Since about 50% of the people who ask to be on the D-List ask me how to check if their ‘dofollow’ plugin is working correctly, I think it’s about time I teach everyone how to check!

When I check the sites on the D-List, I simply go to the site I want to check and find a post that has a comment. I will then click to the post page, because that’s the only place where you can see the actual comments. I then check the comment links to see if they have a ‘nofollow’ on them; if they do the ‘dofollow’ plugin isn’t installed correctly.

Here’s How You Check
Once you are on a page that has comments, you will view the source code of the page using your browser. If you’re using Firefox, you will click ‘View’ at the top of the browser, and then select ‘Page Source’. If using Internet Explorer, you will click ‘View’ and then ‘Source’ in the browser.

The HTML code for the page will then pop up in a window on your screen. You will then search for the comments in the code. If the comment on the original page looks like this:

Comment by ricardo

2007-05-15 23:33:47

Personally, I would wait for some feedback. Check out the official wordpress forum. I think they could tell you better than most of us :).

You would do a search in the code for the name ‘ricardo’. Unless the site has the name in the text of the page somewhere, you will be taken right to the code for the link. You do the search by holding ‘Ctrl’ on your keyboard and hitting ‘f’. ‘Ctrl f’ finds whatever you type in. So you would type ‘ricardo’ and hit enter. It will take you to the place in the code where the comment is. In this case, it will look like this:

<a href=’http://www.ricdes.com’ rel=’external nofollow’>ricardo</a>

You can see the rel=’external nofollow’ right in the code. This means that the comment link has a ‘nofollow’ and the ‘dofollow’ plugin isn’t installed, or wasn’t installed properly.

Advanced Method For Checking For NoFollows
There is a Firefox extension that you can get to check for ‘nofollows’. You can download it here. You simply install the extension, and then in Firefox go to ‘Tools’, ‘ChromEdit Plus’, and then ‘ChromEdit’. The ChromEdit Plus box will then pop up and you will then go to ‘userContent.css’. Add the following lines of code to the bottom:

a[rel~="nofollow"] {
border: thin dashed firebrick ! important;
background-color: rgb(255, 200, 200) ! important;
}

Doing this will make ‘nofollow’ links look like from that point forward. (pink background, dotted outlining) This is my preferred method because I don’t have to even take the time to view the source anymore.