Image Source: Catch me if you can! – This image is modified from the original “follow me” I took in Mexico.
Just few months ago, I turned of the do-follow plug-in in the WordPress. My original purpose was to reduce the spam comments on my blog. Yes. My spam comments have since drop 80% in the past few months. Today I was informed by one of my readers who really want to get a quality link back to his web site or blog. I thought it will be a great idea to turn it back on. The question is this.
Do you leave comment on my blog, because I do follow?
If you read my blog for sometime, you probably know that I care about my blog readers so much. I want to know who reads my blog and who is commenting. The feedbacks from my readers are very important to me. It helps me to how much help my blog can provide to my readers. Read about “Who is reading your blog? Why do you care?”
So I have turned my do-follow plug-in on once again! Will that make my readers happier?
I doubt! According to my stat counter log, 80% of my readers are new to my blog. They found my blog through the search engines. Obviously, they find something useful on my blog. Most of the reader who left comments is a blogger as well. This got me thinking that many of them are still trying to get some decent traffic or quality backlinks to their blog. So do I. However, I no longer pay too much attention on building quality backlinks. Why?
It’s wasting time on leaving useless comments on other blogger’s blog for just backlinks. I blog because I like to blog. I want people to read my blog and interact with me. I visit their blog not because I have do-follow link to their blog. It’s because that I like to see what their blog has to offer.
I do follow. Do you?
I follow your comment and read your blog. Do you do the same to your readers? Blog is not just about making money online. It’s also about building your readership and network with your readers. When your reader becomes your virtual Internet best buddy, it makes me feel great. If you are writing blog about yourself, you should read my post about “Who are you writing blog for? Simply don’t take it personally.”
Do you follow me?
If you are a blogger seeking a quality backlinks, you should seriously rethink about your strategies. You should start communicate with the owners of the blogs you read. You should also try something different to build your page rank with RSS feed. You can read my post about “Increase Google Page Ranking with RSS FEED – No buying, selling and bribing“. I encourage my readers to subscribe to my feed and email. I also encourage them to leave comments. If you do so, I am sure that I will follow you back.
I entirely agree with you and I am sure that you will find my personal case as something that motivates you to take this stand. I strongly believe that a blog is something for the blogger to build a community of people who like the blogger’s communications and are willing to spend time on them. This enables the blogger and the serious visitor to establish an online relationship, which, given the right circumstances can flourish into a life long association. It has happened to me and today, thanks to blogging, I have three online friends who have also become personal friends after we met personally. I am sure that sooner than later, we shall meet and I look forward to that day.
@Dining Tables:
Thank you. You have been supportive to my blog. I am sure we will meet some day. It’s a small world after all.
I use a slightly different plug-in called “LinkLove.” After x number of comments, the no-follow reference is removed for that user. You can set that number to whatever you like.
I think it helps build a community of readers better because people have to return and comment to earn the do-follow. That way too, it helps reduce a little bit the fly-by “Nice Blog!” commenters that you’ll never see again.
Maybe it helps deter spammers too. I’m not sure. With Akismet, LinkLove and moderation for first time commenters, I don’t have too much of a problem with spam. So far.
@DCR:
I actually tried LinkLove a long time ago. I decided to just turn off nofollow. I do hate those “Nice blog” and “Nice post” comments. I started deleting those comments, if they post the same thing the second times.
I usually add those blogs or site that I like to my links pages.
I also found people using the same IP posting different comments for different links. I will delete them as well.
Hi Terence – I don’t think most people leave a comment on a blog because you do follow. Many people don’t even understand it.
I use do follow to reward people who do comment and also, when I link to people, they can see that I’ve linked.
To me, it’s worth the hassle of deleting the comment spam to have do follow.
Mind you, I didn’t list my blog on Courtney’s list. Many people who did that did complain about getting a lot of spam.
@CatherineL:
Few months ago, I was getting so many (400+) junk comments saying “Great post” or “Nice article” before I turn on nofollow. Ever since I turn on nofollow, the number of my comments drop dramatically. It seems to me that my do-follow and PR attract a lot of spam comments. I have turn do-follow on and see how many spam comments come in again.
I don’t even know what Courtney’s list is about. I do know people subscribe to my blog with splug programs. I am getting more than 100 spamming trackbacks a day.
Hi Terence,
I have been thinking about the exact same thing, before deciding to plug-in the do-follow to see how things went. Would I comment on a do-follow blog to get the back link? I would, but only if I feel my comment actually adds something to the blog or, in your case with this post, is responding to the questions the blogger asks his visitors. As you might now, I have only been running my blog for a few weeks so I am trying out a lot of different things, but also learning a lot from actually running the blog.
So before commenting I normally ask myself whether I would like to see that comment on my own blog (positive or negative does not matter, aslong as it is productive to the blogger) and I normally don´t even check whether a blog is “do or no” follow
great photo for the ‘i follow’. i wonder if a lot of people notice it?
@SEO Strategies:
Thank you for the kind words. That was a funny photo I took a while back in Mexico.
Hello Terence,…How are you..? Hmmmm so you made your blog Do-flow enabled finally…That’s really great and i do understand that making a blog do flow enable will result in excessive bombardment of spam comments, Coz i used to get like over 100 spam comments per day, so you know what i did, i just black listed all the unrelated words and word parses that has nothing to do with my blog, So i hardly get any rubbish comments from porn sites, drug sites, and all other junk,…..Lot of people are stingy to spread their PR to others, but i see it as a good thing and besides PR is no longer an important factor compared to wot it was few years back…
@Dev:
I have do-follow for a long time before I disabled it. I have since reduce the amount of junk comments. After I turn it on for few days, I can see my junk comments grows. I may turn the dofollow off again, if I find no better way to get rid of it.
What plugin you used to block certain keywords?
Thanks!
Well its not a plugin, if your using a wordpress blog, then you can find this particular tool called “Comment Blacklist” under options >> Discussion and so you can black list any word or phrase which is not related to your blog, For example i have list of drug names such as fioricet, Cialis, xanax, Hydrocodone etc etc So once you blacklist these words, you wont get anything under the same name again…
@Dev:
Great tips! I was wondering why I have never used it. I guess if I use those keywords or phrase, I won’t be able to see this comments you just left.
I will give it a try! Thanks!
well it may stay there since the comment is already posted, but you wont get any further comments with those words ever again..
Thats for sure…
@Dev:
You are right. I will give it a try.
I think it’s important to have the ability to follow a blogger’s comment back to their site. A lot of the blogs that I read were found through another blog. Usually it’s because they write an intelligent comment or a new idea I hadn’t thought of.
The Akismet plugin for WordPress has only allowed 4 spam comments on my site and has filtered 5,888 spam comments in total!
@Lewis Empire:
You are right. I don’t know how I can blog without Akismet. I will also try to add some keywords and key phrases. I follow every comments to their site before delete them or block them.
It’s also a great way to find a great blogs to subscribe to!
Thank you for stopping by!
I very much like the option of spam filters rather than opting for nofollow. I’ve noticed that there is starting to be quite a few communities of dofollow bloggers who all read and respond to one another’s blogs and know each other and know of each other through this. In other words, there’s a trust relationship between all these guys, which is ironically enough, what Google intended by introducing nofollow – for dofollow links to represent trust.
Will Google gonna penalized those dofollow tag?
@Leeds Guy:
The do-follow did give me a lot of troubles in terms of spam. Just by enabling it, I got more spam in the past few days. I will keep watching this going and decide my final action.
@icetech:
Thank you for stopping, I think Google will penalize your blog if you dofollow some known pay text link. So watch carefully about who comments your blog.
Hi Terence,
I originally found your site from the BUMPzee DoFollow community and I definitely like getting the link – but if you remove it, I’ll keep commenting.
The link isn’t the only important thing – having said that, when I have limited time and want to comment on two blogs and one is DoFollow and one isn’t – I may comment on the DoFollow one first.
Do you use the Simple Trackback Validation plugin? I found lots of my spam was actually trackback spam and this cuts it right out.
I do get a lot of people still trying to spam, but it’s not too bad. I’m committed to keeping my blog DoFollow for the forseeable future – although I may toughen up my policy about deleting borderline spam.
@Stephen:
I think you just point me out a new way to prevent spam. I actually got more comments by just enable do-follow. However, most of the comments are just like “Great information …” and some lengthy comment that point to new SEO blogs.
I agree with you. I think I will add more restrictions to the comment policy.
Hey Terence,
I found your blog through a search engine that looks for dofollow blogs. When i started blogging, I used to comment a lot on blogs as I was getting backlinks but then I started making some good blog friends as I would actually read what they had to say everyday and I could actually get into a conversation and exchange ideas, just like we are doing on this blog post. The positive spin to the dofollow tag is that it fosters relationships.
@Ajay Shroff:
You are right. Communicate with the author, readers and get involved in a conversation will bring you more than just a backlink. It give you more credit for long run. Thank you for visiting.
Terence you and Ajay Both are right, Commenting on Dofollow Blog fruitful for Both Readers and Authors too. Sometimes Great Authors might left some important topic on his post, But the Real expert visitor can add that point by doing a comment. And for this precious links it’s good to give him a back links. What do you think Terence?
@John:
I agree with you. So be the expert blogger and leave great comment here.
Thank you for stopping by!
I just installed my anti-spam plugin and I am thinking about taking off the nofollow (I have to figure out how to do that).
I think I will get a lot of visitors who will be interested only in getting a backlink but if I do a good job I will keep some of those readers.
It´s up to me to make my readers keep coming back.
Thank you for all the info.
I agree with everyone when they say that it helps the readers and the author. I think going to a DO-Follow blog, really encourages people to stop by, take a look, and possibly make a relevant comment. I am thinking about switching my own blog over to Do-Follow in the next couple days. I have been googling the idea, and that is how I managed to come up on this site.
I agree with everyone when they say that it helps the readers and the author. I think going to a DO-Follow blog, really encourages people to stop by, take a look, and possibly make a relevant comment. I am thinking about switching my own blog over to Do-Follow in the next couple days. I have been googling the idea, and that is how I managed to come up on this site.
Terrence,
I am glad you turned back on your do follow, because honestly that is how I found you. I am an advocate because the people that post relevant content on my site usually have fantastic blogs. Those blogs provide me a great source of information and continue to build my social network.
From blogging, I now have a team of 10 bloggers working together, have built a consultancy, have a book deal, and best of all meet great people each and every day.
The little amount of juice I get from SEO is nothing compared to all of that. I have made $150 on my blog in over 1 year, what matters is the amount of offline opportunity having great content to share has brought.
Keep posting great works and I will keep coming back.