Do-Follow Comments and Comment Luv
The very first thing I wanted to do with this site is add do-follow and comment luv plugins. I use Wordpress for all my blogs, and the range of plugins is vast.
Do-Follow:
First thing I want to say is there really is no such thing as “do-follow” as an attribute in html (code). The term is slang and is used commonly to refer to the <rel=no-follow> attribute being removed from the code for a link. The general thinking on this is that the search engines see this as a “trust” issue and links that are “do-follow” (removal of no-follow) will be seen as a link that you “trust” and therefore the search engine will give “value” to that link. This is believed to help the site that leaves the link. Of course, that is another argument whether this is true or not. I comment on both no-follow and “do-follow” sites because I like the interaction i get, and because I have something to say that I think will contribute to the conversation.
I like to add this do-follow plugin to my sites to encourage comments because that is an important part of blogging, interaction. If people are encouraged to comment because of a do-follow link, then they may pass the word on and more people will comment, which creates a buzz for your site.
Some bloggers might see this as a “ploy” of sorts, but there actually is a community of commentators that you will see commenting on the same blogs, and this is a good way to network with other bloggers.
In addition to all that, if you start getting comments on your blog, you naturally get excited about the fact that people are actually reading your content! Keeps you motivated.
CommentLuv:
This plugin, again for wordpress, gives a link to the commentator’s latest blog post in their comment. You have the choice to make the link rel=no-follow or not, I choose to remove the no-follow from these links as well. Once again, it encourages comments and there are multiple reasons this helps your success as a blogger.
Top Commentator:
This plugin creates a list of the “top commentators” in your sidebar. The benefit of this plugin for the commentator is they are encouraged to return for every article because not only do they get links from the individual article, they can “earn” a link in the sidebar on your home page by being listed as someone that comments frequently. The advantages of this is that the link can be on every page of your site giving the commentator the benefits of maximum exposure on your site. You can opt out of the links being on every page, but I don’t see the use in doing that.
Links To Comment Plugins I Install:
Tagged with: do-follow • wordpress
Filed under: Comments
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I don’t have the do-follow plugin installed on any of my blogs. Yahoo ignores the no follow attribute anyhow.
I have never heard that before. But, thanks for the comment, I will research if Yahoo does that and it will make a great topic for here
Really, people are still using Yahoo!? Isn’t that generation dead yet? AOL is about to bite the dust, and my take on do follow. It should only be do follow if the website is relevant to the topic at hand, otherwise this site is being devalued by linking to irrelevant information, a SEO NO-NO. Word of advice, don’t do follow all comments, only the comments that are relevant or you are making a huge mistake. Peace.
My blog is also do-follow but I set it to get triggered after a certain number of comments…
and Commentluv is the next best thing since sliced bread.
Many of my blog comments have been indexed. Comments I left on no-follow blogs.
Hi Keith. Those plugins are good to get more comments on our blog. However, they can also attract ingenuine comments, such as comments with low value, low eagerness, etc. That’s why I don’t use them on my blog yet
Will, I know you are the guru of SEO, and you and I are good friends, but I will disagree (that never happens) with you on that. I know plenty of sites using the same plugins I do that have 50-100 comments per article (3-4 articles per week) and as long as the commentator uses good grammar, comments appropriately, and doesn’t leave an improper link they are approved.
Of course I moderate my comments, and if they don’t add value, or I don’t personally know you, it goes in the spam bucket.
The part you are missing out on (and I am sure I will write several articles on this topic so will try to keep this short) is the sense of community and interaction that comes from comments. It is not all about links.
I will follow up more later, this is a topic I have a lot of passion about, as you do too.
Thanks for stopping by to check on me though….
Thanks for stopping by Jonathon, dropped by your blog and spouted some opinions on a couple of articles you wrote recently too
I decided against making people wait for the “do-follow” because I wanted to encourage comments quickly. I since this site is new, I can moderate the crap comments out easily, and edit links if needed.
Oh yeah Will, I think it was an link you posted on Facebook a couple of days ago that said Yahoo still had 15% of the search market. That is still a significant number, and I personally get 8-10% on average from Yahoo on my previous sites. Not something to just disregard.
Isaac,
Thanks for the comment, I agree there can be downsides to removing no-follow from my comments, but I am willing to weed through the muck to find the jewels. Spammers don’t care about no-follow or not, they still troll and I found just as many spammers on my sites whether I did this or not. So, I don’t mind sharing some link love for real comments….
I kept it a 3 comments to get do-follow links. This is so I can easily weed out the “great post” comments from the real ones.
Don’t forget that recent comments, too. They are dofollow and if the spider happens to come by while your link is there, there will be a link to your blog across the whole site just like the Top Commenters. The more the merrier, you know!
And Keyword Luv is always appreciated. That’s a fantastic plug-in as well. There’s nothing quite like having your keyword and nothing but your keyword in the link. “Click here” as anchor text really sucks. That’s what I use when I link to another site going for the same keywords as I am going for. I am not about to link to another Norman Rockwell site with the anchor text of “Norman Rockwell” – I might consider “NR” but even that is more keyword love than I want to give a competitor.
Having your content actually being read does rock, doesn’t it? It’s like a vicious cycle: links = visitors = readers = comments = more visitors and on and on. And, yes, it is a ploy, a ploy that brings results. Enjoy the cycle, enjoy the ploy, and enjoy the results.
Thanks for stopping by Keith, I know I have seen your comments on several other blogs I read (probably how you found mine) and that just adds to my point of this community of blog commentors that you will begin to see everywhere you go, like they are stalking you!!!!
I love the boost in traffic and comments I have gotten this week. Not too bad for designing the site and going live on Saturday!
I had tossed this idea around for over 6mos, and a friend convinced me on Saturday to go for it.
Thanks again for stopping by, your comments are always welcome!
Yeah but how about Google? Google will ignore the link if its a no follow.
I completely agree with you Keith.
@Web your Name
We all know DoFollow is about PageRank. So when I got my PR3,just 2 months after I started blogging, I know I’m doing something right. I already have CommentLuv and my blog has always been a DoFollow. Now if my site is being devalued because all comments are DoFollow then why I still get a PR3, 2 months after I registered my domain?
Plus like Keith said, you are giving link juice to your commenters as a token of appreciation for taking their time to comment.
I recently read this article that explains Google may not pass on juice to a no-follow link, but they will follow the link. Which says they also index the linked page. So there is value to the no-follow link, it just doesn’t pass PR, which I honestly question how much PR is actually passed in comments vs a “natural” do-follow link, don’t you think Google knows the difference?
Keith,
It looks like you are well on your way. And, yes, I found you from another blog,another dofollow blog. I started commenting on blogs for the links, but now I do it for the interaction, comraderie, community and, of course, the links.;) You are using my favorite combination of plugins on need-information. You give the maximum return for the commenter’s time.
I will be checking in. You are on my list.
Hi Keith,
I’m adding my two cents even though I can’t use the plugins because I have a WordPress.com blog. This topic is pretty interesting and I’m wondering how your traffic from Bing fit’s into all of this. Bear with me if I’m sounding green (like I did earlier on Extreme John’s blog) but when you talk about being indexed are you talking about Google, Bing or both? And I agree that Yahoo is still a big part of this equation also.
I would love to know your thoughts.
Btw – Congratulations on launching the blog and welcome to Blog Engage.
Thanks.
I must say I’m a huge supporter of the do follow movement, especially for bloggers on social networks in which they submit their content too. See if you submit your content to a no follow community there’s good chance they will rank higher than you.
Blogengage is do follow and so are all of my blogs and their comment luv.
Ileane, the Wiki article I linked to in a comment above shows a graph about the major search engines and there take on how they treat no-follow links. According to it, Bing follows the link but doesn’t index the page if the link is no-follow.
I am doing more research on this topic and will have more articles coming out over the next couple of weeks in regards to it.
Have you considered moving to a self hosted wordpress blog, I can see where it would benefit you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Brian,
I am new with this “movement” and new to Blog Engage. I have a question with regards to Blog Engage, is it frowned upon to submit your own articles. Most social networks I have been involved in before felt your articles should be “discovered” by someone else.
Looking forward to learning more about Blog Engage over the coming weeks and I really appreciate you stopping by and also tweeting my article.
Still wishing for the comment luv & Disqus plugin so they can play nice together
It would be a great Christmas present!
That is another topic altogether. I am not a fan of Discus or any other app that makes me sign in to leave a comment, just my preference though.
‘First thing I want to say is there really is no such thing as “do-follow” as an attribute in html (code).’ Great point to share as many people talk about do-follow in the way you described believing the terminology means just that.
I like the plugins you’ve shared here and see the benefit for using all of them, especially when wanting to build a community, a site that encourages interaction from the readers.
I believe this is my first time here but having seen the many familiar faces above I’ll be sure to be dropping back in again (adding you to my reader now).
All the best,
Karl
Keith, we support you submitting your own articles and other bloggers articles.See blog engage is a revenue sharing community so we definitely support members submitting their own content. I don’t mean to hi jack your thread here but if you want to take 15 minutes some morning with coffee and watch the videos I made it might benefit you.
Don’t watch the status update one that feature was really buggy and we are working on it!
Thanks Brian and you are not “hi jacking” my comments, just the fact that I am getting so much interaction on this site after less than a week is AMAZING!
Thanks for the info, I do plan to write about social bookmarking which I wasted a lot of time doing in the past because there are so many options. I can really see where blogengage can be better than others I have used.
I will check out the videos…
Thanks for the link to the plugin, when I was writing the article I couldn’t get the link to work (their site was down) so I didn’t put it in. I edited the post and added the link as it seems to be working now.
Thanks for subscribing and I am headed over to your site now.
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
And you et an account on Twitter?
Google does sometimes ignore no-follow, but not always.
PR really isn’t that important. PR does not determine the success of your blog.
Yes Rose but PageRank still helps in getting your blog a good SERP.
You have obviously done your research on this subject. You should protect your content on this site to prevent people using your content on their blog ? super
it’s good practice to mix up no follow and do follow links anyway as this is a more natural pattern.
Lyndon
Excellent Information! I am really impressed with the information you provided in this article. Regarding the KeywordLuv posting I had used different plug-ins but your article changed my thinking. I will definitely be trying this one!
Regardless of whether your goals for your blog are earning an income or just providing good content to your readers, one of your primary factors of success will be the community that forms around your blog.
Think about it: your readers help you build your blog. Their comments are all indexed and become a part of the content on your blog. How many times have you performed a search only to find that the keywords showed up in someone’s comments? It happens frequently!