To Follow Or Not To Follow
July 16th, 2007 by CourtI get quite a few emails from people asking me whether I think they should use a ‘dofollow’ type plugin. For those of you that haven’t heard about the ‘dofollow’ movement, have a look at the following article, it will explain it all to you: Do Follow, D-List, and No No-Follow.
Blogs that have installed ‘dofollow’ type plugins are as a courtesy, giving links to anyone that leaves a comment. ‘Following’ is a great way to give back to your readers, at least the readers who comment.
The Dilemna
The problem with deciding whether to ‘follow’ or not is that it just isn’t very simple. For some blogs it’s an awesome thing to do, and for others it would be bad to do it. Each of you is going to have to decide for yourselves whether it would be wise for you or not. Hopefully with this post I can help educate each of you on the reasons you would (or would not) follow.
Benefits Of ‘Following’
- You join a community which will bring extra traffic to your site.
- You will get a lot more comments than you did before.
- Your readers may feel like they are more included in your community, since your community is giving back to them.
Negative Aspects Of ‘Following’
- You will have to keep a closer eye on comments because visits from spammers are inevitable.
- You will end up linking to sites that aren’t related to your site, which isn’t a huge positive for SEO.
- You may end up linking to sites that are ‘less than reputable’, which means you will have to delete those comments or remove the URLs. (which may lead to the next negative aspect)
- You might get bullied by spammers for deleting their comments that link to sites that you don’t want to link to.
Sites That Should ‘Follow’
I think it would be wise to ‘follow’ if your site is just starting out, or doesn’t yet have a significant amount of readers and comments. If you join the ‘D-List’, you will absolutely get visitors that you didn’t get before, and most of them will leave comments. There is no doubt that your site will look better to people - sites that don’t have any comments at all look dead.
Sites That Shouldn’t Follow
If you’re site is already established gets a significant amount of comments, I don’t know that ‘following’ is going to be the way to go. You will be a more powerful target for spammers, and will likely end up spending a lot of time moderating comments. I spent some time yesterday going through some of my old comments to find that some of the comment links had been redirected to sites that I would never link to.
I also have multiple comments everyday from spammers trying to stuff their anchor text all over the place. I had one spammer that left the same exact comment on 5 different posts, using different anchor text to link to his site. Not only did he try to spam my site, he sent an angry email demanding an explanation for why I deleted his ’spammish’ attempts. Mr. Spammer, if you’re reading this post you should know that you’re wasting your time.
If you’re getting more than 10 comments on every single post, I honestly wouldn’t use a dofollow type plugin. You don’t want to be linking out 10+ times on every post.
Court’s ‘To Follow Or Not To Follow’ Rules
- Follow if your site gets less than 10 comments per post, and you have time to make sure you don’t end up linking to sites that are ‘less than reputable’.
- Don’t follow if your site gets an average of over 10 comments per post, or you don’t have time to check up on your commenter’s sites.
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July 16th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Great post, Court.
I have recently joined in on the Do Follow. I hope it proves to be a good decision.
I have seen a lot more spam lately, though…
July 16th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I think it’s a smart thing to do in the beginning Tay. If it gets too overwhelming don’t hesitate to call it quits though.
It’s your business and you can’t be linking to bad sites just because you don’t have the time to go through all of the comments.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
HI,
I mailed you on this too, Found this post later.
i also published a do follow list, just thinking it is 15 days or so for a google page rank update.
But on the long run, dont you think, these links can go void?
Google had a controversy over paid links, some time back
but they gave a nod to them, after a long discussion.
I was also thinking on the algorithm to distinguish comments from post links in a CMS, and i understand, it is quite easily possible to differentiate them.
Earlier in blogging, around three years ago, people used “no follow” even in blogrolls. - meaning, only enjoyable posts were linked and hence got the credit.
Never mind, as of now, it is a green flag, and i follow too..
p.s. can you add me to your list??
July 16th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Links don’t really go void. They could be discounted though, along with any other type of links.
If this is the only method you’re using to get links I would recommend a change in strategy. Using this method should be one out of a bunch of methods that you use.
Your comments still have ‘nofollows’! Let me know when you have it fixed and I’ll happily add you to the list.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Great article! As you know, my blog participates in the DoFollow movement. I will continue to do so until I get more comments and activity than I am now.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Sounds like a good way to approach it Casey!
July 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Thanks Court..that’s the best explanation I’ve seen of what the pros & cons of DoFollowing are. My blog is just starting out, and I came to the same conclusion you did..it’s probably a good way to encourage comments early on.
But I’m curious–it looks like you’ve already reversed your decision from May 2nd and gone back to “NoFollow” for this Blog (at least my trusty SEO for Firefox add-on says all the links in comments above are no-followed). Did the level of spam DoFollow attracted just turn out to be too much?
July 16th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Yeah Zen I have. Since that time I’ve gone from getting 5 or so comments per day to more than 50. My old and new posts fill up with comments.
The kicker for me was the last time I went through all of my old comments. I found quite a few that had redirected to sites about porn, gambling, and other types of things I would never link to. I don’t have time to go through all of my old comments all the time, so I had to make the choice to call it a day.
If the level of comments allowed me to look through all of them once a week I would continue to ‘follow’ because I really do think it’s a good thing.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I understand completely why you’d make the choice. I guess the next question is, do you think implementing the DoFollow on your site was what got you to where you’re getting 50 comments a day, and have you noticed a significant drop-off since you stopped?
July 16th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
That’s a great question. There’s no doubt that it helped, especially in the beginning. I would say that now it’s a product of the steady traffic of the site and a bunch of really cool people that are involved in the discussions here.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I joined the DoFollow list shortly after I started my blog, and hope not to leave. I think it is a great way to reward active commentors.
Yes, I get some comment spam, but it has been mild to date. I hope it remains that way.
David
July 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Absolutely, David - it is without question a great way to reward those who comment. I hope you’re comment spam stays to a minimum, too. I have to say I am pretty disappointed at the low levels people have stooped to to spam my site.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I agree that the dofollow plugin is not for all blogs. You made some good points, but I think you missed one which is the niche of your site. If your site has a lot of bloggers/webmasters coming to it the plugin is more likely to boost you compared to if your blog is about flowers (since non webmasters wouldn’t care for the links anyway).
Btw, I emailed you through your contact form a while ago asking if you could add me to the d-list and unless I am mistaken I don’t see it there, so I would appreciate it if you could add it.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Very good point! Sorry that I didn’t get you added, I’m not sure how that happened! I just got you added to the list.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I’m still OK with hand editing my comments and I have been known to strip out the URLs.
But, I do still enjoy following, especially when it benefits my regular readers.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
If you have the time, definitely continue to go with it. I still think it’s a really good thing to do!
July 16th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
It would be hard to keep up with your comments and email when your getting 50 a day. There is only so much time in a day.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I know it! I really do wish that I had time to go through all of the comments but I just don’t. The older comments are the ones that are dangerous because spammers redirect them to all kinds of crazy places.
July 17th, 2007 at 12:05 am
To Follow Or Not To Follow
To Follow Or Not To Follow is the title of a wonderful post at one of the sites that I read alot because of an incredible wealth of true life experience which the owner Courtney Tuttle details at his Blog. On a side note if you have never visit him ple…
July 17th, 2007 at 1:41 am
thanks for the simple explanation on do follow or no follow - I do have this dilemma and your post helps clear it. For me, any comment that is not relevant or is lame, I’ll either delete or edit it. It’s my blog and I have the right to display the comment or not. But I do believe in rewarding the loyal and genuine readers who take time to comment and drop by.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I agree Doris, you have the right to determine which comments add value and which ones don’t.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Hey Court, could you add me to the “D” list?
Just added the Do Follow plugin about a week ago.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Sure! You’re there now. Happy to have you.
July 17th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I found that the plugin only took up more of my time filtering the class 1-liner comments.
I agree with your points that smaller blogs should utilize DO Follow, or blogs that “coined” the term (that means yo, court).
Until the big boys enable DoFollow (Problogger, John Chow, etc), the current demand from readers should remain stable.
P.S. Does John still charge for DoFollow?
July 18th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Yeah, he does!
July 17th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I found your site while searching for information on the “Do Follow” movement. I’ve been trying to spread the word to friends and colleagues about using DoFollow and joining the movement. I have enabled DoFollow on all my blogs for several months and it seems to be working well. Keep up the good work on your site, you’ve got another subscriber added to your rolls. Thanks for the info!
July 18th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Hi Kyle! I’m glad you found the site! DoFollow really is a great thing to do and I stand by that. I really wish that I could keep doing it! In the end I just couldn’t create as much content as I wanted to because I was spending too much time looking through old comments. Until your blog gets to that point, I would keep doing it!
July 20th, 2007 at 8:40 am
What a topic! I had duplicate links on my site. I finally realized the robots have no desire to keep going to the same site from my site, they will stop after a couple. I now have one place where the outgoing link is read, everything else is nofollow!
July 20th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I always use my anchor text as my name when leaving a comment, but add my true name at the end of each comment.
I don’t feel this is a bad thing to do, as I believe all my comments really add value to the blog article in question.
I removed the nofollow attribute from my blog from the beginning. I think it is only fair to reward those that take the time to add value to my blog.
As for the spammers, I have installed Akismet and can honestly say that in the last four months I have had to delete less than 5 spam comments.
- Martin Reed
July 20th, 2007 at 9:35 am
[…] any credit in the search rankings. I’ll let you decide the philosophical question of whether to follow or not to follow, but I’ll show you how to implement the nofollow attribute either […]
July 21st, 2007 at 10:19 am
I’m not 100% convinced that the nofollow thing isn’t being abused by some for quick backlinks.
For example I browsed the first 10 or so latest additions to your do follow list and are actually nofollow. So here’s what I found.
http://www.mealmotivation.com - if you read the text under the comment submission form it actually says “Please note that all links will be created using the nofollow attribute.”
http://www.harveykane.com/ - all comments appear with nofollow
http://www.jojocms.org/ - “Please note that all links will be created using the nofollow attribute.”
I stopped after this cos I got bored, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Another thing, kinda related I noticed was that half the links on page 1 of the Dlist are nofollow and the other half aren’t?
July 21st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Sorry, I meant to say of the first 10 I looked at, those three seemed to still use nofollow.
It was late when I typed that. Sorry
July 25th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I think all sites should Do Follow even if it means they will have to monitor more closely for spam. It helps give something back to the website reader IMO.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
[…] Original post by Court […]
September 27th, 2007 at 7:45 am
I have asked you more than once to please remove my site from your “D-List”. The human generated spam I receive as a result of this list is not worth it. Please remove “Heck of It” from your list. Thank you.
-Anna
March 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hi Court, thanks so much for writing this - you’re the first one I’ve seen who has written about the fact that do-follow isn’t necessarily good for all situations.