Is removing the nofollow tag from comments a good idea?
Last week SEO blogger Alysson Fergison decided to remove the nofollow tag from comments to see if it generates more discussion on her blog. She is using Michele Marcucci’s WordPress plugin NoFollow Free, which lets the blog owner remove the nofollow tag from commenters with a certain number of posts.
In the short term she said it has worked like a charm however I am interested to see how this works out for her long term.
The problems which arise from removing the nofollow tag
There are two quick and easy ways to encourage more comments on your blog. One is to add a top commenters list and the other is to remove the nofollow tag from the homepage link which commenters can add when they leave a reply. Both of these methods have similar pros and cons and both are more suited on blogs where a large percentage of readers own a website ie. web development and blogging related blogs.
Last year I used a top commentators list for a few months and I removed the nofollow tag from comments for a few weeks as well. Both methods gave similar results : Comments went up but quality of comments went down, way down. This is why the nofollow tag remains and why the top commentators list has not returned.
So why do the quality of comments usually drop? The reason is the extra people who are commentating on your blog are likely to be commentating just for that nofollow link. Whereas regular readers to your blog will want to reply to your posts with comments which continue and expand the discussion, those who are commentating because the nofollow tag has been removed have no geninue interest in contributing as their main focus is to just leave a comment so that a link to their blog is generated.
Another factor which greatly adds to this problem is the popularity of nofollow lists. These lists list all the blogs which have the nofollow tag removed from the comment area. Many bloggers are frequently visiting all the sites on the list to increase the number of backlinks to their blog. The PageRank juice you actually get from leaving a comment is incredbily low due to the number of links on the page which are getting juice. You would get more juice if you simply took the time to write a good article and then got some incoming links to it but it’s hard to actually convince many bloggers of this.
The people who are using these nofollow lists are aiming to leave comments on as many blogs as possible therefore they do not have time to actually write a good comment. Infact, many of them don’t have time to even read the post. So many of them leave replies such as ‘Great Post’ because they don’t have to take the time to read the post. When I briefly removed the nofollow tag the number of these ‘Great Post’ type posts shot through the roof.
Some tried to be cuter though. They didn’t read the post but got a general idea of the content of the post from the title and left a comment accordingly. However, this sometimes backfired. I remember doing a review of a new website which targeted bloggers and I criticized it a lot and told bloggers not to waste their time on it. Clearly, one commenter didn’t read the review because the comment which was left said something like ‘I agree with you, site X is a fantastic resource’. Needless to say I deleted the comment.
Removing the nofollow tag but moderating comments
So far I have talked about the poor quality of comments which a nofollow blog can generate though I have assumed that the blog owner is not spending time moderating comments. Alysson has installed the NoFollow Free plugin which allows you to set the number of comments which the nofollow tag is removed, so it does give her much more control.
Even though I’m sure this would improve the quality of comments a little, I would still be reluctant to go down this route.
- First of all, I think moderating comments would be time consuming. You would have to set some benchmark for the type of posts that are acceptable and you would have to pay attention to who is commenting each time. For example, if a regular reader posts great comments all the time but one day leaves a ‘Great Post’ comment you would allow it however if a blogger constantly leaves nothing but ‘Great Post’ type comments you would probably delete them, as it would clearly be an attempt to get the nofollow tag removed from their links. This is a black and white example but in practice it wouldn’t be so obvious. Regardless, it’s still prefer to use my time more productively online.
Ramon Eijkemans from Search Written thinks the same way :
It’s just that comments are not under my control because of all the spam. I have better things to do than constantly editing comments.
- The main argument many bloggers give for removing the nofollow tag is to reward their commenters. I do think that it’s good to try and reward regular readers but is this really the best way. Surely competitions or a thank you post for the top Commentators is better. Or perhaps the best way to repay commenters is to just keep writing good posts!
- As I have said many times before, I don’t think you should have to ‘bribe’ readers with the promise of some PageRank juice in order for them to comment. Surely if you write good enough posts it will generate good discussions.
Doug Heil left a great comment on Alysson’s post about this :
Good people with good intentions will comment on your blog or my forums no matter if a link is given credit by Google. If that comment is good and helpful, readers will follow that link to the owner of the site via the link. Who cares if it gets any juice from Google? I don’t. Most quality people in this industry could not care less.
Do you really want worthless comments to your blog? Do they really encourage more discussion? Surely quality is better than quantity. I’d much prefer 10 meaningful comments which contributed to the discussion than 100 poor one line responses.
- OK, this is more of a pet hate than anything else but it annoys me when commenters leave the name of their website in the comment name field or even worse, they put the kewords they are trying to mainipulate google with. I much prefer it when bloggers use their name. I mean, when replying to comments it’s much better to say ‘I diagree with your comment Peter’ than ‘I disagree with your comment Making Money Online’. I’m starting to be kinda stubborn with this and I’m certainly much more likely to respond to those who put a first name in (or nickname/alias). Am I the only one who gets annoyed by this?
I don’t want to encourage people to do this which is another reason why the nofllow tag remains on comments.
Conclusion
It will be interesting to see if Alysson’s blog does get more comments, specifically more comments which are of a good standard. Hopefully it works out for her but in my opinion those who only comment on a blog to get on the top commenters list or to get some PageRank passed to them rarely bring much to the table.
I’m sure there are some BloggingTips readers who do actively comment on nofollow free blogs so my advice to you is this : Don’t worry about PageRank and don’t waste you’re time leaving poor comments across the web. You are much better spending your time writing a good post for your readers. Also, I do think you should actively comment on other blogs if you have time. It’s a good way to network and get some links to your blog but I encourage you to take the time and write something worthwile. Remember, your comments are in many ways an advertisement for you and your blog and people are much more likely to click on your blog link if you left a good comment.
I’d love to hear what your view on the nofollow movement is. Do you think that all NoFollow blogs attract spammers or do you think it depends on the genre and how the blog owner markets his blog? Perhaps there are some bloggers who frequently comment on nofollow free blogs but make the effort to leave a comment. What do you think?
Mentioned in this article :
Sunil Pathak | September 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am #
Hi Kevin
Dofollow and Top Commentor widget are great tools for new bloggers like me who usually dont get much comments, but as you said in your post Dofollow and spamming go hand in hand, if you want more comments on your new blog you ought to deal with spam too, you cant have your cake and eat it too (at least not until you are famous)
SEOAly | September 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm #
Hey, Kevin. Thanks for the links.
I will also be interested to see how this experiment works out in the long run, too. This was a test of sorts and thus far it has gone just as I expected. Unlike you, I do have the time to moderate comments, as I’m still at the point where I read them all anyway. Comments are very important to me, as my goal with the site is to generate discussion, as well as acquire and share knowledge with small business owners.
Having industry experts like Rae Hoffman and Dave Naylor repeatedly comment on a post at SEOAly helps to boost my credibility, so the least I can do is provide them with a link or two back to their sites for taking time to do so. I still have confidence that between Akismet, the “NoFollow Free” plugin and what little manual moderation it takes (keep in mind I’ve had to manually moderate only one comment thus far) that SPAM will not be an issue. In the long run, that remains to be seen. My site hasn’t generated enough attention to have SPAM comments really be an issue at this point. I’ll be sure to write a follow-up post in the event that I’m proven wrong.
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | September 16th, 2008 at 12:30 pm #
Sunil - Thats a fair point. Dofollow may encourage comments at the start of a blogs life.
Aly - Thanks for dropping by. In hindsight my view on the nofollow movement is perhaps a little skewed/biased because of the volume of spam messages I got. It proved to be a real pain in the butt for me which is why I had to change it back. The thing is, I’d be happy to remove the nofollow tag if it didn’t attract spammers. I don’t really worry about pagerank and I’m happy to link to sites and pass on rank when I can however it just seems that a few bad apples always waste it for the rest.
It will be interesting to see how it works out for you. I wish you all the best. I’d loved to be proved wrong in this so I hope the spammers dont win :):)
Give me a buzz if you do a follow up post as I’d love to do another post about this in the future.
David Bradley | September 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm #
It might be relevant for bloggers who blog about blogging and SEO bloggers and the like, but for the wider blogosphere I don’t think the audiences really care whether their comments are follow you, follow me, or what. I’ve tweaked and twiddled with settings over the years and have never hit on anything that persuades my readers to comment more.
Oh, there is one thing, writing evocative posts about provocative subjects, that usually gets them stirred up…far more than dofollow, CommentLuv, and Top Commentators ever could.
By the way, I didn’t even look to see if you’re do or no…
Quitting The Day Job | September 16th, 2008 at 6:47 pm #
When my buddy and I first got our blog going (last month), we had a discussion about this as well. We decided against going DoFollow for now, but it is something we discuss about once a week.
If anyone cares, I actually did write a post about it:
http://www.quittingthedayjob.com/to-dofollow-or-not-to-dofollow/
Sunil Pathak | September 17th, 2008 at 12:17 am #
Hi Kevin
if you are really interested in doffolow and removed it just because of spammers
then i would suggest you to install Lucia’s Linky Love plugin
with this plugin you get full control over dofollow and nofollow
read more about this plugin here
http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/lucias-linky-love-a-dofollow-plugin-to-foil-human-comment-spammers/
chris | September 17th, 2008 at 2:14 am #
Well, it’s ture. Most people found dofollow blogs on SEO forum, which some SEOer recomended people to comment on those high PR blogs.
I think it’s not a bad way to promote a site, but the button line is you got to read their articles to show basic respect.
Good one.
Cheers
Chris
Sarah | September 17th, 2008 at 3:49 am #
I run the WebGuerrilla dofollow plugin, which allows me to be selective on who I switch the nofollow on/off for. The nofollow attribute was meant to be brought about to ’say’ to Google ‘I cannot vouch for this site’. Some people will use extensions to highligh nofollowed links on a page, what happens if these people start avoiding nofollowed links? I’d rather just use nofollow on links I can’t vouch for or don’t trust.
Not at all. I’ve even written by my comments form ‘Please use your real name or nickname, otherwise I will change it if I feel it necessary’. I don’t want comments from ‘SEO Blog’ or other site titles. So I’ll either find out the commentator’s name or else use ‘Anon’.
Andre Thomas | September 17th, 2008 at 4:27 am #
Wait a minute… I thought this blog is a dofollow blog!
Anyway, I think nofollow is definitely the way to go for established websites like bloggingtips.com because you guys receive tons of spam.
But for new blogs, comments are like cash. It’s pretty encouraging to actually see people comment, even though it’s just “nice post”.
How about implementing commentluv here? Make it nofollow, but at least show the commenter’s last blog post. That’d be cool.
Quitting The Day Job | September 17th, 2008 at 7:24 am #
@andre - What do you mean comments are like cash? I don’t care if I get comments, I would take 50 repeat visitors over 100 comments. Also, if you highlight over your name on this blog, there is something like CommentLuv.
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | September 17th, 2008 at 7:44 am #
David - I agree 100%. Most people don’t care if a comment link is nofollow.
Quitting The Day Job - Arghhhh. Why didn’t you use your first name haha
It sounds like you’re not interested in using dofollow. May I ask a serious question though, why do you use your website name instead of your first name?
Sunil - The Lucia’s Linky Love plugin looks ok. Again, similar to the plugin I mentioned in the post, it does seem like you will have to actively monitor comments to make sure no one is trying to beat the system.
Chris - Thanks for commenting. I’m actually surprised that Search engine optimisers would promote this kind of thing. I know there are some benefits as far as promoting certain keywords etc but still, you would think that they would encourage bloggers to spend more time writing posts.
Sarah - Thats actually a good idea. Perhaps I should change those who put their keywords as their name to ‘Anon’. Their is no benefit in putting keywords here as the nofollow tag is still there but it continues to happen.
Andre - Yeah, if you hover over the links you can see the last 3 comments from the commenter and their last blog post. This is not as obvious as commentluv however I was under the impression thar commentluv adds to the loading time of a page greatly.
Andre Thomas | September 17th, 2008 at 8:39 am #
@ Quitting the day job - Sure 50 repeat visitors would be nice, but if you’re running a new blog, every time you make post and you try to encourage yet none is coming in… it can be quite discouraging. It’s like you’re talking to yourself when in fact you’re trying to start a conversation.
My other blogs get lots of comments but this new one is a head scratcher.
@Kevin - I didn’t know commentluv greatly adds to the loading time of a page. I will look into that. But that hover thing, I didn’t even know it’s there!
Sarah | September 18th, 2008 at 5:13 am #
thanks for this plugin , i have now added your plugin to my blog
College Betting Fan | September 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm #
There can also be little things that you can change to encourage commenting:
instead of a link saying “No Comments” use something more along the lines of “Be the First to Comment”.
And definitively dofollow will help. Not every one is a comment spammer and receiving a little link-love for your comment is a nice trade.
Plus, if you have a strong blog, and you only allow links to original content sites, you should be fine.
If “pr-bleeding” is so terrible, then how do social bookmarking sites rank?
Quitting The Day Job | September 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm #
@Kevin - I currently have a job, and I would like to keep it until I have the means to quit. This being the case, I don’t want my current job to find out that I run a side business and that I have a blog dedicated to me leaving my job.
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | September 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm #
I appreciate that but, unless your employers are physic, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’m not suggesting commenters leave their full name and address, just a first name would be better.
Joshua Dorkin | September 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm #
No Follow has brought me nothing but garbage posts from people who don’t even read our articles. They just make stupid remarks in response to the post title in order to get a link back to their site. NoFollow has been somewhat of a disaster.
Referáty | September 20th, 2008 at 1:16 pm #
I have removed the nofollow tag but after I read this article I will think about adding this tag. Thanks.
Tinh | September 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm #
Nofollow tag should only be removed for regular readers and contributors, not for all. T
Ramon Eijkemans | September 23rd, 2008 at 7:14 am #
I find much more value in providing good comments on blogs and maybe even get some feedback from them. However - and unfortunately - I have seen examples of comment spam that actually work. I watch SERPs all day long due to the nature of my profession, so I’m a bit pessimistic about that.
My 2c: nofollow all your comments but give something else back to those who comment regularly or those you just plain like enough to give something. Think about writing a review about their blog/website, following/commenting on their twitter account, talk to them at a conference, IM, whatever. At least that is something you can control..
p.s.: Kevin I wonder: what do you think about the ‘house’ metaphor I used
Live Your Way | September 26th, 2008 at 1:43 pm #
Kevin,
Great Post.
Regards,
Richard
Just Kidding! I realize that I have broken your pet peeve rule by putting the name of my blog in the “name” field, but, as you stated, it will get me no link love since “no follow” is turned on.
I did enjoy this post (especially about people who “guessed” the content and guessed wrong!). I was considering getting the plugin to turn off “no follow” but after reading this article, I am hesitant.
I will follow Alysson’s feedback to see how it works on her site.
Again, thanks for the info!
Signed,
Live Your Way…ok, Richard
Swisher Sweetie (Wendy) | October 4th, 2008 at 12:16 am #
I am a bit confuse as to how using the NoFollow Free WP plugin gets people to comment more. Do they magically find out that your blog is DoFollow now?
Aside question: what WP plugin or Blogger gadget/hack do I need to be able to respond to comments and have them look like they are from me, the moderator of the blog? Which one do you use here?