I am continuing the series of answers to questions that were asked in my pre-Christmas post. You can ask your questions to be added to the series by commenting on this or any other post.
Today’s question:
What is the best plugin to convert a blog to DoFollow
Do Follow is the plugin I use. It is easy to set up. Just upload it, activate it and go to settings.
You can set it to automatically remove the no follow from comments or trackbacks or both. Personally I remove them from both because I want to reward those that add quality comments or link back to my blog.
The downside is that you need to moderate your comments because you will get more spammy trackbacks and comments because you are using do follow.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Unfortunately WordPress has a default of no follow for comment links. .
I do understand why the set up is that way even though I disagree with it. Spammers and automation software have created an environment where it had to happen. Throw enough sh@@ against the wall by commenting everywhere and you would generate a lot of backlinks for your site.
Changing the default has stopped some of that. After all unless it is a very high traffic blog you are not getting a lot of benefit from it because of the no follow so it has become much less effective. You will only get traffic from those that actually click your link not the serps.
The bad part of this is that it penalizes those that actually contribute to the conversation. After all if you add valuable content to my blog the least I can do is to help you with a do follow link. Fair is fair.
I really do appreciate those that not only read my blog but those that will take the time to add to the conversation. I feel it is important to go out of my way to reward those people.
Now before I go further lets define what it is to “add to the conversation”. It is probably easier to show what is not adding to the conversation and what is.
Here are a few comments I have deleted that may not be spam per se and the spam plugins won’t pick up but were not adding any value to my blog.
Nice work man..keep it up.
Great article.
Thanks for the information
Comments like these don’t deserve any link love from me. Compare that to comments like these on the post yesterday asking how you use twitter and your blog.
I find twhirl to be very effective in staying up with people you want to hear from. I think it is a great tool for just reading nd discovering good tidbits from people. And now with the gurus getting involved you can see what they are doing as well. But there is one thing you forgot to mention, it is very addictive and sometimes you have to pull yourself away from it to get your work done.
Like you, I’m a huge fan of Twitter & think it’s emerging as the #1 way to keep in touch with your tribe or online family…
I use Twirl to keep up with those I follow on Twitter; it sits in the task bar & pops up tweets like incoming e-mail headers – makes it easy to glance over & see who said what without interrupting my workflow.
As to what I look for when deciding whom to follow, I watch for those who seem to be giving out a lot of good information, helpful hints, marketing-related links and retweets of info they want their followers to see.
Looking forward to the comments from others here…
Both of those comments added additional relevant content to the post in question. They deserve something for adding value. Do follow links do that.
Comment luv is another plugin that rewards commenters. It creates a link to their last blog post and pulls the title automatically. When you add your blog as the site when commenting.
If you are using good keyword rich titles it helps your back linking strategy. You get rewarded for adding your content.
Now I think I have made the point of why you should reward your commenters. The question is why do so many not do it?
Now here is where I may upset you just a bit.
I think the number one reason is laziness. Sorry gotta call a spade a spade. Set your blog up with comment luv and do follow and you will get the idiots that will get past your spam filters.
That means you have to moderate the comments all the time just to get rid of those trying to game the system and not contributing. That means work.
Well the real question is aren’t those that add value to your blog worth the effort to allow them rewards for adding value even if it does take a bit more effort on your part? My commenters are what about yours?
One of the things that has come about because of blog spammers is the default no follow link built into WordPress. I do understand why they did it but I prefer to reward those that actually take part in the conversation on my blogs.
See if you are going to add to my content and good comments do that, then you should get something for your effort too. Now this does take a bit more work on my part.
To allow me to do this I added a plugin called do follow so that all the links from your comments are set up to follow and will help you with your linking with the search engines.
The work comes in because I now have to monitor all comments. It takes a bit more effort on my part because there are way to many pieces of software that let people know that you are following.
This does bring in the bot software that adds generic comments on the subject. Most times it is relatively easy to tell these and click the spam button in the dashboard but it is a bit more effort.
The key is that using do follow makes it beneficial for people to comment and the more interactivity you can generate the better your blog will perform.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed.
Earlier in the traffic series I discussed blog commenting. Blog commenting is one of those win win situations. The blog owner wins because they get more fresh content and the commenter wins because they get a link back to their site and potential visitors clicking through to their site.
Caveat – This is based on quality comments and not people just spamming for links. Yes actually add value with your comments. Nuff said!
Also the default for WordPress is to use no follow links for commenting. Reward your commenters by using the do follow plugin so they get the benefit of the link. I do.
Comment Luv is a plugin I use here and on other blogs to reward commenters. When you add your url it will go look for your latest post and if it can find it will add a direct link to it as part of your comment.
This gives back a bit more to the people that are helping you by adding additional quality content to your blog.
Well to help promote the use of this plugin the creators have started a contest and you can win by simply using the plugin and registering your blog with them. This means that anyone leaving a comment here has the chance to win a prize from comment luv because this blog has been registered there.
The contest is run by the owners of Comment Luv and while we participate here we have nothing to do with the rewarding of any prizes and are not liable for any part of it.
So take care of your commenters by using Comment Luv and Do Follow and increase the interactivity of your blog.
As always your question and comments are welcomed.
WordPress right out of the box has no follow built in to the script. This tells the search engine robot’s not to follow any links in the comments of the blog.
You can still click the link and go to the site but Google won’t count the link when formulating your Page Rank (or at least not as much as a do follow link as no one knows exactly what Google does ).
This also does not count as a link off of your site so it does not bleed off your page rank. This came about because of blog spammers that post comments just to create a back link for their site. They don’t take part in the conversation they are takers not participants that add to the value of the blog.
The Do Follow plugin allows the owner of the blog to easily change that and reward those that comment on their blog. If you add to my value here I am more than happy to allow you a link to the site of your choice that the spiders can follow.
Now this only works if you heavily moderate your blog as with a decent PR ranking and a do follow philosophy the spammers will come a knocking. I encourage participation so for me it is worth it to give all my readers an extra incentive to take part in the conversation. Each person has to make their own decision on that as there is no right or wrong answer.
Hope that clears things up for you.
As always your question and comments are welcomed.
Have not been getting the number of comments here that I would like. Have actually thought about using the “Robert Plank” rule. On his blog he won’t post a new post until he gets 10 comments.
Now I don’t want to do that but have done a few things to make commenting here more valuable for you. I have removed the “no follow” from this blog. All links will follow and be posted.
I used a plugin called “Do Follow” which means that when you comment here you get a valid link that the spiders can and will follow. I am considering though not posting until there is at least one comment on each new post.
That rule is not in effect yet but it is being considered.
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