The Many Reasons Why You Should Allow DoFollow Commenting on Your Blog (I’ll be Frank)
Blogtap has officially gone dofollow commenting today. That means that anyone can steal Blogtap’s precious PR juice simply by commenting with a website link.
Yup, the PR vampires will be here any minute now. They will bombard my comment queue with their under-thought and overly appreciative (e.g. “great post man!”), witless comments. I say bring it on. I say open the floodgate. And here’s why:
- A mindless gang of middle-eastern SEOers is better company than none.*
- Although many of the comments will be vapid and unsubstantial, I need commenters to get the conversation going, to break the ice on uncommented posts. I might be able to tell the difference between a comment posted for the sake of building backlinks to another site but many drive-by visitors will not.
- By enabling dofollow commenting, Blogtap now qualifies to be included in dofollow blog directories. This means more backlinks and referral traffic to Blogtap from dofollow directories.
- Some individuals who comment just to build backlinks to their website end up becoming legitimate readers of the blog they exploit. I know that because I am one of them!
- Many commenters see the dofollow link as a perk and don’t comment only for the link. This is the idea behind plugins like CommentLuv and KeywordLuv which allow commenters to include keywords in the anchor text of the comment author link. Blogtap now features a “We Spread Love” badge in the sidebar which should really say “We Spread Love if You Give Love First.” Visitors can give love by posting well-thought, substantial comments and THEN receive love by having their comment approved and posted.
I doubt most bloggers are frank with their reasonings behind enabling dofollow commenting. Those are my reasonings. Maybe one day when Blogtap is popular enough and has a dedicated interactive readership, I will disable dofollow commenting. Let’s hope that day comes during this century.
*I apologize for perpetuating the little-known racial stereotype that middle-eastern people tend to set up crappy make money online websites and spam other websites to build links to them.
Tags: link building, plugins, traffic
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“Some individuals who comment just to build backlinks to their website end up becoming legitimate readers of the blog they exploit. I know that because I am one of them!”
lol!!
This is true!
The EXACT same thing happens with me too!
You know what, it’s not just you, but it happens to MANY people (well, real people that is)….
I have to give it to you Chris, you were VERY frank in this post….I haven’t seen many posts that go as far as you have gone…
I think I will be hooked to your blog now!
Cheers,
Nabeel.
Nabeel, I am glad that statement rang true for you.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of your comments
.
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the reply.
I just noticed something.
There is no option/check box for “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” ?
Don’t you think it will help people to stay updated on the comments?
Just my suggestion…
Ah, yes — about that. I had been planning to implement a feature like that for a long time now. I will certainly get around to that very soon. Thanks for pointing that out.
BTW, Found this blog through Blogussion (Alex).
Your guest post regarding ‘a marketing plan’ was powerful enough to drive me to your blog.
Nabeel.
Let’s keep this short — dofollow, or no dofollow — it’s the content that matters, chris!
Well said, my friend.
I had recently read an article advocating “do follow” links to better determine relevancy for both the sites involved. They had actually tested 2 groups of similar pages against each other; the difference being that one group used “nofollow” and the other used do follow. The group with outgoing links supposedly performed better.
Anyway, still protect yourself against blatant spam links to “bad neighborhoods.” I get occasional spam on my blog to gambling links and chinese sites, so everyone should always keep an eye out for those!
Naww man! Dofollow is a must. I am saying it because ive experienced it. And seriously since every one is being honest here, so Nabeel im also a part of your team. Cheers!
SEO is not a mystery, it just takes a long time to get it right, then when you understand it, it changes, but that’s OK, it keeps me happily employed and makes it fun and challenging. who likes a job where you do the same boring thing everyday anyway? Google is awesome at sharing tips and insights for SEO but reading some books don’t hurt either!.Thanks.
Another benefit is increased (or in the case of older posts, maintained) crawl rate due to constantly updated content.
Are you not worried about sucking link juice?
I hope the smart guys at the top come with better solutions to this problem, cuz this is not the best one to stop spamming and poor comments. So what if someone tell you “Great work” an that’s it. For one I’d love to hear just those 2 words every day.
Dofollow has more benefits overall for the owner and readers than Nofollow. I had a blog 2 years ago on self help and stuff. I will start blogging again and it will be Dofollow.
so Great work Chris
I still haven’t made my blog dofollow but will make it when my blog’s PR will reach 4. Hope I will achieve that…
I think making your blog dofollow will help it get to PR4 faster. Many people link back to their dofollow links giving you more backlinks.
Hello, i was just doing a google search for “should i allow dofollow on my blog” and i came across your blog.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it has helped me with my decision. But what is your option on obvious posts made with automated software? Im getting comments like “good work keep it up”. So far i have not allowed these comments, do you?
So you don’t think having a bunch of do follow links will hurt ranking on the site? My first thought was that having a ton of outbound links would hurt google page rank… however that may not be the case, especially with the additional traffic from link posters becoming a reader of the blog.
I’m actually in discussions right now whether or not I should allow comments on my website with dofollow links. The only benifit I see to it is that you’ll get the interaction on your site. Otherwise, I see it as a “pain in the neck” (no pun intended) when it comes to dealing with spammers and their software. However, I am leaning toward giving it a shot. I guess I can always undo the dofollow, huh? I guess you’re reasoning worked on me.
Terence
You can alway undo the settings. With some plugin to control the spamers and change the comments mode to need approval, it’s much better.
You’ll have more commenters, but only quality comments will be published.
Yes, that’s pretty much what I waas thinking
hello,
I have one question about dofollow and nofollow tags. If i placed my website link on dofollow website then this is benefit or loss for me
thanks
Dofollow links means better page rank so it’s good for your page.