you want? :-))!
I have a blog that is inactive that has over 2000 spam comments. This is a blog that I haven’t updated in about one year and gets no traffic. Zero. None.
Imagine if Lisa had do follow tags. How much spam would she get?
Lisa, three of my blogs are DoFollow precisely to encourage comments and subscribers. Akismet takes care of nearly all the spam, so moderation on my part is minimal.
I did have one comment get through yesterday from a company that sells essays to college students; as a former college instructor I especially despise this. I deleted the comment.
Hello Lisa,
Nice written, The only thing to keep your comments do-follow is the strategy to have some more comments. In case if I have to comment on other blogs then Who care about no-follow and do-follow, if content is worth for comments and I surely do comment.
I comment on blogs independently of whether they are dofollow or nofollow, the “quality” of the post is the decider.
However, I think that the rel nofollow is a monstrosity created by Google, and it shows that they are unable to weight links appropriately, and that their algorithm is seriously flawed (links are still their main ranking factor).
http://gammingzon.blogspot.com hi how are u lisa i want to ask u what is the importance of backlinks in website or blog i have notice that u have 275 backlinks for this website
Everyone who has a computer wants to make money online these days. Too many gurus are hyping make money online programs and turned the whole online business into a circus.
I made all my blogs do-follow to attract comments but I can understand why people make their blogs no-follow.
You know what? I comment on no-follow blogs just as much as I do on do-follow because if I post a decent enough comment then people might visit my blog and that is free traffic. 🙂
Hello Lisa,
Interesting conversation and one that I have not really thought about with our own blogs.
We use http://intensedebate.com/ to mange our blogs comments and I had to check to see if they use a nofollow – which they do. I am keen to not override this as we get enough spam comments already to monitor and filter!
Must of our comments for posts are also on our Facebook and Twitter, LinkeIn profiles. Once we publish a post to our blogs it gets broadcasted to our social networks where the bulk of comments are added, not within the actual blog post itself. I find this a little bit of a concern as comments can be all over different networks.
Cheers
Marc
We humans have this flaw of trying to get to a destination without traveling the road. Write great content, share it through social networks, stimulate conversation, and the following will grow along with the reward of inbound links. Everything takes time. I am learning that, and am enjoying the journey….thanks in part to Lisa.
Thanks again, Lisa! For the wonderful case study and compliments on my content.
I actually allow dofollow links in the comments section – but you’re right, I get tons of spam. Fortunately, I have a great spam filter, but since some real comments sometimes get caught, I have to periodically check the folder – that’s so irritating!
As far as when I comment, I personally don’t care if it’s a nofollow blog, if there’s something worth commenting about, I’m going to comment. I don’t think that should be the only reason for leaving a comment.
So, no I’m not disappointed by nofollow blogs at all 🙂
I’d much rather read the blogs I like and make real comments than worry about do-follow and no-follow tags. It makes life much more enjoyable.
Amen Lovelyn!
In a perfect world I believe that ‘Nice Bloggers Do Follow’ – but in this grr spammy grr world we live in… I’ve given up on it.
You are very kind and professional in your stance, Lisa. I’ll be more frank. Most human beings are lazy and want your traffic to pull theirs along. The Google guy explained how that just dilutes the page rank. I’m glad that most people are lazy. They will eventually quit. This is supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Great post, as always!
I think those that are disappointed in the “nofollow” tag are those that are making the “nice post” comments. Not only do these get a nofollow, they also get a deletion on my blogs.
Spend some time on your comments, make them relevant to the post.
Will you have more visitors to your site by spamming blogs with “nice post” comments, or will you get more visitors, coming from a well written post?
I have no-follow policy for blog comments (because i can’t control who comments) but i always link to sites (in main content) with do follow because i like the articles that i link/share and it is not fair to not make it do-follow.
If someone writes a guest post , they should in my opinion get do follow links because they are contributing towards our site and they AT LEAST deserve a do follow link.
Hi, I am also using nofollow policy for commenter as it really need if you don’t have enough time to spend for checking comment.
But Now you can get back link form no follow site also, and It also help you to get high rank.