DoFollow Links vs. NoFollow Links
So I’m trolling around the net looking for “dofollow” blogs, the latest thing to do to build traffic, and I find this site with a list of 562 dofollow blogs in RSS format. Sweet. Let’s face it, I have been trying the whole Adsense, Adwords, affiliate marketing thing for about 2.5 years now and I don’t drive a Lexus and I don’t have 5 hot blonds in my non-existant hottub. But I keep plugging along mostly because it’s cool technology and an interesting…sorta…challenge.
I’m browsing through the list and find the following blog that I click
cause
it’s got
a wacky nameI click cause it’s got a wacky name…The Pasty Muncher. Wacky names are the shit.
I’m browsing along again looking at the site for something interesting and here we are.
Why I dofollow – say no to rel = no follow | The Pasty Muncher
I like links. I like to recieve links and being a generous so and so I’m happy to give them.
This brings up in my mind the entire “nofollow” vs. “dofollow” linking strategy…or the fancy name “traffic shaping”.
I think I have something to say on the subject.
I check the blog, sure enough, it’s dofollow. Then I start checking around and I notice that my brand spanking new WordPress 2.7 blog is nofollow. Seems that is the default these days from the fine folks at WordPress. Quality product, trying to cut down on link SPAMW, I get it. However, the entire Internet is built on the premise of hyperlinking and as The Pasty Muncher says it here:
Links form the chain that holds the web together.
Tim Berners LeeW the genius that invented the world wide web believes the future of Semantic Web holds immense potential for how machines will collaborate in the coming days. Collaborate=link? Fancy word play on an old theme?
Why did this whole nofollow thing come about? Well the Google gods, who do no evildo no evil, decided in 2005 to try and cut down on the link SPAM that was flooding the blogosphere to increase PageRank on the SPAMing sites. Hey, we love it, right? It’s good because Google did it right (maybe another time)?
Official Google Blog: Preventing comment spam
1/18/2005 04:28:00 PM
If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.
Anyway, fast forward to 2009 and it’s now the default setting on WordPress 2.7. How much do you want to bet that it’s not long before all major blogging platforms have it on their commenting systems? How long before it’s woven into the fabric of all sites? And finally, how much do you want to bet that it actually does count in the Grand Algorithm of the Google?
Frankly, a link is a link is a link. Akismet and other solutions are working fairly well and you shouldn’t try and stop good old fashion moderation of sites by their administrators anyway.
I’ll finish up right now with this quote from one of the commentators on The Pasty Muncher:
I agree 100% I have written a number of posts about NoFollow, which is a principle I basically have a problem with. It tells the search engines that you are too lazy to moderate your own comments. When the search engines rank the blogs to serve to their searchers, surely NoFollow is one way for search engines to know which blogs NOT to rank highly.
p.s. David Leonhardt is the name of the commentator and he writes a SEO Marketing Blog, the SEO Marketing Express. Here is his article on the Nofollow attribute.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:35 am
[...] DoFollow Links vs. NoFollow Links 29 January 2009 1 views No Comment So I’m trolling around the net looking for “dofollow” blogs, the latest thing to do to build traffic, and I find this site with a list of 562 dofollow blogs in RSS format. Sweet. Let’s face it, I have been trying the whole Adsense, Adwords, affiliate marketing thing for about 2.5 years now and I don’t drive a Lexus and I don’t have 5 hot blonds in my non-existant hottub. But I keep plugging along mostly because it’s cool technology and an interesting…sorta…challenge. I’m browsing through th Original post: DoFollow Links vs. NoFollow Links [...]
March 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Munching for you!
March 27th, 2009 at 8:10 am
I’ll finish up right now with this quote from one of the commentators on The Pasty Muncher:
I’m baffelled.
You appear not to have do follow on this site but clearly can be bothered to moderate comments.
Do you want to remove the default nofollow from your comments?
> > > > > > wipes crumbs from keyboard. . . .
March 30th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
I’m using the comment Luv plugin. It requires 3 approved comments before the link turns dofollow.
I knew someone was going to call me on that…
March 31st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
@Communibus Locis
its my third time . . . .do you Luv me?
Wipes crumbs from the keyboard.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:39 am
this debate has been around for years now, its not new!
My real objection to the tag is about google’s hypocracy.
On one hand, they tell webmasters not to worry about designing their sites for search engines… just focus on good content. But with tags like nofollow and now rel=canonical, we’re forced to spend lots of time figuring out how they interact with spiders. The cases where you do or don’t employ the tags are, as you point out, mostly ambiguous and debatable. That’s what takes so much time.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:28 am
I turned off the nofollow links. I am using the Canonical plugin by somebody but I don’t understand it (sorta).
I’m just going to post my crap and whatever happens happens.
I’m done figuring it out.
April 25th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Thank you very much for posting this. I found it on google when i was trying to read about the future of nofollow tags. i started a thread on digital point -
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=11259310#post11259310
and referenced this article. I hope the thread can bring good discussion about the future of the tag.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
How long before Google tries to shut this down? I would leave comments on blogs I like or specific articles I enjoy. But sometimes it feels like spamming the blog unintentionally.
July 11th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
I have four blogs and I generally allow links. However, I can easily spot the difference between someone who wants a link and someone who has a BS spam site.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:17 am
I have 2 Blogs and on one of them i use dofollow with commentluv plugin and the otrher is with nofollow. I can say that the blog with dofollow gets more visitors and its ranked very well on google. I will turn the other to dofolow too.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Would you be interested in writing for The Neave Online Publication? I love your writing style and I feel like you would fit in perfectly with the other writers.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I really appreciate the compliment and the opportunity but I have barely enough to time write the stupid little quips, cutting and pasting links and generally acting like an ass to write for another blog. Thank you very much for the offer though and keep reading my crap.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I really wish I could remove it off hosted WP blogs. I do have some self-hosted blogs and have the do follow plugin but I don’t actually actively seek out comments. I just believe in karma that’s all.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I appreciated your work !! Really Excellent , But i want know what is the different between DoFollow Links and NoFollow Links?
August 27th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Dofollow links pass on Google PageRank “link juice” and nofollow links do not.
That’s one sentence on a very contentious topic!
Basically, if you are worried about PageRank and you are vying for a top 10 spot in the SERPs in a tightly contested key word/phrase area like “weight loss” or “cheap viagra” then you might have to worry about dofollow and nofollow to sculpt PageRank passing. Otherwise, for mere mortals like us, who gives a flying fuck??
We’re lucky to have two readers a post let alone get into the top 10 on the SERPS.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:06 am
thanks for the nice information and clearly defined the difference b/w Do follow link and No follow link.
February 21st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Thanks for the info about dofollow and nofollow links.
The question is: “Is generating dofollow blog backlink traffic really worth the time and effort that it takes to make quality comments on dofollow blogs? Does it really work?”
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
@Dave:
your question makes my ass hurt… ;)
The answer is:
Engaging in quality communication in the blogosphere, quality content, quality questions and answers will ultimately work. It’s just slow.
June 16th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Some people suspect that Google actually does follow no-follow links, and count them (obviously speculation only).
It’s a conundrum for Google I think. For instance Wikipedia is now no-follow on all external links. That means that a huge, human moderated, source of links is unavailable to Google’s algorithm.
Of course Wikipedia did it to combat spam links, but consider this: would Google’s results be better counting those links, despite some spam (which is actively removed by moderators), or are they better ignoring all of them?
Extend it to its logical conclusion: every link on the internet becomes no-follow, which means no links are counted. Google is out of business, and the internet becomes unsearchable on a large scale, and presumably goes back to early 1990s directories (social bookmarking sites).
Seems to me that human moderation is the way to go, and if an unmoderated blog fills with spam, then Google can discount that site as a link source (after all they can detect the sort of egregious spam that results from that can’t they?).
October 27th, 2010 at 6:43 am
You can get a dofollow link from RSS Directories too.
Froslo – Free Dofollow RSS Directory.
December 15th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I agree with you, but the last two comments on this post are spam.
So it seems you’re having challenges moderating the spam?
January 6th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Here is my opinion on the matter. No follow links may not pass a lot of juice, but I think they factor into your overall ranking. If you look at backlinking tools such as Site Explorer and Webmaster Tools no follow links appear in the report and often higher than other do follow links. I haven’t done extensive testing, but when I look at my competitors who have a high rankings, they have a lot of no follow links in their backlink portfolio
March 31st, 2011 at 6:01 pm
@Kevin: Yeah, I don’t know why I approved those comments. Must be the LSD.
Of course I should come back here more often to see comments like yours…..from DECEMBER……
AGH!
July 22nd, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Thanks for sharing useful information. You can get a dofollow link from some article and RSS Directories too.