Category: Here’s me trying my hand at explaining the ramifications of these terms. First two words have something to do with comment links (you can argue that these two words may pertain to any link and you will be right, but in this case I am limiting my explanation to the links found in the comments area) while the last one goes well with hotdogs and bonfires and is generally considered delicious.
Ok, here we go.
Most blogging platforms are inherently NoFollow, which means that any link (usually author’s URL) included in a comment will not pass PageRank. I say most because I haven’t tried out all the blogging platforms out there. And even if I say “All” I could still be wrong. Either way I’m screwed. The relevance of not passing PageRank is that the link that you included in a comment that you made will not have any value as far as your PageRank is concerned.
We all know that backlinks are supposed to count as a vote of approval for your blog, however if that backlink is NoFollow, it’s like shooting blanks. Alright control your overactive imagination. Now what it doesn’t mean however is that search engines will not crawl these nofollow links, they will, and they’ll come a-knockin’ on your door, but that’s just it. Although these links are still counted as one of your backlinks, they’re just not that valuable.
DoFollow links on the other hand are the kind of links you want. Spiders crawl them and they’re considered an affirmative vote in your favor. So if you’re on a link building mission with the intent of skyrocketing your PageRank via a commenting strategy, you would be much better off seeking out those DoFollow blogs. Here’s a DoFollow community that you could join to get you started.
So You Want Your Blog To Be DoFollow Eh?
A bit of caution on this one. DoFollow blogs are easy target for spammers so I recommend that you enable comment moderation for you to sort out which ones to grant your precious Dofollow link. If you don’t have the stomach for this, better stick to nofollow. Still there’s a valid argument to be made for making your blog DoFollow. For one, it motivates your regular readers to comment which could result to a lovely discussion on your posts. Fair enough?
Now, if you use WordPress, you’re in luck. There are a lot of DoFollow plugins out there starting with this one. Or if you want to make things a bit more manageable(remember my note on spamming? this is a good tool to mitigate that), you can use this one– this is an interesting plugin that only activates DoFollow for commenters after they’ve posted a number of comments. Very nice huh?
Now if you’re on blogspot, go switch to WordPress!
Kidding. Actually here’s this tutorial for blogger’s beta template that you can use. It’s actually very easy to follow. Again, better turn on that comment moderation thing before you do this.
But What About CommentLuv?
What about it? It parses the visitors last blog post and that’s it. Unless the DoFollow plugin is installed, it’s still NoFollow.
You may want to read the following related posts as well:
- Me Linky Love You Long Time
- Free WordPress SEO eBook
- Migration From Beta Blogger To WordPress
- Make Entrecard Work For You
- The Sinister Agenda
- Comment Until Your Fingers Bleed
- Page Rank Leakage
About the Author
3WG has written 377 articles for Third World Geek.
mate, is this blog of yours nofollow or do follow?
anyway, whatever it is, i’d still leave a comment on every great post I read!
cebloggers last blog post..What Keeps You From Posting Regularly?
Great post! Nalooy ko nimo that’s why I am here lol! blog hopping gikan sa bisdakplanet. You did a good job with this entry. It’s easy to understand. Keep them coming! Unique kaayo ang website name “Third World Geek.” :)
Happy Tuesday,
Anah
ANahs last blog post..It Happens Everywhere
NoFollow, DoFollow, MarshMallow:
That is seriously amazing i am searching blogs with do follow links. But most of the blogs use nofollow tag in their comments section.
Great stuff. There are a zillion ways to find Do Follows now, but ya gotta work ‘em, like anything else.
Senior Life Insurances last blog post..Cashing In On Your Life Insurance
Until today I didn´t know that there were blogs with do follow in their comments. I didn´t see a point of changing the wordpress default.
Now I just turned my blog in a do follow blog.
Claudias last blog post..Do follow in comments
Hi, cool post. I have just bookmark it!
Now that\’s something to ruminate over. Glad I stopped by. Keep up the good work…
need to think about making my blog dofollow.
it would be so much annoying to moderate spam comments.
The only bad part that I see about dofollow is that you get those silly comments that are automatically created with generic “Great post” style wordings.
“That really made me think…”
“I don’t normally post comments, but this post was just…”
You know the ones I’m talking about.
I just can’t stand them.
My two cents. Thanks for sharing!
JD Ruckers last blog post..The Handsfree Presentation: Using a Portable Media Player to Put You in Front
Great post… that really made me think…
Just kidding… but your right to set your blog up this way. Can you give any stats on how it has improved your traffic? I’m thinking about adding this to my blog as well.
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[...] – bookmarked by 5 members originally found by okgOrlov on 2008-11-01 NoFollow, DoFollow, MarshMallow http://thirdworldgeek.com/2008/06/nofollow-dofollow-marshmallow/ – bookmarked by 6 members [...]
Thanks for the great post! All very good and important things to think about!! And, I like Marshmallows. LOL!
Dofollow really does encourage conversation among your commenters. If you're on WordPress, the various spam plugins pretty much take care of the spam that dofollow blogs attract, so it's generally not a problem. Sure, you'll get some "Great post!" type of comments but you'll also get some good discussion.
Great article. Nice blog. Keep it coming. Mike
I understand the purpose of "NoFollow" on a limited basis, but when "NoFollow" becomes the de facto standard for links (as it is becoming) then the rules of the game have changed. If no one can receive a valid backlink, then what is the purpose of links at all…that's just my sense of it all.
ok . i agree for your post.. and i like it.
This is classical in terms of search engines. Nothing appears to rag towards it compared to this!Coincidentally, this is exactly what was worried about ten years prior at the last internet about search engine optimization some number of years ago in ’94.
No follow does not matter. It is when traffic passes through a link that brings it value.
:-)
Michael Guy