Do Follow or No Follow - SEO Tips

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
By default, WordPress blogs use a rel=”nofollow” attribute, so when you read of Do Follow Blogs, these are blogs that have used a plugin that removes the nofollow attribute. Comments then that contain links back to the poster count as backlinks for their sites.

To the Search Engines

These links then are simply links. It’s up to the search engines rather to follow that link and pass value to the poster’s site. There is no “do follow” attribute to instruct a search engine that these links must be followed or assigned value. Why DoFollow versus NoFollow? The NoFollow attribute was introduced in 2005 to discourage comment spam.

Quality Backlinks

To a large segment of SEO experts, a quality backlink is a one way incoming link from a relevant (respected) site with higher PR. It’s a link you earn via hosting a great site that delivers useful information (the stuff that people want to link to). These are also known as natural (real) links. The theory is that more natural links help boost your site’s popularity and Page Rank.

A Word of Caution

Blog spam is rampant, especially for Do Follow blogs. There are some “do follow” plugins that allow you to set how many comments a visitor needs to leave (with the same domain URL and/or email address) before their comment link will follow.

Did No Follow work as planned? Not in my world! We still receive plenty of blog spam, but I personally moderate all comments to counter that.

My Recommendation

  • Use a Do Follow plugin for your WordPress blog if you enable comments
  • Do not add the “NoFollow” attribute to inbound links.
  • Only add the ‘NoFollow” attribute to outbound links in widgets like Subscribe or Bookmark Me.
To your success

- Steve
 
Dofollow is not a tag, its an attribute you simply don’t nofollow a link if you want it be dofollowed. A Dofollow link is a link crawlable by search engine.
Nofollow links may be used in for untrusted content or paid links
 
The tips are nice and I guess Google indeed counts even the no followed links but they simply will never pass the PageRank scores and juice to the recipients. Blog comments are better to be done with moderation since even the no followed forums could sometimes get filled with so many advertisements and some editions might be really required.
 
Do-follow and no-follow concept works only with Google and no other search engine takes these things into consideration. for yahoo, bing, the link whether no-follow or do-follow doesn't cause any influence. Its just a normal backlink considered to judge the value of the website.

No-follow links are not crawled by Google and so don't offer any link value, no value in SEO.

hostmaster09 said:
I have seen some websites that having nofollow blog comment lback links only but still ranking high for competitive keywords.
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These rankings might not be due to those comments. Sometimes commenting is also done just as a part of mass SEO practice for other search engines, but if the links are no-followed, they can be no way a reason for the rankings.
 
As simple no follow is an attribute of HTML anchor tag which indicates search engine that the linked page need not to be followed. The more you get links for your site into other sites the more Google read your page and your site get better position in search result. But, if any link is no followed than search engine don't read that linked page.For good result in search engine you need lots quality links. But, if any link include rel="no follow" than that link have no value at all since search engine do not follow that and do not count that in your site's link popularity.
 
A suggestion for blog owners, regarding the follow issue.

1) Tell your readers what kind of comments you welcome on your blog.

2) When they deliver what you want, reward them with DoFollow links. Remember, they could be writing on their blog instead of yours.

3) When they don't deliver comments that meet your standard, delete their comment.

Carrot and stick.

The big problem on blogs, imho, is not spam, but lazy poorly written comments that clog the reading experience with low quality content. Imho, worry about that.

If you don't have time to read and moderate comments on your blog, don't allow any comments.

Just another way to look at it, that's all.
 
It's so much simpler to run a do-follow plug-in and moderate the comments, and blacklist IPs that are obviously spamming. If I see good comments, but they're coming from the same IP under different user names, those are deleted as spam.
 
Steve-Hostirian said:
It's so much simpler to run a do-follow plug-in and moderate the comments, and blacklist IPs that are obviously spamming.
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Yes, that's what I was trying to say, thanks for the help.

We want the best writers to add content to our sites, right? Why should the best writers spend time adding content to our blog, instead of theirs, if we're unwilling to give anything back in return?
 
Ok, educate me please?

I looked at the source for my sig.

It's like this:

<a href="myurl.com" target="_blank">myurl.com</a>

Are you implementing nofollow some other way?

And, if yes, can you explain why we should add content to your site instead of investing the same time in to building our own sites?

Many thanks!
 
Engage-Engine, thank you for asking the question.

The source for links look like:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.domain.com" target="_blank">http://www.domain.com</a>

(at least the way I see it). This is managed but vBSEO plugin product installed on this forum.

I am not sure if you follow the trends in social spamming, but as of recent forums have become a charming new spot for spammers to invade with their garbage in hopes to build backlinks to their worthless sites. We grew tired of this and implemented a nofollow rule to drive a portion of them away. Some spammers who clearly do not read the rules where it says so in bold red type during the registration, still post, but their links are usually removed manually.

We believe that when a professional community comes together to discuss and improve on the industry standards, to grow together and make the customer experience positive and to get the best advice - immediate direct benefit should not be a priority.

I can assure you that many members who stand out in their throughout amazing advice and opinion gain the industry attention they deserve, thus benefiting in the long term. Thus, having a signature and being able to advertise in the marketplace forums is seen as a privilege, not a right. One of the best webmaster forums on the Web does not allow any sort of advertising at all. And spammers, as we know, are not interested in anything long-term, thus their short-term involvement here is not welcome in the first place.

Hope this clarifies our position on the nofollow issue. :)
 
Artashes said:
Engage-Engine, thank you for asking the question.
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And thanks for your reply. I hope you understand I'm interested in forums in general, and am not raising a complaint about this forum in particular. You have every right to manage this however you wish. We agree on that completely.

The source for links look like:
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Ok, thanks. I could swear they didn't look that way an hour ago, but, perhaps I just didn't look carefully enough.

I am not sure if you follow the trends in social spamming, but as of recent forums have become a charming new spot for spammers to invade with their garbage in hopes to build backlinks to their worthless sites.
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I'm totally sympathetic to this concern. (I've coded my own forum software from scratch.)

We believe that when a professional community comes together to discuss and improve on the industry standards, to grow together and make the customer experience positive and to get the best advice - immediate direct benefit should not be a priority.
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And so you have decided to remove your own giant blinking advertisements from this forum, the largest ads I've ever seen on any forum, because immediate direct benefit should not be a priority?

Please understand that I mean no disrespect, and am _NOT_ making a complaint.

I'm just asking, can you see why contributors might not take your advice that we shouldn't seek direct immediate benefit seriously, when you are very publicly leading by example in the opposite direction?

What I'm suggesting is that there is no forum without posters, and that quality posters on any forum should be seen as partners, not as writers who should be happy to build somebody else's forum for free.

It's NOT a moral issue, but a practical one. The writers any forum really wants, are not going to work for nothing for very long.

I apologize for this rant. I had to think about these issues a lot when coding my own forum software, and now I've got this topic on the brain. :-)

I have cast my vote, and will now be quiet. Thanks for reading my vote, much appreciated.
 
Engage-Engine said:
I'm totally sympathetic to this concern. (I've coded my own forum software from scratch.)
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Terrific, you then perfectly understand the issues forum owners face on a day to day basis.

Engage-Engine said:
And so you have decided to remove your own giant blinking advertisements from this forum, the largest ads I've ever seen on any forum, because immediate direct benefit should not be a priority?

Please understand that I mean no disrespect, and am _NOT_ making a complaint.

I'm just asking, can you see why contributors might not take your advice that we shouldn't seek direct immediate benefit seriously, when you are very publicly leading by example in the opposite direction?
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It is a valid concern, but are you suggesting that my almost full time involvement (trust me, running a community is VERY time consuming) to make sure you, and thousands of other members, reach and connect with potential customers, improve your business or your personal bottom line, keep yourself updated about what's taking place in the industry; as well as my consistent investment in development goes unrewarded? For your information, this forum does not even pay for some of the most common bills.

I follow dozens of web hosting communities, but I cannot name more than 2 other forums that watch and take care of things the way we do here, and their participation environment is horrendous in comparison.

Also, keep in mind that if nobody saw the value of such communities, and information that is created here, we would not have had some of the most amazing moderators and staff members who also take their time improving this community daily, without any direct financial gain.

Engage-Engine said:
I apologize for this rant. I had to think about these issues a lot when coding my own forum software, and now I've got this topic on the brain. :-)

I have cast my vote, and will now be quiet. Thanks for reading my vote, much appreciated.
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No need to apologize or to be quiet, just because you have an opinion. Unlike some other forums, nobody here is going to shut someone's mouth or hide the posts because they want to say something valid.

I understand and I appreciate your concern, but I also bring your attention to other boards that in some respects are more famous and way more commercially successful than ours that have introduced the same nofollow rule. SitePoint is one of them. It caused a bit of an annoyance from "quick posters", but did it stop people from participating and contributing their knowledge? No.

Almost forgot to add that here at HostingDiscussion.com, we have always made the stand on QUALITY, not QUANTITY of discussion. And compared to many other boards, I think we are doing a pretty good job. At the end of the day, I don't care if I do not get rich doing this - I love this business and will always be involved in one way or another.

On this note, I would like to take this thread back to its original discussion rather than discussion about HD. If someone has questions/concerns, you are always welcome to post in the Feedback forum. :)
 
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