Another Wordpress Blog

As some may or may not be aware, there is a trend for some blogs to eliminate the “nofollow” tag on comments. This tag was initially instituted by Google to reduce the incentive for spammers to fill blogs with links to spammy sites. Remember how spammers used to fill comments with links to spammy sites? Well, the nofollow tag reduced their incentive to spam by letting the blog software writers to insert a tag in comments telling Google that that link is not trusted.

Unfortunately, nofollow didn’t slow down the spammer one bit. What really stopped them was better spam filters.

But, nofollow did, eventually, have another effect. The “nofollow” tag is no automatically inserted in most comments. This means real honest to goodness commenters who leave good relevant comments and links don’t get google-page rank credits for links they post when they post a comment to a site.

It turns out that some individual bloggers do want to give credit to links left by their commenters, and they’ve modified their blogs to eliminate this ‘nofollow’ tag.

So, for example, if you visit Midlife Musings, leave a comment and post your blogs URL, you’ll get a “real link”; (that is a link Google ‘counts’ when granting page rank.)

I like the do-follow trend. It’s a nice idea provided that you have a good spam filter (and there are very good ones now.) It’s also a nice idea if the bloggers leaving comments occupy your blog niche and leave links to their own decent blogs. (Which is the case at my knitting blog. My regular commenters have great knitting blogs!)

Ok, but everything silver lining always has a black cloud around it. Something not so very good but doesn’t surprise me much has occurred. (And I’m longwinded, so you’ll have to read some of the not so bad bits first! )

First: Bloggers who use “do follow” publicized the fact.

Then: Bloggers started reading the list and making a habit of visiting the “dofollow” blogs and leaving links to get google-juice.

Well… of course commenters did this. I expected it. In fact, I’m glad to get the traffic associated with the bloggers who leave comments. I’m hoping a few visitors will like my blog enough to visit again. (There is some evidence that one person who leaves relevant remarks actually found me this way. Guess what? She has a knitting blog too! I found two or three blogs I like in the process also! )

But now, we are starting to get to the sort of bad part. Some of the comments are lame. It’s as if… imagine this… an unsuspecting blogger clicked a link on a dofollow list and visited my knitting blog. When they arrived and read the blog entry, they discovered … they don’t really give a hoot about knitting but as long as they were at the blog, they left a comment. They tried to make it relevant, but I can sort of tell they aren’t really into the knitting topic! So, the comment is sort of… well… lame.

You know what? I expected that too. You spent time visiting. You boosted my traffic. (Which I want.) You gave my blog a shot. Then, knowing I use “dofollow” so you left a comment. Sure, it’s not a very knitting oriented comment, but I expected that. (Frankly, I think you probably deserve the google juice just for visiting a knitting blog!)

But, something else is happening, and it’s not really not so hot. (Yes, we’ve reached the bad part.)

There are bloggers who do this:
They joined the dofollow list telling people they use dofollow at their blogs. But they don’t. Then, they visit the real dofollow bloggers and leave comments- gaining themselves google-juice.

And then, the deadly sin: they lure unsuspecting bloggers to visit their blog about some boring niche topic (like say, watching crabgrass grow). Then the poor bloggers and waste their time reading the blog about crabgrass, trying to think of some remotely not-lame comment and leave a comment. (Yes, to get the google juice they think they deserve for reading the silly post.)

So, these crab-grass bloggers a) get the extra traffic, b) get the extra links c) don’t give out the links they say they’ll give and waste everyone’s time.

Well, you know what Suni says about that? “It’s rude. It’s indecent and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

But you know what else? That strategy ain’t gonna work! We all know how to read the source for a page. We all know to check and search for a comment. And, in less than a week, if you’re lying about using “dofollow”, you will find that people checked. And those people are never visiting your blog again. And they will tell other people.

And even worse for you: They are going back to their blog and delete your comment!

So, the trick ain’t gonna work. The fact is, pretending to be a do follow blogger when you aren’t is just a waste of time! Don’t bother.