Should you Switch to Do Follow?

Posted on June 21st, 2008 by rutgerskevin

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After some deliberation, I have decided to switch this blog’s comment structure to do follow–giving my anyone who comments here a nice free backlink. My reasoning is that I will gain more traffic, be able to submit my site to several do-follow directories (creating backlinks), and of course will get many more comments. I will have to spend more time moderating my comments and will have to monitor if this format starts to eat away at my Google love. Let me be very clear here–I will be moderating comments, so “nice post” or “great idea” is not going to cut it.

I have also added the EntreDroppers plugin that will reward the last seven Entre Droppers with a nice link. This also allowed me to be added to the Entre Droppers List website So please keep those drops coming!!!

Will these changes be a good thing for my blog? I really have no idea. I have read many opinions for and against the do follow format. I will certainly keep you updated on how it is working for me.

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Filed under: Blogging Tips

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12 Responses to “Should you Switch to Do Follow?”

  1. Vote for this article at blogengage.com, on June 21st, 2008 at 2:15 am Said:
    Should you Switch to Do Follow?…

    After some deliberation, I have decided to switch this blog’s comment structure to do follow–giving my anyone who comments here a nice free backlink. My reasoning is that I will gain more traffic, be able to submit my site to several do-follow dire…

  2. Frank C, on June 21st, 2008 at 3:06 am Said:
    There are a few things you should make clear with this policy.

    If I had put “Money Saving Tips” as my name instead of “Frank C” would you accept it if the comment was good? What about if I put a link to a specific post on my blog rather than the top level link? What if I linked to a “Build A Niche Store” (BANS), ecommerce or affiliate offer squeeze page rather than another blog?

    Making these kinds of things clear from the start will save you a lot of grief.

    The up side is that you will get a lot more comments, good and bad. Good ones will help improve your Google ranking because new comments will typically bring Googlebot back to visit your blog and rank it for new keywords found in comments, which can help you get more search traffic.

    Frank Cs last blog post..Identifying Vintage Lead Toy Soldiers

  3. rutgerskevin, on June 21st, 2008 at 3:34 am Said:
    Frank,

    Thanks for those tips. I know I will require a name, not a phrase. I will have to come up with a specific comment policy that I actually post on here.

    Thanks again,

    Kevin

  4. Nick, on June 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am Said:
    Welcome to my Do Follow List!

    Cheers,
    Nick

    Nicks last blog post..Best Online Casino Related Website

  5. Hibs, on June 21st, 2008 at 1:24 pm Said:
    Dofollowing blogs is a good idea IMO. As you say, it takes more effort to filter out the spammers who don’t contribute anything but it’s only fair to reward the people who interact with the blog.

    I simply delete any rubbish/spam and allow decent comments to stand. I also don’t allow any bad neighbourhood links (viagra/porn/gambling etc). Linking out to regular sites on comments pages doesn’t affect your site SEO, so don’t worry on that count.

  6. Mo, on June 21st, 2008 at 2:59 pm Said:
    Good choice! You won’t regret it.
  7. rebecca, on June 21st, 2008 at 6:26 pm Said:
    I just added dofollow also, on the advice of my internet marketing coach. I really don’t know enough about it, but I got 6 comments that were just junk, why do people waste their time doing that? What is the point? Also I’m glad that I found your blog cause I’m still new at this and have a ton of questions, and your posts are quite relevant.
  8. Frank C, on June 22nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm Said:
    One other thing you need to make sure of is to set up WordPress to always moderate comments by new commentators. This will help prevent spam too. If I remember right you already have this setup.

    I got hit last night by a spambot that tried to enter about 100 junk comments for bad neighborhood sites. You’ve got to watch out for these jokers or else you’ll find your blog stuffed with awful links.

    Frank Cs last blog post..Identifying Vintage Lead Toy Soldiers

  9. sheetal, on June 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm Said:
    Kevin, do you need to put/change code in wordpress theme or the commentluv plugin is sufficient to make the blog do follow? I have changed one line in my blogger blogs. What should I do to make my wordpress blog do follow?

    sheetals last blog post..Make money From Social Bookmarking Sites

  10. rutgerskevin, on June 23rd, 2008 at 12:12 am Said:
    Sheetal,

    I had to add another plugin (besides the commnet luv one) to make my blog truly do follow. I got it right from the wordpress site.

    Frank,

    Good call on the new commentators setup. That is certainly a necessity!!!!!

  11. Tricia, on June 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 am Said:
    You’ll definitely get more spam or link seeking type comments as a result of being do follow. There’s comment software out there now (as well as websites/directories) that help people find do follow blogs to comment on … so yeah, you’ll get a lot of comments that you’ll either delete or that you’ll want to remove the email and url from before posting.

    I use Lucia’s Linky love Do Follow plugin on my sites as it allows me to set how often someone must comment before their links will start to follow. I believe the minimum for the plugin is 3 comments. So a one time visitor to your blog who might just be seeking a do follow link will not have their link followed. The plugin also lets you set the max characters in a user name to be followed so those that use long descriptive names might not ever get their links followed where as people that use names or say the name of their site (if it’s short) will eventually have their links followed.

    You might also want to get a plugin that will allow you to turn off comments on your posts after a certain amount of time. I don’t use one, but I’m thinking about it as some of the more spammy comments I get are on older posts.

    Tricias last blog post..Siberian Irises are blooming

  12. Frank C, on June 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm Said:
    @Tricia - I don’t recommend turning off comments on older posts. Getting legitimate comments on them gets them re-spidered by Google which can help the overall search profile of your blog. Just using the standard anti-spam methods work fine, most of the time.

    Older posts usually attract attention because they have Pagerank. My page that got hit by the spammer was a PR3 page and I did turn off comments on that page temporarily just to stem the flow. I got tired of moderating and spamming these automated ‘comments’.

    On the length of a name, I’ve found most spammers leave short nonsense like ‘dnsdl’ or ‘zndsfy’. I don’t mind people who leave a legit, on topic, comment of about 50 to 100 words and use a name like ‘West Kansas Real Estate’ but some people do mind in commentators do that.

    Frank Cs last blog post..Save Money With an Evaporative Cooler

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