Thanks to David Airey for introducing me to a plugin that will remove the “nofollow” tags from my wordpress blog here at the WVb.
Here is what he has to say about it:
For those of you with your own blog or website, it goes without saying that you want to improve your Google page rank. You want to be easily found so you can reach a wider audience.
A very easy way to do this is by leaving a comment on my blog with your website or blog URL added to the optional ‘website’ field in the comment form.
The vast majority of blogs don’t allow this, mainly because their blogging software has “rel=nofollow†automatically added to comment URLs. Initially this was to combat spam, but with today’s spam protection I rarely get any spam comments through. So I’ve implemented a nice little plugin that removes the “nofollow†code, because I want to give you every reward I can for your valued comments and help generate more discussion.
I used the first plugin that he recommended. The plugin is called “DoFollow“. It’s very easy to implement. Just upload the plugin and activate. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
If that particular plugin doesn’t take your fancy, there’s always the Semiologic DoFollow plugin for WordPress. Alternatively, check out Andy Beard’s definitive list of all things DoFollow. Andy has been championing the DoFollow campaign for some time now.
Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal also gives these 13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck.
Do you use WordPress to power your blog? Let us know what you think of this and if you’ll be installing it too. An easy way to get some link love from the WVb!
5-9-07:
Just a small update here. If you want a nice dofollow icon to add to your sidebar, or anywhere else on your blog, be sure to check out Randa Clay Design. There are some great icons there!
Out of curiosity, is this then supposed to boost your traffic, increase the amount of comments you get or both? I’ll be interested to see the results of this move.
It allows search engines to follow the link. The more links pointing to your website, then the more popular your blog is…according to Google anyway. In order for a person to get a link back, they have to leave a comment. I get a comment, you get a link back!
thanks for the tip!!
I see you also implemented the little internal link beside the URI of your comment form. Good work!
I’m happy that you found something of use over on my blog.
Yea, that little link beside the URI was how I found the dofollow page on your blog. Pretty good thinking…putting it there. 🙂
Disabling nofollow on your blog has its advantage and disadvantage…
First, it will encourage people to post, but unfortunately, if you tell about it, it will also encourage spammers to do the same..
and other people will use specific anchor text to create links to their sites, encouraging google to boost their ranking for the anchor keyword they chose (Just like I’ve done!)
🙂
Kiltak [GAS]
Hello there.. I like your phrase link love and thank-you and your other friend for showing us how to do this. I just installed it and I am trying to get some of that link love…Take care
Thanks for the info about the dofollow plug-ins etc. Its difficult to keep up with all this stuff!
Just thought I would stop by and say hello and to let you know that I have added the do follow plug in Thanks to you and Kucau.. Have a great week…Jude
Thanks for keeping the movement going!
The potential for increased spam mentioned by ‘sexy’ is not supported by any hard figures yet, although without doubt some people will target DoFollow bloggers for the potential link juice.
There have been several discussions about the problems both real and perceived. Having implemented DoFollow, bloggers should make sure that they keep an eye on the possible human comment spam, use decent spam filters and moderate. Lucia’s Linky Love plugin was designed to deter ride by comment spammers as it enables blog owners to enable DoFollow only after a commentator has made a predetermined number of comments.
I didn’t notice any particular changes in silly comments after going DoFollow, they seemed to go neither up or down. There is a good thread about what a lot of DoFollow bloggers feel is or isn’t acceptable over at Lucia’s Big Bucks Blogger. Here’s the link for your readers’ information whichI’m sure some will find informative.
http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/dont-spam-suzy-homemaker-cultural-factors-in-the-spam-wars/
Welcome to the DoFollow NoNoFollow IFollow movement BTW 🙂
Ref above – sorry, I didn’t check the date of your post before posting 😳 Hopefully it’s not too redundant.
Great – I’m going to install this plugin on my blog – hopefully I’ll get some more comments!
I’m a bit late on this one but I got to ask you about it. I’m currently researching data for a post on dofollow and nofollow and would therefore love to find out your thoughts since changing to dofollow. Are there a lot more of spam comments no then before?