Let’s just get to the point. Nofollow is lame. It takes value out of participating on other people’s sites. It gives people, sites, and companies the ability to revoke value for their communities at a whim. If you are building value in somebody else’s site, the least they can do is give you a link back.
So from here on out, this blog can officially be declared a “dofollow” blog. And on top of that, my Phoenix SEO blog is going dofollow as well.
If you participate, you deserve a little love. It’s the least I can do.
Thanks for joining the discussion. Enjoy your little slice of link pop :-)
March 2nd, 2009 on 11:22 pm
Ok Chris that’s cool…
But what i really want to know is what is with the ‘about face’ – i mean you’ve been around for ages; what has made you change your mind on nofollow/dofollow?
Is it a drop in visitors/comments?
Not having a go at you, just interested is all….
March 2nd, 2009 on 11:26 pm
I didn’t change my mind, I just never bothered to update my blog from the default. It used to take actual work to install a WP plug, but now that the new version of wordpress has 1 click installs, there really is no excuse.
Also, I was inspired / reminded / enraged by @stuntdubl’s tweet here: http://twitter.com/stuntdubl/status/1272369229
March 2nd, 2009 on 11:27 pm
And Andrew Wee’s post here: http://www.whoisandrewwee.com/social-traffic/blackhole-seo-has-googles-hegemony-spilled-into-twitter/
March 2nd, 2009 on 11:37 pm
Yeah I’ve been following all that…
Assumed it was that you were ‘inspired’ to share the love; You’re not worried about a$$holes abusing it?
March 3rd, 2009 on 12:00 am
Nice move man! Can I be the first a$$hole to abuse it? I know some great gambling – blue pill – website that says everyone is the millionth winner!! LOL.
March 3rd, 2009 on 2:31 am
Heya Hooley-meister,
What up?
Re: follow/no-follow, I “no follow” commenters in my blog comments.
I dunno, i see it as a 2-way street -
1) on one hand, you want to acknowledge users who contribute
2) on the other hand, you have players who want to game the system.
so from the perspective of a participant in large networks like FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the admin of my own sites/blogs, I can see what issues site admins deal with.
Still, this dual follow-yet-nofollow sometimes position is one I’m sticking with, till (and if) I hit an epiphany like yourself.
March 3rd, 2009 on 4:00 am
A larger site brings a higher potential of abuse. As for me, I have a delete function, a band function, and an edit comment function. Those should get me by re: those nasty SEO system gamers.
March 3rd, 2009 on 5:48 am
Welcome to the Dofollow Club! :)
March 4th, 2009 on 12:44 am
I added DoFollow about a year ago then got slapped with a PR penalty. I’m not saying the DoFollow was the reason why, but it does seem to cioncide.
Any ideas, or should I just ignore PR as a Google-generated evil tool to make us all work harder?
March 5th, 2009 on 6:29 pm
I setup the dofollow plugin on my blog a couple of weeks ago and deleted it a couple days later because I got hit with a bunch of comment spam. I deleted the comments, and in a fit of rage deactivated and deleted the plugin.
I love the idea of dofollow, but I just see it getting abused all over the place. There is a dofollow directory where literally every site you go to has HUNDREDS of comments on each blog post, and none of the comments are of any value. They’re like, “wow, great point.”
I guess I’m still on the fence with the whole dofollow thing. Props to you for going forward with it!
March 8th, 2009 on 7:40 pm
I do follow too, though I did have to change it to a minimum of 5 approved comments before the dofollow turns on due to too much spam…I think I have it under control now however.
One plug-in I love a whole lot is the keyword luv plug-in, which if anyone is going to be dofollow, I think they should use it too. :) I have it on 6-7 sites now I think!
March 11th, 2009 on 3:47 am
thank you chris, welcome to dofollow
March 15th, 2009 on 11:26 am
Have you gotten 100+ spam comments yet? I would stick to nofollow because monitoring bunch of spams and quality comments is a hassle. I want people to go to my site because of the contents, and not the link juice. If people love your site, and you respond to their comments, they will stay.
March 16th, 2009 on 2:23 pm
Do follows make more sense. Yes people will game the system but that can be controlled with comment moderation etc. It all comes down to how much time you want to put into your blog.
March 19th, 2009 on 7:36 am
now that you have been “dofollow” for a while… do you feel that the benefits (more comments, traffic etc.) outweigh the disadvantages (spam etc.)?
April 4th, 2009 on 11:28 am
I agree that dofollow is a good idea, so long as the people are contributing to whatever the post is about. If you can get a good bit of discussion going, it can help build your site – as people generally like discussion. So, those people who are helping to build your site deserve the reward. I find nested comments are also a good way to stimulate discussion.
The only problem is that now you are gonna get hit up by Mr. Web Design Ontario and Mrs. Cheap Air conditioning Units. My site is only two months old and I have set it up so I can choose a comment to be dofollow or nofollow. I’m not even really using it as a blog, but its already attracted the dofollow spam brigade :| Here is the UK, the web designers are particularly bad at it. The SEOs are quite well behaved :)
April 23rd, 2009 on 3:12 pm
Yay for linklove. I think that this is a great idea for you, as a SEO guru, to let folks participate in some easy link building
April 27th, 2009 on 9:40 pm
David- I’d say you have two options if you dislike strong anchor text in the name field. 1) Clearly state your rules and if people violate it than mark it as spam. or 2) install the commentluv plugin so people can still get their anchor text and still you their name.
May 2nd, 2009 on 8:47 pm
It is ture that fewer outgoing links and therefore less “link bleed”, leading to better Google page rank. A little sweetener goes a long way, and I really appreciate blogs that do this. But I believe people should be rewarded some credit in return for their contributions. Thanks Chris!
May 6th, 2009 on 2:03 pm
Thanks for the link love :) If you are concerned about spam, I know WordPress has an anti-spam function that seems to work for my do-follow acquaintances.
May 29th, 2009 on 6:21 pm
I don’t worry so much about Spam as long as you don’t go register and list your blog everywhere as a dofollow but just enable it so for your readers.
This is what I did on mine, and my readers are even happier, and I don’t get so much spam too.
August 2nd, 2009 on 2:18 pm
Just made my main blog ‘dofollow’. At least I think I did, hope I got it right.
January 26th, 2010 on 4:57 am
I have to agree – Nofollow is like preventing graciousness!
October 30th, 2011 on 8:37 am
Thanks for the inspiration and now considering going dofollow. On another blog I was dofollow and got hit with 3500 comments very quickly. However, we all need to realise that the blogging community needs to speak out.
December 14th, 2011 on 9:03 pm
Tottaly agree it’s a way of saying thank you by allowing a do follow. I hate those facebook and the other comments that require you to register.
Found your blog thanks to shoemoney