To Follow Or NoFollow?
Virtually all blogs that were set up since early 2005 automatically apply the "nofollow" attribute to comments and pingbacks. This attribute basically instructs search engines to ignore the links provided by blog commentators when calculating the link destination's pagerank.
Nofollow was introduced and promoted by Google to combat the phenomenon of comment spam which was plaguing millions of blogs around the world. Spammers were bombarding blogs with fake comments in the hope of getting credit for the backlinks to their websites (or so Google believed), thereby improving their own search engine rankings.
Two years later, it has become obvious that nofollow didn't stop comment spam. Instead, it turned out that spammers are spamming blogs to get direct traffic and not necessarily to improve their search engine rankings.
Apart from not having achieving its declared goal, nofollow has had some unintended consequences. Wikipedia now applies nofollow to all outgoing links, thereby retaining the "link energy" it receives from the millions of sites that link to it. The result? Wikipedia becomes even more popular and dominant in search engine results while continually pushing down other sites. It is not inconceivable that someday soon a Wikipedia entry about a person or company could rank higher in search engine results than the entity's website itself.
Meanwhile, anti-spam software for blogs has become so advanced that it actually catches 95% of all spam attempts. The Daily Domainer uses Spam Karma 2 for Wordpress and we're extremely satisfied with it.
To reflect this technological advance and to reward all our commentators who make valuable contributions to discussions on our blog, we have deactivated the nofollow attribute.
This means that if you submit a comment to any of the posts on this blog and include a link to your website, it will count as a valuable backlink and improve your search engine rankings. The same applies if you talk about one of the Daily Domainer's articles on your blog and send us a pingback (your blogging software will usually do this automatically).
Hi Rene, thanks for implementing this change. I recently did the same thing on my blog, but using Kimmo Suominem's DoFollow plugin, which allows you to disable nofollow after a comment has been on your site for a specified length of time.
This way, if any comment spam gets through temporarily, it'll probably be removed before the spammer can get any google juice. Which plugin did you use?
Isn't it just special how Google bas basically outsourced the job of identifying link spam to blog owners rather than coming up with a better algorithm?
It is such a shame that Wikipedia has started to use nofollow as trends are leaning towards disabling nofollow on blogs now!
Like Jonathon, I recently added the dofollow plugin to my site, choosing Kimmo Suominem's incarnation of it. Being given time to check that no spma does slip through the net was the decision maker for me. We don't want to gift any spammer a free link, even for a day or two, but holding back the benefit from real commenters that add value to the conversation is too much. I think Kimmo struck the perfect compromise.
[...] Daily Domainer discusses the apparent failure of the nofollow tag and wikipedia's decision to apply it to all [...]
If Wikipedia does that, everyone linking to Wikipedia should do the same.
I'm not sure that's a fair complaint. Google was trying to help blog owners get less spam, assuming that if there was less incentivre to spam, it would decrease.
re: which plugin, you don't really need a plugin. You can edit the theme and remove the no follow part.
I want to be more popular and dominant in search engine results too! Sounds like NOFOLLOW is just the ticket!
yeah… those stupid wiki’s!
wonder what happen if we all use nofollow to them?
Have a good one.
Just Follow!. nofollow is a waste
nofollow = fail. Also, the nofollow does carry some link juice, but just not as much… so I hear.
@design nottingham- Nofollow hasn't failed, in fact it is quite the opposite in my opinion. Google, Yahoo, and most major search engines use it, as well as some of the biggest platforms on the web including Wordpress and many forum software(of course you can always bypass it, but by default the comment links are nofollow.)
"If Wikipedia does that, everyone linking to Wikipedia should do the same." even if this was to happen they would still own google ranking as i think there is an affiliation between the two companies!
If wiki is doing that, everyone who links to wiki should also do that.
[...] is why you need to do it from a small/new business perspective. If you keep the nofollow tags and aloofly say “I don’t want to deal with comment spam,” this screams you are just lazy [...]
Nofollow is okay, but I use akismit for my spam control. Hasn't failed me yet.
@bootleg movie download, PR is not the issue here, anchor text credit is. I would rather get a little juice than no juice. nofollow = no juice. Sure, I want to link back to my site, and sure the article may not be relevant, but I'm *not* posting to get a relevant backlink, I'm posting as I am now because I have something to add and in the process I want to say, "here I am".
But I think something else is being overlooked here. Comments usually appear on the same page of the article, google gives juice to pages with fresh content. So when we comment, we are helping their article to gain more popularity, what's wrong with getting a little juice back for that. A community of sharing is much better than a community of hogging. Hogs include myspace for using MSP Links (you cant even credit your own website using your own myspace profile) and wikipedia.com, and all those sites using nofollow.
Kudos to Daily Domainer for sharing.
I like the nofollow tag because it did stop the initial spam posts. It combined with the rest of the anti spam plugins just make my blog more "real" user friendly.
great post
nofollow will not stop the spam
I personaly am a total believer of dofollow. Although the spam comments are hard to deal with, it is still a freedom of internet users at stake.
I don't like nofollow attribute:(
we just installed the plugin on our sites. its a great movement. thank you admin
I never thought that dofollow would be so popular about 2 years ago.
I understand why google started using the nofollow but its not working as it should for blogs etc. Its a great tool for helping keep PR on your pages if you have alot of advertisers.
Obviously to do-follow:)
Offcourse to follow. Everyone loves dofollow
I think one possible solution, is for Google to penalize sites that excessively use nofollow, this would apply to sites that automatically use them for all outbound links. If they don't want to share juice, then they should get less juice.
Why google should ban such sites? It's the right of the site's owner to set do-follow or no-follow!
I didn't say ban, I said penalize… with less popularity.
its the right of the blog owner, they can default it to no-follow but most of the time its their choice
I believe it´s the owner´s choice too; however, I do think that bad taste spam should be all deleted and that tasteful comments, even from spammers, should be allowed. Think about it: careful comments increase the blog´s popularity and their own. It´s a give and take situation.
this one sounds interesting… thanks for sharing.
I was unaware of this function. Now back to the drawing board and start tweaking stuff on my blog. Thanks for the tips.
dofollow or no-follow they do whatever they want!
Google sometimes confuses real traffic as spammers.
goggle will do all yo stop it i'm sure of that
i think goggle will only take standard measures
Does Yahoo counts no-follow links ? Also do they help in search engine rankings? Thanx .the nofollow tag because it did stop the initial spam posts. It combined with the rest of the anti spam plugins just make my blog more "real" user friendly.Thanks….
Do-follow help to make your blog more popular, and also promotes you ranks in search engine ranking.
Im pretty new to the blogging world and i wasnt really aware of this , thanks for the tips and information. Looks like i still have alot of reading to do.
Use DoFollow, you wont be at a loss… Highly recommended.
I am starting to come around and understand the nofollow attribute. It can be used in several advantageous ways, but its also posing new problems.
The choice would be rather more spams or more hits !!!
spam is causing a real traffic jam but without dofollow there can be no traffic as well.
nofollow is useless
I guess no follow does have its importance stopping spam as most of the spammers search for high pr dofollow blogs only, no follows are completely left out. Anyways cool post.
The quality of post on our blogs have increased since installing the dofollow plugin. You'll always have that percentage of users that try to abuse it.
What i think its better to go for do-follow as in case of do-follow serious commenter will comment in pretty decent way, bcoz most of the time do-follow is moderated by webmasters.
Google was working on a beta of their own wikipedia and was putting wiki's content on their own beta (new) pages and were not only outranking wiki, but they were also PR 10's. Do-follow, No-follow…. it's the Google Monster that decides what goes on.
[...] advice is to be do follow! This link would help you for more information –> To Follow Or NoFollow? __________________ Get $1 for one referral I offer yahoo answers,do follow blog commenting [...]
everyone who links to wiki should also do that.
follo atribute is the most faviourite.Nice post
i should buy this book.intresting and very nice to read.
Every one like Do Follow because No Follow waste our time Nice Post
No one likes no-follow. No-follow will get you nothing. Instead you will loose the visitors and get off from good knowledge which you are sure to get from visitors and their comments. There will be no scarcity of spams by no-follow. You need to give something in place to get something. That what the whole world follows. I think matt cutt should also understand this thing.
Thanks for the information. Nice article. I would be following your blog regularly from now on.
I came across your site while searching on Bing and have now added you to my rss reader. I Just though i should say keep up the good work and pass on congratulations on a job well done and great advice too!
Thanks for the information. Nice article. I would be following your blog regularly from now on.
Yeah its really very nice and informative article. thanks for sharing with us..
thanks for this useful article.
the nofollow blog are basically doesnot pass link juice so that spammer are not using it.
I understand why google started using the nofollow but its not working as it should for blogs etc. Its a great tool for helping keep PR on your pages if you have alot of advertisers.thanks
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nofollow has had some unintended consequences.Wikipedia now applies nofollow to all outgoing links which is very good to share in the blog.
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If wiki is doing that, everyone who links to wiki should also do that.
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