Yes, you didn’t hear it wrong. Wayne Liew, who is always on the pro-reader side is taking one step back by adding back the "nofollow" tag to the outgoing links in my comment section.
Photo by Half Chinese
First, sorry to those who commented previously just to get some link juice from Wayne Liew Dot Com’s articles after my article, You Comment, I Link You. In this article, I will be explaining why I am taking this move. You can see it as excuses but I hope you can understand my blog position in a saturated niche.
6 Reasons I Start to Use "nofollow" tags
- Google is Getting Serious with Comment Linking
When kljs told me about the worries of Google penalizing bloggers that dofollow commentator links, I shrug it off as Google and Matt Cutts does not have any statement on this.
Now, Google secretly made an effort to show that they are taking this issue seriously by removing "comment with a link" option from Blogger, Google’s own free blogging platform. You can read more about this at The Death of Do-Follow.
In default, outgoing links in Wordpress comment section is always parsed with the "nofollow" tags.
- Quality Commentators Prevails
Although I don’t face such problems on this blogging tips site, many blogs out there are. They receive commentators that use names like "Make Money Online" and "Poker Site Online" to comment which I don’t see as a sincere act. Their main intention to comment is just to get link juice for their sites.
I am rather lucky to have top commentators which post quality comments like the current Deimos Tel`Arin and Jalaj instead of "Cheap Viagra" and "Rich Forex Trading".
- Focusing on Search Engine Optimization
I used to comment on other blogs that Google Page Rank are somehow irrelevant to search engine ranking position on Google but I have been proven wrong. As you can see, I am actively doing search engine optimization improvements for this site after winning the SEO Book.
In this saturated niche, I need to get targeted traffic through search engines. Do you know that search engines can bring in thousands of unique visits daily for a site? Wayne Liew Dot Com is way under-performing in terms of search engine traffic.
- Not Listed in Comment Hunt
Luckily for me, my blog is not listed in the Comment Hunt, which link building experts use it to find dofollow blogs so that they can build links for their clients or their own sites. This makes the previously dofollow status of my blog remained unknown by most of the passing readers.
For those who really comment for the sake of links, hop over to Comment Hunt. I am sure that the search engine can help you out. One event that I foresee is a drop of search results that it will provide to you because of the reasons I am adding back my "nofollow" tags.
- Google Page Rank as a Credibility Meter
Photo by -fabio-Will you ever want to see a site you are learning things from are penalized by Google? The little green bar shows more than a rating for a site nowadays. It brings up trust from first time visitors as explained on Frustrating Yes - But I Want Google To Be My Friend.
- Boosting Number of Comments
In the later part of this article, I would encourage my readers to comment more by giving extra incentives. Try to implement it on your blog so that your readers will continue to put in efforts in commenting.
Solutions for Bloggers in the Same Shoes
Photo by dooda
We will be blamed and that is for sure. The biggest temptation that we are making people commenting might just because the link of their names are dofollowed. At this time, keeping the comment numbers up will be difficult. Amazingly, my most popular article, 10 Reasons You Are Not Getting Comments does not state that not offering dofollow links as one of the reasons!
You still have hopes! I will provide you a few ways that can keep you the level of comment.
Blow away reasons for not getting comments
Does your blog contains one of the 10 Reasons You Are Not Getting Comments? If so, remove it or modify your blog to make it more comment-friendly. Comments don’t come in with just good contents, it has other factors that is affecting it as well.
Show Top Commentator Plugin
Are you using the Show Top Commentator plugin? If you are not, it is time to install one to your blog, read 5 Tips for Show Top Commentators Plugin Usage and start rewarding commentators who comment frequently on your blog.
Make the links dofollow (don’t be that stingy). A link on your homepage is extremely rewarding because take Wayne Liew Dot Com for example, a link from my homepage will mean a link from 205 pages because the link will appear in each and every one of my pages and articles as crawled by Google bots.
Feature Your Commentators
Show that you do notice their effort. Feature them in your articles. Show them that you do read and appreciate them for adding value to your blog through your comments. Dofollow their links in your articles like what I did with this article.
Off-blog reward for commentators
Do you need me to teach you more on this? Put up a cash prize or reward in any form such as free advertising or free guide ($$$ is still the best motivation) to make your readers comment.
When you are using such method, make sure everyone that visits your blog knows about it through notification in prominent places. Also, you will need to take extra effort in moderating your comments so that only contributing comments are eligible for the contest.
What Is Your Say On This Event?
Is my move correct? I know I am gaming with my credibility but I really need Google’s help in building my traffic base. Yes, blogs like John Chow dot com can totally ignore Google’s guidelines and sell links "notoriously" but he already has established traffic!
Will you stop commenting on blogs which are not dofollow now? What will you have to say about this action of Google? If you are still on dofollow or the U Comment, I Follow program, will you add back the "nofollow" tags?
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December 9th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I went a step further and now all my blogs links have no follow. But I only do that for three blogs. I don’t do TLA or paid posts there.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Hmmm. To me I think it’s too early for you to worry about it. Search engine traffic only begins to come in in good quantities when you have established your blog already as a fairly respected blog. There are other things like writing top quality articles that are good enough for other blogs to mention, writing guest posts, getting social netwrok traffic than worrying about this at this stage. For most people starting, I think it’s a non issue. The question is whether you will lose some loyal commenters in doing so, because the comments add a lot to the perception of how well a blog is doing.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Actually I already remove the do follow tag on my blog Wayne month ago. Its all because I notice there are some blogger that had much free time a really like to comment on do follow blog and get some benefits there. All these kind of blogger just want to suck all the good link juice from other site.
Comment without reading really sick..
December 9th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I read up on the You Comment, I follow thingy and found out that Google was the one that started the NoFollow thingy. That is why I warned a few bloggers like Wayne and Deimos about it, that Google might start to punish people enabling Do Follow, if it continues. Unless you do not rely on Google’s PR, then you won’t have to worry. However, if you rely on Google’s PR and you main income is from adsense, then you better follow Google’s rule.
Having a higher PR blog and having a nil or 1-2 PR blog can make a world of differences in your adsense earnings. I can tell, because I own a PR4 blog and a PR2 blog and the differences is there.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Woot I see my name in the article!
Thanks for the link love yo!
“Is my move correct?”
I think it is a right move? Since at first I also thought the nofollow free thingie is good, but then kennyljs mentioned about the possibility of being penalized by Big Google, so I stopped using the nofollow plugin.
“Will you stop commenting on blogs which are not dofollow now?”
Nah, I will comment if I have something to say about the said article.
“What will you have to say about this action of Google?”
No idea. Still new to this blogging thingie. I think they do this to cut down the number of comment linkies? Some popular articles can have many comments, thus many linkies?
“If you are still on dofollow or the U Comment, I Follow program, will you add back the “nofollow” tags?”
Aye, I stopped using the nofollow plugin. So all the comments author linkies have the nofollow tag. The top commentator widget does not have the nofollow tags though.
Cheers!
December 9th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Since I never enable the DO FOLLOW tag, I expect my wordpress is setting at nofollow tag as default~
December 9th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Besides adding top commentators to encourage reader to drop comments on your blog, I recommend bloggers who are using blogger template should use HaloScan instead of Blogger Comment.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Hi Wayne,
Thank you for the nod and for what it’s worth I have never used do-follow and still manage to have a healthy comment section. I suspect you will find that the people you really want comments from will still comment regardless of the Tag. Attracting comments just for the sake of comments never struck me as a very useful enterprise.
Enjoyed your post a good luck with your new direction.
Griz.
December 9th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
How can i enable the dofollow on only my homepage?
December 9th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I hate the new Blogger comment log in form!!! Made me so inconvenient while commenting…
And thanks for the link for the top comment that I’ve always been looking for (due to my laziness, I always can’t find things). Alikatok!!
December 10th, 2007 at 12:17 am
I also have a blogger blog and I think that the a very big reason why we are not getting comments is because of the new change that google did on the form.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:10 am
I use the Wordpress option which requires a person’s first comment to be approved.
I have a links policy whereby anyone who leaves a keyword for their name has it replaced with a name that I make up, and their link removed.
I also use Lucia’s Link Love, so that people must post a certain number of times before their links are do-followed.
And I’ve stopped commenting on Blogger blogs except for those I am already friends with.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:37 am
I use DoFollow links and I’ve been thinking about changing. I’m still not sure.
December 10th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I am still on DoFollow and will not be removing the function. Come and make some comments at my site. LOL! But seriously, my blog is a piece of my sharing with others. And DoFollow is just something extra that I do. If I smell a spammy comment, I just delete it altogether. Simple as that.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I also can’t stand the spam comments. They’re so obvious and add nothing to the topic at hand.
I’m also not a fan of the new Blogger comment form. It’s irritating and only allows links to a Blogger profile. I don’t really care about dofollow and nofollow, but it’s a hassle to get to other’s sites.
December 10th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Hi Wayne,
Cute ‘Sorry’ photograph!
You do have good choice when it comes to photograph selection from flickr.
Your removing the DoFollow from blog comments is fine as absence of official statement from Google in this matter will always be a reason to worry and you never know when your blog would be punished for inadvertently breaking an unpublished rule.
and yes PR does matter for getting search results from Google.
Thanks for the linkback and honouring my comments by calling them ‘quality comments’ (I never found it such).
December 10th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Just a side comment on Google’s new comment options, they will be rolling out new commenting features soon, I think. Those with OpenId linked to their URLs will be able to comment and have their Urls linked in the comments as well.
Those with Wordpress.com blogs already have open id, so I think it’s just a matter of entering xxx.wordpress.com.
Ah crap, no need talk to much, to those of you with blogspot accounts, you can try logging in to http://draft.blogger.com and test out the new comment options with OpenId. However, I don’t recommend turning on the feature if you do accept anonymous comments.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
You don’t need an official statement. All you need to know is they, Google, started No Follow. That is REASON enough.
December 11th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I had to re-enable nofollow on my blog recently as well. Though Do Follow was great for commentors, it did not work well for SERP authority.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
@ lilian
Great to see you are “supporting” Google with that move.
@ financial hack
Well, it all depends on what a blogger thinks that which is more important. I always want to reward my commentators because as I said in my post, I don’t get many spam comments. Most of the commentators do read my articles so I felt it is necessary to reward them.
Anyway, even though I have dofollow no more in my comment section, I will still try my best to give reward in some form to my commentators.
@ dott-com
Yes, I agree but don’t you think a post without comment sometimes don’t make us feel good?
@ kljs
I don’t have any Google Adsense here and luckily for me again, my online income is not depended on Google.
The last thing I want is to get penalized for my search engine keyword rankings.
@ Deimos
Thanks for the reply and support. You truly deserved the link love!
@ Sean
If it is not, something must be wrong with Wordpress.
@ Merdurian
I haven’t done much research on Haloscan but is it because the links in the comment section is dofollow?
@ Grizzly
I was shocked and did not know what to do when I first read your article. I know that adding the plugin might be a headache for some bloggers and I doubted on my decision because my commentators don’t really spam me.
@ Neotrepreneur
I am not sure about this coding stuffs. You can either add in the “nofollow” tags in your single post.php page or have some minor tweaks to your CSS stylesheet.
Sorry, I am just not sure…
@ yung .
Yes! I helped someone again!
@ Rome
Try attracting commentators by leaving gaps for readers to answer to bait it by asking questions. Don’t make Google your boss, turn them around.
@ Linda
Thanks for the heads up on the Linda Link Love plugin. I will check it out to see whether it can do some miracles for this site.
I can see that you have a well-managed comment section and policy which most blogs out there (including mine) don’t. The great part of this is that you won’t need much explanation when you modify the comment links. Great job!
@ Steven
I can see people are commenting on your blog not because of the dofollow. If you have the reasons same as mine above, you can consider adding back the nofollow.
@ pablopabla
A site on the personal side… Spammy is a subjective description. What if your friend commented, “Wei, why your blog so nice one?” (Malaysian-style English). Is this considered as a spam?
@ Fiscal Musings
Yes, some are funny and some even have adult links in it!
Actually, when I am reading my comments, I do pay the commentator’s site a visit. These links serve as the easier way for me to network with my commentators. Now, if I am on Blogger, even if my commentators are commenting to really reply to what I have wrote, I can’t really get back to them, especially if they are new readers!
@ Jalaj
I am always lucky to find a photo that fits, maybe it is because the search term I used.
It is Google’s favorite to make people guessing.
Your comment are one of the best in my blog if I would rank it.
@ Klaw
It is still a guess on whether the links on the new OpenID commenting system will be dofollowed or nofollowed. Wordpress does not follow its link in the comment section so I don’t think Google will not include a “nofollow” after so much evil deeds that they have done.
@ Paul
You mean that they can cause negative impact on your SERPs? Wow, thanks for notifying me about that.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I will give the benefit of doubt
December 16th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
December 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I used DoFollow plugin before, but no one come to my site also. Therefore, I remove it liao lo.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
You should try to notify your readers about it so that they know that you have it enabled. Then, they will start to comment.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Yeah, even though I am and will keep using dofollow, the dofollow movement has kind of died out. Earlier this year there were hundreds of do follow blogs. Now, most of them have removed it, especially after Google started slapping websites for selling links. I’ll still be running it though, until something drastic happens as I believe it’s a way to give back to the community.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:47 am
i dofollow links in my articles, coz there’s where i got information and support my article. so i think they deserve something.
but i left the links on comments nofollow by default
December 28th, 2007 at 6:44 am
@ Ruchir
I hope you don’t mind if I ask what is the Page Rank of your blog.
People are running away from it but Google yet to make a formal announcement on this.
@ HomeBiz Resource
I should say that adding nofollow tags to links in a blog post is evil. As you say, it is where we get our information from. Also, it has been a reference for us when producing our own posts.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:09 am
@ Wayne: Sorry for the late answer, I need to use the co.mments service I guess. My blog PR is 0 because it’s only 2 months…But I have some other reasons too behind keeping my blog do-follow and still selling text links on my blog…
January 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Well, different people might have different reasons in making a decision and the best is that you like it!
January 9th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Well this is all very interesting… I enabled dofollow some time ago, though on the proviso of using the Lucia’s Linky Love plug in - at http://money.bigbucksblogger.c.....linkylove/ - in order that my commenters had to post 5 or so comments before they became follow links. The blog is too new for me to know if it’s working out yet. Though I get a ton of spam comments - Akismet has so far caught them all and only genuine comments get queued for moderation (first time poster only).
Anyhow, thanks for the info - I’ll keep an eye on the dofollow no-follow arguments in the future.
January 9th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Akismet catches spams which are being dropped on other blogs before yours which have been marked by spam by others.
If your blog is getting higher and higher in search engine rankings, you will find new spams that got through Akismet.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hi Wayne:
I understand your concerns, and can’t say that I can really argue with you on them, heh. For myself, I will continue to use the do-follow plugin, but it does bear noting that I manually approve all comments. Spam comments don’t get through. There are days where this can be time consuming, but to me it’s about the conversation. The link love is my cyber equivalent of buying you a coffee
I may change my tune at a later date, but commentors add content to my blog, and often point out things that I didn’t think of. That’s the beauty of the net.
Cheers, Marc
February 6th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I do agree that commentators help a lot in content production and adding values to a post.
Anyway, I will continue to find ways to reward my top commentators rather than giving them links in this way.
Maybe in the future, I will again be taking off the nofollow tag once again.
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hey thanks i have added no follow to couple of my blogs
March 24th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Thank you.You should try to notify your readers about it so that they know that you have it enabled. Then, they will start to comment
March 27th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Thanks for the tips. I think I’m going to enable back the “nofollow”.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
@ Chantix
I have had them disabled.
@ ChampDog
Actually, most real readers don’t comment for the sake of that one link. If I am a reader, I would rather put in some effort to climb the Top Commentators rankings as that would contribute hundreds of links to my blog.