JonesPC

This blog… Actually both of my blogs have the "Do Follow" plugin installed. I know many of you know how this works but for those that dont, heres a brief explanation of the whole "No Follow" thing. The "No Follow" tag was created to help search engines know what to ignore when it crawls your website. Sometimes you may link to something that you do not want to share pagerank or link credit. For example, if you write a sponsored blog post, you should use the "No Follow" tag on those paid links so that you will not pass on pagerank. If you dont  "No Follow" those links, Google may accuse you of "selling pagerank" and penalize you. Another thing that you might want to do is not allow links from commentors on your blog to be followed. You would then set it up so that the "No Follow" tag is automatically inserted on any link in your comment section. Basically any link on your blog that has the "No Follow" tag will be ignored by search engines.

Wordpress and Blogger both automatically inserts the "No Follow" tag on links in your comments but there has been a movement to remove that automatic insertion of the "No Follow" tag. On Wordpress there are several "Do Follow" plugin’s.

Why would you want to let comment links be followed?

It engourages commenting. If another blogger or website owner knows that your blog allows followed links in the comment section, they may be more apt to leave comments on your blog. They leave a comment, and in return they get a backlink and maybe some pagerank.

When the "Do Follow" movement first started, It seemed like a good idea to join that movement. It kindof felt like it was a natural thing to do. A big part of blogging is the conversations. Not just the conversations in your comment section, but conversations across blogs. Linking brings those conversations together. It only seem natural that in those conversational situations that links should be followed and the people having those conversations should get credit, right?

WIth everything that is good and seem right, there is always a downfall. WIth Google cracking down on websites, lowering pagerank, and penalizing bloggers, I start to think if it is still such a good idea to use those "Do Follow" plugins. Here are some things that can hurt you by allowing comment links to follow.

• Spam. Having the "Do Follow" plugin could potentially attract more spam than usual. If it isnt spam, it could attract comments from people who really isnt interested in anything you wrote, but just want to get a quick and easy backlink.

• Being linked to a "bad" website is also another downfall.  As you know, linking to certain websites could cause you trouble. Sites that contain porn, viruses, or illegal activities could cause search engines to associate you’re site with the sites you are linked too. People that leave links in your comment section could leave links to those bad websites.

• Linking to too many of the wrong sites could hurt your pagerank. Non relavant websites, Pagerank leakage etc.
  

Before, when the "Do Follow" movement began, Google was letting a lot of things slide. Now since they have been cracking down, things that once seemed helpfull may now hurt you. Many blogs have dropped a point or 2 in pagerank over the past 6-7 months. We all know that sponsored post and paid linking were the cause of a lot of it. What we dont know is if "Do Follow" comment linking had any bearing on any of the pagerank drops. This site has lost a point in pagerank, I think it was because of sponsored blog post, but to be honest, I really didnt write a many of them, I think 7 over a years time. But I have also been "Do Follow" over a years time. Another thing I notice, I get a lot more comments that are completely irrelavant to the blog post. You dont see them because I ussually delete those comments. But for every comment you do see, there are about 2 or 3 comments that had absolutely nothing to do with anything at all, but links to a website or blog. Not spam, because the blogs that are linked are real, legit blogs. But the comments are worthless. Comments about going to McDonalds on a post about Windows Vista. People asking to check out thier website on a post about the Xbox, then linking to 3 or 4 different blogs about photography.

Also, as with anything, once something gets too popular, it looses some of its effectiveness and value. RIght now, Im leaving my comments "Do Follow" but I will be looking into it a little more to see if it is still a good idea to keep it that way.