I have been feeling uneasy with the comments I’ve been getting lately in my blog. While I’m comfortable giving out link juice to whomever comes by and graciously provide their thoughts, I noticed that my comments section is turning into a link farm instead, with keywords used as names when commenting. I later found out through some of the blogs I subscribe to that there is a current trend among SEO gurus to advocate commenting on DoFollow/NoNoFollow blogs by signing their web site keywords as their names.
While I understand the need for building links and some commentors’ motivation behind doing so, I have decided to disable my NoNoFollow plugin and quit the NoNoFollow community at Bumpzee. Link juice will still flow through the Top Commentators widget. I also have a number of requests to change their names from their proper ones to ones filled with keywords, which I have and would approve on a case-to-case basis. Please don’t be surprised, though, if one of these days these names will also be filtered out of the Tom Commentators list.
My recommendation to those who want to build valid back links — find other means of building them, like actually creating useful or good content that people will read. The links will follow pretty soon.
EDIT: Notice that I said keywords instead of title, so if you’re commenting and using your site’s name or URL, I have no problem with it. Most of the time 🙂
Check out my other posts: « WordPress 2.5 and Top Commentators Widget matters / 2008 Malaysian and Sabah election: my reflections »
I had a comment. Don’t really want to type the whole thing again just cause the comment verification BS didn’t like me. I am SO fed up with that stuff.
I never used nofollow, dofollow, etc. Just seemed to make something really simple, very complicated. I follow commenters when I can. I do my best, I don’t expect anyone else to do better.
I think you are doing the right thing. Dofollow is the right way to handle comments in my opinion, but the “right” way is kind of meaningless when it makes you a target for more sophisticated spammers.The thing about it is, Google can go ahead and say “oh sure, do whatever you like, dofollow or nofollow, nofollow is just a helpful tool” because they know that dofollow will be exploited relentlessly and then they can just ban all the dofollow sites for linking to bad neighborhoods. I use dofollow on some of my sites, but I definitely don’t go sign up for honey traps like NoNoFollow.
I thought about keeping my site DoFollow but the amount of spam that was slowly getting through Akismet was getting stupid. I myself have no problems putting a good, interesting blog on my blogroll, but when it comes to abusing comments then I had to draw the line.
The other day I actually had someone try to submit a comment using the name of someone that frequently posts. I caught it because I have the comment approval activated (at least for the initial comment by someone) and thought it strange that the person’s comment was not auto-approved. Personally I do not pay any attention to dofollow/nofollow. I do try to keep obivious spam to a minimum.
Hi, Webbgrrrl
How’s things?
I never did touch the NoFollow & DoFollow thingy on my WP blogs. I just delete the spams. I also choose which comments are constructive to the particular post. Then I edit the comments that have embedded links in them so that what is left is only the domain name without the link, like my signature below for example.
😀
Abas
aispecial.blogspot.com
There is no place for spammers here. You are totally right.
Good initiative. We shall found another way to fight spammers.
I use the dofollow tag I guess I do not get that many comments. I hope I’m not keyword spamming because my blog is my name.
I hate having to read blogs with 10 million comments like “thanks” or “good advice”… obviously those people don’t care to actually read the blogs, or it’s just spammer bots. Anywho, I’m one of the few that actually care to read blogs now.
Probably a good call. I kept one of my blogs “NoNoFollow” for quite a while, but I ended up spending more time sifting through the spam than actually writing posts! Anyways, hopefully this will help clean up the comment section some 🙂
Me too. Anyone who leaves a comment that isn’t attributed to either their name of the name of their site goes straight in Akismet.
Comments are not for spam.
If someone have something to say, he doesn’t think “links are with NoFollow or not?”.
So, you are doing right. IMHO 🙂
I don’t know, I like every my reader, even spammers, just use Google Captcha, thats it.
Using Captcha stops the spammers…
I also think so.
I agree with Forumistan captcha helps protect spamming.
I think that removing the NoNoFollow is good for this blog.
Cool, thanks 😀
It can encourage comments and spark conversation, but it is really aggravating when people put useless comments just to try to get a link. Top Commentors lists are pretty cool.
Nofollow comments are the way forward. They prevent people from making one unrelated comment and then leaving. The top commentators list is also a neat idea. It forces people who want to get rewarded to work for their reward. The blog owner will quickly realise who is simply going for the list as they will have keywords in their name. If people are simply commenting on your blog to get in the list then I don’t see any harm as long as their comments are on topic and are of some value to the blog as a whole.
John
I’m a huge fan of the dofollow plugin. Way to go! I think that if people are going to take the time to read your whole post and then contribute to the conversation, then they should be rewarded by getting a link to their site.