Discussions
nofollow, dofollow... how about somefollow.
Posted by DaneMorgan • 9/27/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blogs, dofollow, nofollow, readers, somefollow, subscribers
Okay, if you clicked on this you are probably familiar with nofollow and the dofollow comments debate (which seems to still be raging all the many years later).
I've been a dofollow supporter for some time, and now it seems that the reality is that nofollow has been all but effectively nullified for page rank sculpting since any no followed link does not redirect it's juice, but just looses it to the Google Aether.
Still, there must be some good valid use for dofollow. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now, and I think I've come up with something to test on some blogs.
What I'm proposing is "somefollow". This would be a process whereby we selectively follow the links of some comments but not others. Really we can place any criterion on the process we wish, but the thing to remember is that instead of thinking in terms of nofollow being a punishment, we think of dofollow as a reward system.
In other words we define a desired action on the part of our blog readers, and then we reward those readers who take that action by making their comments, and only their comments on out blogs dofollow enabled.
Out of the gate, what I will be testing is subscriptions. Subscribe to the blog and your comment links are dofollowed. Don't subscribe abd they aren't.
Any thoughts?
User Comments
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It strikes me that if the criteria are known, it will only be a matter of minutes before there's a spammy workaround. For instance, it would be very easy to set up a reader that you never visited and simply subscribe to every blog you commented on. That would get your links followed on blogs like yours, and would cause no inconvenience since readers are free and you needn't ever actually look at the posts...but it wouldn't be of any actual value to the blogger except as a raw number. -
They have plugins for selective follow. I don't bother with any of them it all seems a large waste of time and energy. -
Besides the whole SEO point of view, I sort of have an added perspective on this whole thing. It just seems to me that nofollow kills the true essence of world wide web. I mean the whole point of using the web or the internet was to connect the world globally. By putting a nofollow, you are limiting the engines to gather information about sites,whether good or bad-Let the engines decide to place its relevance. Human intervention will limit the webs potential to grow in the future.-
I acknowledge that oft touted argument, which I have been hearing since 2005. It's valid but I'm still not buying in. I'm not prepared to muck about with delivering backlinks for comments, and striving to balance incoming and outgoing links, while moderating junk comments posted by opportunists. I link to authoritative sources in my posts and that's as much as I'm willing to do. -
Actually, you aren't limiting that at all. You don't understand how they treat nofollow. Even Google FOLLOWS the link and will index it. They just don't pass any pagerank through it.
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Yes, I did understand that there was no PR being passed through the nofollow link I just didn't express myself well above.
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I was typing to starchet's statement that "By putting a nofollow, you are limiting the engines to gather information about sites" in that comment, not to you.
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While some of my blogs are dofollow (I don't remember which ones--it's been a long time since I gave this any thought one way or the other), the fact is that it's dofollow comments, not nofollow ones, that thwart Google. Backlinks give juice because they're supposed to be an indication that other people are linking to your site; if you can create your own backlinks, that entire measuring system becomes invalid.
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Agreed. I ain't here to do Google's job for them.
They have more rocket scientists than I can afford anyhow, so that's their problem.
My concern, as always, is how to persuade people to do the things I would like them to do.
Given the length of this debate and the interest level it generates, I figure I can persuade some people to do what I would like them to do by offering them something they want.
Whether what they want is really all they expect it to be is, I suppose and ethical question for another day.
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I take the same position as Cooper. I'm not using a dofollow plugin and have no intention of joining that movement. I will not be investing my time into "some follow". I have heard both sides of the never ending nofpllow - dofollow debate and chosen to use commentluv and leave my nofollow links as is.
References for those who may not know what's being discussed:
DoFollow: Increase Your Backlinks with DoFollow Sites
The Only DoFollow List You'll Ever Need
www.squidoo.com/dofollow
Do You DoFollow?
kikolani.com/dofollow.html -
@starchet & starchet -- Because a tool has been used badly or for a bad purpose does not make the tool bad. Lets try not to forget that nofollow was not created FOR blog comment sections. It existed for a couple of years before Google and the blog software heavy weights lobbed it into our lives that way. It DOES have purposes outside the blog comment section.
SEOwise, it is now pretty clear you are better off just not having the link than you are having the nofollowed links included in nearly all blog software.
@Tiffany, true, but my meaning behind subscriber is someone who becomes a subscriber through the wp-register.php script, not through the rss feed link. That requires a valid email address as it's a simple thing to check whether they've ever used the password and logged in.
@cooper. Yes there are some but they invariable are either a manual switch process where you go in and turn it on for some poeple you want, or they automatically start following after the commenter has left a certain number of comments. I'm talking about allowing for other criteria to make the selection automatic. -
like Tiffany, it's been a long time since I gave this issue any thought at all. I _think_ my main site is dofollow, having made that change during one of those discussions way back when. but honestly all I really notice and focus on at this point is that I get 100--200 uniques per day that view 300--500 pages. this traffic level is most all from search and other passive sources and the fact that the visitors are viewing an average of two or three pages each suggests they are finding value in the content.
it's real value to me, it turns out, is as a portfolio. my Income these days is coming from freelance writing jobs and having the web site is somewhat helpful in getting those
Alan (is working on an endless but lucrative project to write four SAT practice tests)-
Hey Alan, glad to hear you're pulling down paid gigs. And as a writer, thats right up your alley.
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Thing are become really complicated here. And I dislike it very much.
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I'm using a dofollow plugin that only assigns the dofollow to people who comment at least "X" amount of times. I could set it for any number, say 10 comments, but I selected 3 as the magic number.
That's kind of like a 'some follow' ... if people are adding bogus comments, I usually see a pattern by the 3rd comment.-
Hmmm ... despite my earlier frostiness towards Dane's idea that does sound interesting. Which one is it?
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that's Lucia's Linky Love plugin
money.bigbucksblogger.com/lucias-linky-love-a-dofollow-plugin-to-foil-human... -
Thanks for the link
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Yep. If what you want to encourage is X number of posts or more, then that works. I'm testing to see if people are more willing to do something like register for the blog, join a mailing list, download a file or some other activity in order to gain dofollow status on a blog.
I'm also looking at whether scarcity alone can increase blog comments by only allowing a certain number of comments on each post. Something like only the first ten comments get through and then comments are locked.
That idea comes from Robert Plank who placed a limit of 100 comments on a recent post to his blog.
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Sorry I made a mistake. I was saying that things seem very complicated here. And I dislike it very much.
What does point of view you will basing on picking up one comment because is better than other? It's not democratic. It's only your opinion. I agree with all other new rules but this post made me remind the military censorship in Brazil and its effect on press, art, culture and freedon.
You have a lot of power here and I'm afraid what you would do with it. BloCatalog is a free community with specific rules of bloggers all over the world. Now I'm feeling as I were coming back to school and Mother Superior would avaliate everybody here.
I have no intention to insult or offend BC Advocate but I have the right to express my opinion.-
Of course you have the right to express your opinion. But in this case we are talking about me testing things on MY blog, and it has nothing to do with the BC discussion forums or my role as a BC Advocate.
Also, I am in no way admin on this board. I don't set policy and I have no special channels of influence over it that you don't also have.
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Dane,
I must appologize. I got all wrong but the way you wrote gave that idea. Maybe it's my "fog mind" from my fibromyalgia. I had worked all night until 7.00 am today. I have such a mind fatigue called "mind fog" by the doctors. Forgive me. Shame on me! I couldn't read the newspapers today even Le Monde which I have been read on the Internet for a long time. You see how my mind is so tired. Forgive me for my mistake. I was afraid I couldn't finish my article for an important maganize. The deadline is next Tuesday but I'm always afraid that something bad happens to me and I would have pain and I were not be able to finish it. Very sorry!-
Nothing to be sorry about. Just talking about ideas for increasing (and sometimes decreasing) responses on blogs.
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Thank you very much for your understanding. After that mistake the best I can do is going to bed early. Anyway, I'm feeling good because I could do it. Last month I had to stay one week at a hospital because of my fibro. Now I feeling better and I'm nont on strong medicines anymore. I'm creating a blog about fibromyalgia. I will not write what fibro is but giving the last news about medicines and my experience. I want people to write their problems. We don't have many organizations or associations for pain in Brazil as you have in USA. I'm a member of many of them. I want to help people. I became an expertise on fibro. Once again thanks for your kindness. Surely I will submit my new blog on bc.
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I have never understood the nofollow.. dofollow... I have been too busy with life to look into it much, but I am interested and am not sure if this only works with blogs with wordpress/blogger themes etc.. As you can see I clearly don't know what I am talking about
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I think we should follow the advice Matt Cutts has already given about PageRank and the nofollow attribute -- just ignore it and link to other sites naturally. My advice is
1: Only link to related sites in your niche.
2: Avoid "blogrolls" or long lists of links.
3: Avoid linking to unrelated sites.
4: Build authority by leaving quality comments on related blogs.
5: Write quality articles that others in your niche will want to link to and discuss.
Regardless of whether the outbound links have some attribute on them or not.-
This looks like very sound advice and I do try and follow these guidelines.
I don't worry too much about do or don't follow... -
@JP2112
We are on the same page. -
Well, that's a great list of things having NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about. but thanks.
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