To DoFollow or Not To DoFollow?
That is the question … that Cube Warrior and I have been tossing back and forth lately. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, when you enter a comment on a blog, there is an option to enter a url. This url gives you a link to the site you choose. The problem is the default on Wordpress blogs is to make this link NoFollow. This means that search engines do not see this as a real linkback, and the search engines basically ignore it.
There has been a sort of cult following of blogs changing from NoFollow to DoFollow or NoNoFollow. Basically, the link in the comments passes juice, or the search engines see it as a real link. Now, I know what you are thinking, why wouldn’t every blog do this. Well, here we go …
Let’s start with the benefit, since it is easiest:
More visitors - More people will come to your site if they know they can get a link simply by commenting on your posts. You can also sign up for a bunch of search engines and directories for DoFollow blogs, so there is even more traffic (and backlinks).
Cons:
SPAM - You will get tons and tons of SPAM. Askimet will take care of a lot of it, but you will still get the people who come to your site just to leave a comment. And you will get those comments that I absolutely hate: “Great Post”.
The more outgoing links you have on your web page, the less significant it is. Basically, if you have 1 outgoing link on your page, you are only passing “juice” to that one link, so that link is getting the whole glass so to speak. If you have 100 outgoing links, now you have to divide your juice between those 100 links, and those links are getting a lot. They are still thirsty and wanting more!
So, do you make your blog DoFollow and increase the traffic, but have to waste time by going through all that SPAM? Oh, did I mention while traffic is good, returning traffic is better. And most of this traffic will not return. But there is always the possibility of “converting” this traffic into repeat traffic, and that is ALWAYS good.
So what do you think, what should Cube Warrior and I do?
Comments (4)
Web Money
August 20th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
As you probably noticed when you visited my blog Web Money all my comments are do follow. I don’t have a lot of spam comments, I get a maybe five a week which I just don’t publish. My political blog Law of Politics is also dofollow and it gets more traffic with very little spam as well. Not all of the links in my blog posts are do follow, but I do understand what you mean about the number of links in my Technorati post being bad SEO. I just try things out from time to time with that particular blog and write about what happens. Thanks for stopping by my blog, I enjoyed reading yours.
John Sullivan
August 20th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Hello
Stop by and see my some time
Let me just say the “real deal” on do follow.You can google it and see where I sit on the front page.Anyway the whole reason why I had originally got into it is because I was hoping it would access me to some cool people that were into helping each other and supporting each other.Well as far as that it has been a bust but as far as the do follow attribute and learning how to use it effectively and harness page rank there is no better or sweeter way. Google loves my blog and I’m confident I will have a PR6 if not 7. I don’t add many links but the one I do have the juice.You can google pure juice not from concentrate.Never be scared of Google.The company wants you to make plenty of money and they are not going to stop you.You can control the Google Bot. Nice site and I ever put certain links do follow right in my post.Linking is just a way to get the pure juice.
I use the mixx and searchles.You don’t need anyone but that
Thanks Keep up the great work
John Sullivan
M
September 4th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I went DoFollow a few days ago and find it to be a useful tool–especially if you are going to participate in blog carnivals. Spam has not increased by a noticeable amount, but then I don’t get monster traffic either.
A major blog may have trouble moderating comments with DoFollow enabled but for smaller personal blogs or those just starting out, I don’t think the negatives are that strong.
I also think that DoFollow is more true to the spirit of Web 2.0.
Samuel
July 31st, 2009 at 4:29 am
That was great, now where is the bookmark button…
Leave a reply