Is Your Blog Losing Visitors Because Of The Nofollow Attribute?
First off, for those of you that don’t know what I’m talking about let me explain.
Everyone is trying to increase the traffic to their website and one way is to get backlinks to their website. One great way is through commenting on other people’s blogs. The way the search engines see it is if you are getting a link from someone else’s site it basically counts as a vote and increases the PageRank value of your page. Sometimes more than others, depending on who is linking to your webpage.
Well, with the advent of the “nofollow” attribute you can kiss the value of your backlinks goodbye. By the way, WordPress by default places the nofollow attribute on all comments on your blog.
We can all thank the spammers of the world for this. It’s just another case of “Nice Guys Finish Last”.
I believe it was in 2005 that Google introduced the “nofollow” attribute. It was originally created to block search engines from following links in blog comments and the theory was that it would stop spammers from spamming your blog comments.
Guess what, it didn’t work.
In my opinion all it did was penalize the honest people that left good comments on your blog. When someone leaves a comment of value on your blog, what they are essentially doing is creating valuable content for you for free. And we’ve all heard the saying “Content is King”. Now obviously I’m talking about good comments, not the crappy one liners that say “Nice Blog”.
I believe that if someone is willing to put the effort in to post a relavant comment on your blog then it is just proper blogging etiquette to give them some link love. What I mean by that is to remove those stupid “nofollow” attributes. What you can do is replace nofollow with dofollow. Actually there’s no such thing as dofollow. Dofollow just means remove the (rel=”nofollow”) that’s in your code. The only way that I know to remove it is to install a WordPress plugin called “DoFollow”.
Here’s an example of the two hyperlinks. The first is what I will be using on my blog as soon as I download and install the dofollow plugin for WordPress.
The second is using the nofollow attribute.
<a href="http://sargentmarketing.com/blog" > Internet Marketing Tidbits</a>
<a href="http://sargentmarketing.com/blog" rel="nofollow"> Internet Marketing Tidbits</a>
In case you’re interested here’s a link to Google Support which explains how they handle the “nofollow” attribute.
Now I never said I was an expert in all of this, so I’m looking for lot’s of you to leave your comments here and hopefully shed some light on this highly controversial subject.
til next time…
Jeff Sargent
Tagged with: backlinks • nofollow • pagerank
Filed under: Internet Marketing • Traffic
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Hi Jeff, like yourself not up on all of this SEO stuff. Too bloomin complex if you ask me and we are all dependent upon the actions of an automated robot system, no grey areas, just a black and a white so no way they can evaluate each occurrence individually so block all as that is the easier action to follow.
Trust you had a good Christmas Jeff it will be back again before we even catch breath.
Still have a problem getting analytics to fly following the theme change, it reports working fine but although comments are being left it reports no visitors since 13/12.
Good job I am not a contest results charer!
Norman
Jeff,
There’s so much value in building your brand by contributing meaningful information to the world around you, that doing so just to get backlinks and SEO points is, imho, frankly, lame.
I get readers of my blog and followers on twitter because I post good stuff – stuff that makes sense and that makes people think.
I get 5-10 subscribers from every comment because people want to hear more from me. However, I get one more micro-iota of PageRank by posting on a page without the nofollow.
I post here because it makes sense to, not because I want my website to show up in SERPs better.
However, there ARE tons of robots out there which scan for blogs that allow comments and do NOT have the nofollow tag. And your blog will get hammered by them, reducing the ROI of your blogging efforts ludicrously.
The best way, imho, to reward your readers is by spending your time writing quality content rather than filtering out spam.
- Daiv http://www.Twitter.com/DaivRawks
Regarding ANY SEO stuff, imagine YOU were running Google and trying to be relevant, and how much YOU would hate the silly twerps, who were trying to use goofy tricks to cheat on the relevancy.
Keep in mind that Google spends more money on foiling SEOs, than your government spends on catching crooks.
Content counts. Anything else only works while you are below the radar of the anti-SEO formulas.
With that in mind, figure out what you want to be known for. Forget “marketing”. The big windmills have that sewn up. Pick something very specific, that you like and want to get good at, and get fanatic about that.
Have FUN!
DearWebby
Taking out nofollow if fine but just make sure that you have the appropriate anti-spam measures in place. Either use Akismet or Mollom and I also use Bad Behaviour (to stop spamming auto bots) and manually review all comments before they are published.
Get the security right and joining the “dofollow” community becomes pleasurable.
(Actually all those security tips are just as applicable to a nofollow blog as a “dofollow” one)
>Andy, I realize I may get hit with more spam and I have taken measures to help try to prevent it as much as I can. I’ve never heard of Bad Behaviour and I just finished reading about it and will be installing it later today. Thanks for the tip.
>Daiv, I do try my best to contribute valuable information to my readers and I’m not doing so just to get backlinks and SEO points. I do realize that if I continue to provide excellent content I will get all the traffic I need.
I was not aware of the robots out there which scan for blogs that allow comments and do NOT have the nofollow tag. I certainly don’t want my blog to get hammered by them, reducing the ROI of my blogging efforts. Point taken.
As I stated at the end of this post, I never said I was an expert on this subject. I have done a lot of research and come up with conflicting reports. That is one reason why I wrote this post because I was hoping to draw out the opinions of some experts so myself and my readers could learn more about this highly controversial topic.
Thanks for your input,
Jeff Sargent
Norman,
Shoot me an email and I will see if I can help you with your Google Analytics problem.
Jeff
Almost everything’s been said on previous comments – but I wanted to pick up on “nice guys finish last” – that’s just not true. Spammers are basically lazy – looking for ways to automatically blast the whole net with their “marketing” – if you are working steadily, creating good content as you go, then you will get noticed. After all – that’s what Google is looking for – good content! They’re not the bad guys, they’re just fighting the spammers like the rest of us.
FWIW – on my blog I just use Akismet to hold spam, and I moderate all comments before posting. Last thing I want on my blog is a bunch of spam comments – dofollow or not!
Gary,
You’re right about my comment of nice guys finish last.
I guess I didn’t write what I was actually thinking. What I was trying to say was that good honest hardworking people all over, not just on the internet, seems like are always having to work around or protect against the dishonest(spammers if you will)people.
If it weren’t for them there would be no need for spam plugins such as Akismet.
I do realize that Google is looking for good content and they are in a constant battle against spammers.
Thanks for you comment Gary.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for sharing the info, it is very useful for new ones like me.
Jey
http://www.jeykumara.com
Hi Jeff,
Unfortunately there isn’t ans SEO expert among us on the course, but by using Akismet and vetting each post that’s made on your blog, you soon weed out the Spam. I’ve gone one step further and installed the Ban plugin and I then block the IP address the spam is coming from.
I’m a firm believer that if you follow the basics of SEO and use your keywords in the title and through out your post, images and videos, the spiders will see this and you will get the SERPS you’re wanting.
My main concern is to provide valuable content for my readers. It seems to be working, although at the moment the majority of comments are coming from within the group.
Cheers,
Dean Hohn
Hi Jeff,
thanks for your understandable explanation. I often write quite strange sentences.
I think we should use DoFollow especially now when our blogs are quite new. It will help us all.
Also I’m thinking about using a DoFollow logo on the blog that is showing that this blog care about the visitors. What is your opinion? See more on my blog if you have time.
I wish you all a Happy Healthy Wealthy New Year
/Ali – Internet Marketing Tips
Since I don’t use WP I have to monitor my own comments. Unless Wholesale Widgets leaves something to contribute to a post I usually reject the comment. For me I don’t mind people dropping links to a post in there blog as long as it is relevant. I dislike people trying to squeeze in an extra link after they already get one in the name and URL area. Comment marketing is good for those that are sociable and I often comment on sites that implement nofollow.