You Comment , I Follow
By Preblogging in Blog Tips
By default Wordpress (www.wordpress.org) installations (and other blogging SW) insert a the “nofollow” attribute to links in comments. In all of my blogs I appreciate people taking the time to add their contributions. And one way of saying thanks is to allow the links to “follow”.
What does nofollow mean ?
In an effort to discourage SPAM posts on blogs and other feedback medium, in 2005 Google introduced a protocol. This protocol states that when a link has the rel=”nofollow” in the HTML, that google should not count this link as a vote or a trusted link for this website.
What does it mean for bloggers
It means that you will be encouraging people to post, and in turn will get more posts. Simple as that ! For Wordpress blogs you can install this plugin. It gives visitors a little thank you for putting their post on your site.
What does it mean for Commenters
When commenters know that they can get a valuable link back to their website, simply by adding a comment. They see that you the blogger welcomes their thoughts. It
Promote Comments
I would advise anyone, who has decided to allow links to “follow” that they show an image like below and they make it known on their blog.
Image from Randa Clay
What about Spammers
Of course you are still likely to get spammers, and I would advise you to check all the links that commenter’s post. If you find they are going to none trusted domains, simply edit out the URL in the comment.
EDIT: currently this plugin is not active here due to a conflict with another plugin.
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22 Comment(s)
By shaun | Reply
this is a very good way to promote more comments. I have been thinking of doing this with my blog as well.
By Becks | Reply
U-Comment, I-Follow may not work for every blog, but I think people in this industry will understand the importance of links and the link love !
Thanks for your comment Shaun !
By Dee | Reply
This is the best thing someone can do on their blog. You’ll be amazed at how start commenting all of a sudden lol
By Zigire | Reply
I’m a believer in removing ‘nofollow’ from links on blogs. I was disapointed when I realised WordPress had it set like that by default.
Anyway, I soon fixed that and luckily Akismet has protected me from (goes to check) !!! 19,778 spam comments
By Becks | Reply
That is a pretty high figure Zigire. How long was that over ?
Dee : I like your blog, thanks for stopping by.
Anyway it’s kida obvious when someone is only replying just to get a link.
By Zigire | Reply
Only over 11 months!
By Michael Repplinger | Reply
A bit of a double-sided sword.
If your blog is big enough, manually pruning spam comments is not an option. A default ‘nofollow’ on the other hand is stupid, too, since comments in general can and should be a valuable source for search engines.
That ‘u comment – I follow’ sign is a bit tricky, too. Posting it seems like an invitation to spam, not posting it might actually discourage comments. Honestly, I don’t know what’s better.
By Becks | Reply
True Michael, I guess for this blog which is new, it can’t hurt. But I think I will reserve the right to remove the follow links protocol at a later stage.
By Mr Daz | Reply
Adding nofollow to comments? Now there’s an idea. It was so annoying when Wikipedia went and nofollowed everything external on their site.
I’ll give it a try myself.
By BeckyS | Reply
Wordpress has nofollow by default on comments already. Funny you list on your webpage that you are into SEO though…
By G Rox | Reply
I’ll check back soon…thinking of including this feature in my blog, but am a bit concerned about what the results will be. Good luck!
By Lotus Carroll | Reply
This movement is really great. I’m going to do this on my blog.
By Lawrence Cheok | Reply
Hi Beck,
I am also thinking of encouraging comments by making this move, but at the same time, I am concern about too much spam comments which drops the quality of the blog content. What has your experience being like so far?
By BeckyS | Reply
hi,
I must admit I’ve found it only positive, and using the sign on the RHS to publicise it helps too. Any spam comments I find will be deleted, legitimate comments with spammy urls will have their URLs mangled. This is where I will add a few underscores instead of dots, i.e. http://www_johnchow_com/ which allows people to see the comment, but the link won’t get any nice PR link juice.
Thanks for the stumble Laurence !
By Marko Novak | Reply
This is how you build the community.
By Sean from AboutBlogging.Info | Reply
I already have the nofollow removed but I’m just going to start including the i follow logo as well. I think the movement is a great idea.
By Ibrahim | Reply
Great.I will make it in my blog
http://www.mrkindy.wordpress.com
By Internet Tips | Reply
I love the You Follow I comments idea.
I have always been thinking how can I attract my users to comment on my blog and this is the right way to atract them.
By CHESSNOID | Reply
I think this is a great idea. I use a commentluv plug in by FiddyP that shows comments that links to that person’s last blog post.
Cheers!
By Carolina Panthers Blog | Reply
I think do-follow adds new, refreshing points of view to a blog, making it seem more lively.
By Baindeterre | Reply
I always find comments interesting unless they are gobblygook automatics. They always add to the interest of the discussion and can always be edited out of off topic.
By Watch Anime Online | Reply
This sure is a good way to promote a blog. I am thinking on disabling nofollow on my blog too.