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.
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!
Great write-up on the dofollow movement! Kimmo’s dofollow plugin is definitely great, but as you say there are many to choose from.. Here is an article I wrote covering all currently available dofollow plugins for WordPress. The article features reviews, screenshots, and should definitely be a great help to your readers. Thanks again for helping people to get involved with dofollow!
Glad you like this post! And thanks for sharing your story. Thats a good collective review of plugins. Keep up the good work.
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.
Can you please the leave the link to your wordpress blog here so that I can check it out. Thanks for dropping by.
Hi, Abhi here is the link to the wordpress.com site if you are still willing to check it out to see if or how I can remove the no follow: http://paintworks.wordpress.com Thanks for your help.
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.
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 🙂
Thanks, man! This nofollow thing is one of the best things we could do for a blog!
E-commerce website templates’s last blog post..Shoes osCommerce templates, here we come!
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.
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. 😀
I think that was a pretty good post. I couldn’t do it 😀 . Keep up the good work.
[INVALID LINK REMOVED]
hmmm… I like a blog post that makes me think.
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…
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)
im in the dofollow as well
football highlightss last blog post..US Open Play-Off Highlights
Since today, i´m also a doFollower, Free the Web!
Johannes
Johanness last blog post..Directmatches – Eine deutsche Einführung
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
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!
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.
Thats a good collective review of plugins. Keep up the good work.
erm..i use nofollow-free wordpress plugin
upload then actived… very easy 🙂
Addys latest published blog-post ………. 20+ Great Photoshop Text Effect Tutorial
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.
Please, can you PM me and tell me few more thinks about this, I am really fan of your blog…
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??
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.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.
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.
Sign: fxnmz Hello!!! ghreg and 8667ysnbtvfttb and 7768 : Nice blog!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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