What is noFollow ?

In an attempt to minimize comment spam, the blogging platform you use automatically adds the rel=’nofollow’ attribute to the comments template.

rel=’nofollow’ attribute works by not following back the links that a commentator might post in his comments, in the Search Engines; as they can be a potential source of comment spam.

SP@M !!! Then why doFollow?

But, I think that all sensible bloggers visit and check out the link(s) posted by their readership. Sometimes it may not be that easy to tell what may be a spam comment but in the general scenario, a comment that is not relevant to the focus of the blog post or is just a link as for forced and undesired (by the blog admin!) promotion; is spotted easily! I believe everyone of us knows how to use the delete function! That is the very basic concept behind the doFollow movement. In these times that the culture of brotherhood is spreading across the Blogosphere, help (& self help) and promotion has got entirely a new meaning.

Also, from the wikipedia:

Some weblog authors object to the use of rel="nofollow", arguing, for example, that

  • Link spammers will continue to spam everyone to reach the sites that do not use rel="nofollow"
  • Link spammers will continue to place links for clicking (by surfers), even if those links are ignored by search engines.
  • Google is advocating the use of rel="nofollow" in order to reduce the effect of heavy inter-blog linking on page ranking.
  • According to the statistics shown at the Akismet’s antispam service, this tag has not stopped the comment spam and has not discouraged spammers.
  • Lack of accreditation may discourage informational comments by professionals wishing to establish their PageRank reputation

How to gain an entry into the doFollow brigade?

Removing rel=”noFollow” is much more easier to do than anyone new to this stuff might have thought it to be. Here, I am listing the easy-to-follow steps to help you become a part of the doFollow brigade!

WordPress users:

WordPress users enjoy far more convenience to be a part of doFollow movement than the Google Blogger users who have to tweak the template code to remove the noFollow attribute from comments/post templates.

  • Google for a large numbers of doFollow plugins available for WordPress,
    Or, download this doFollow plugin by Kimmo Suominen
  • To use this plugin, simply place this file in the wp-content/plugins directory of your WordPress blog!
  • Activate the plugin from the settings of your blog by logging into the wp-admin of your blog!

And voila! you become a doFollower now!

The BLOGGER users:

  • Click on Layout from the dashboard written against your blog.
  • Click on the Edit HTML sub-tab under the Template tab.
  • When you’re shown your blog template code; check mark the Expand Widget Templates Field.
  • Press CTRL+F and do a search for rel=’nofollow’ attribute.
  • Remove any occurrence of rel=’nofollow’ from the template code.

And that is all to it… You are also a doFollower now!

P.S.: I have rel=”noFollow” removed from my blog, so whenever you leave a comment at my blog, feel free to include a link back to your blog.

35 thoughts on “How to Remove rel='noFollow' from your blog. Be a doFollower

  1. I’ve been looking around for a decent dofollow plugin for since this morning when I thought about it after reading a post somewhere else. You must be psychic…or saw the same post, lol. Anyway, i’ll use the one you suggested…thanks!

  2. Abhi, one of my sites is on wordpress.com and plugins do not work there. Can you figure this one out? Thanks for this post.

        1. Hi Sue, thanks for re-visiting. As you are hosted on wordpress.com , and not on your own host… you cannot edit any of the core files. There is little that you can do with your blog.

          I strongly recommend that you move to a self-hosted wordpress blog. And if you can’t, Blogger is a better choice than WordPress.com … It is almost infinitely customizable, and you can find a million hacks and tweaks for Blogger around the web.

          Do let me know if you sign up for Blogger. I can help you with any kind of mod you ever need to make to a blogger blog as I have been on Blogger/BlogSpot for more than 2 years and have quite an experience with templates and widgets there.

  3. thank you very much for the tips on making blogs dofollow. Iam working on one on go daddy hosting (:P yuck) and was lookign for these tips. thanks 🙂

  4. great write up, one thing i think i must add is if google has such a big issue with this, then why not ban all blog sites from their searches? would that be so much easier for them, hey I’m in favor of the DoFollow so nice piece there Abhi.

  5. Banning all blogs from Google Search Results? :-O
    Scary! Thats quite impractical. But thats not going to happen any time, so let us not worry about it. 😀

  6. I think that was a pretty good post. I couldn’t do it 😀 . Keep up the good work.

  7. I completely agree with the dofollow community. I use dofollow on my blog, its only fair to reward people for commenting and reading my ramblings…

  8. P.S.: I have rel=”noFollow” removed from my blog, so whenever you leave a comment at my blog, feel free to include a link back to your blog.

    Good news, dude! :o)

  9. im in the dofollow as well

    football highlightss last blog post..US Open Play-Off Highlights

  10. Enabling “dofollow” will get more spam in your blog … but with some comment moderation and some plugins you can get rid of it … the most dangerous is “manual” spam like:
    ” Good Job ”
    ” Thanks ”
    “I need to do that”

    etc etc …
    Anyway we need to look at dofollow like a reward for our comment users …

    Regards

    sacx from DoFollow Directorys last blog post..Make Money Online | Make Money At Home

  11. Thanks to the article, it make the life of a seo/link building easier and make the commenter come back again and again. I searched for a while to find the right answer to my questions!

  12. This is a great article. Thanks for shedding some light on a confusing topic (confusing to me at least)…. also, thanks for being part of the ‘DoFollow’ movement.

  13. erm..i use nofollow-free wordpress plugin
    upload then actived… very easy 🙂

    Addys latest published blog-post ………. 20+ Great Photoshop Text Effect Tutorial

  14. This is so true. It is like a conspiracy to hurt the little guy so the big mega corp sites can take over the web and neutralise the alternative media. As if it wasn’t hard enought to get some links and traffic to a site without this whole nofollow scam. Well done to you for promoting a revolt.

  15. Dear Abhinav

    I actually find your article very helpful.. i though i’d let you know but i read some where in an seo news site that Google is now accepting and following the NoFollow link tags.. is this true??

    If it is right,then what’s next??

  16. Hi…
    Thank you for the useful information. I think plugins such as keywordluv and commentluv have made blogging with no follow links so easy. Also i think now google is accepting and following the NoFollow link tags.

  17. Hi, thanks for the great information. A dofollow attribute in a blog gives some love to valuable commentators. But we need to strictly enforce a commenting system. That is to mederate every comments that enters to our site.

  18. First of all: I think it`s kinda incredible that people make their blog nofollow. Off course, if you`re site is good enough it will draw people anyway, but you will get heaps of traffic if you give the people something for visiting – like a link. And the comments you get doesn`t have to have poor quality just because of this. I would know, I have dofollow and commentluv on all my sites. Works like a charm. This is why I love commentluv and keywordluv.

  19. First of all: I think it`s kinda incredible that people make their blog nofollow. Off course, if you`re site is good enough it will draw people anyway, but you will get heaps of traffic if you give the people something for visiting – like a link. And the comments you get doesn`t have to have poor quality just because of this. I would know, I have dofollow and commentluv on all my sites. Works like a charm. Man, I just luuuv commentluv and keywordluv!

  20. Hay thanks dude. A few days back one of my friends ask me about it but I was unable to gave him the answer. But now I understand that how do I can make my blog do follow. it’s simple.. Thanks a lot.

  21. Hay its very easy man. Thanks for the post. Its true that I never try it before. A do follow blog can drive lot of traffic well.

  22. Thanks for creating such a wonderful site. this site was not only knowledgeable but also very stimulating too. We find very few people who can think to create not so easy articles that creatively. I search for articles on a subject like this. I have gone in detail through dozens of blogs to come across know how about this.Looking to many more from your site !!

Comments are closed.