I started to get serious about this blog beginning in July 2008 (actually it will be December 19th 2008, in the future, when I get serious) and as part of my commitment I knew that I needed to build up some backlinks to promote the site. So over the past 6 weeks I’ve been visiting relevant forums, replying to interesting topics, and generally leaving my signature all over the place. Trading links is a bit more tricky so I’ll leave that for the moment. According to backlinkwatch.com, as of August 11th there are 296 backlinks to my site floating about – so far so good. Then I come across this ‘U comment I follow’ movement crap where I find out that some of these backlink that budding bloggers rely on may well be worth squat! Don’t get the wrong idea – ‘U comment I follow’ is a good thing – but the fact that it’s not the status quo is just nuts!
Let’s back up a little here; typically bloggers like to leave comments to other bloggers posting, a) because they’re interested in the topic, and b) because they can often leave a link back to their own website, thus generating some potential residual traffic. These backlinks also help boost a sites Google PageRank (does anything else matter these days??) since Google partly rates a websites importance based on the number of links back to that site. Sounds great! – leave an interesting comment on a blog you like and get a backlink to your site! Turns out that could be bullshit.
Some sites, WordPress springs to mind, when posting your comment will add a particular attribute to the ‘rel’ tag in the generated HTML. The ‘rel’ tag tells your browser what to do with a link (your precious backlink in this case) when it’s pressed e.g. ‘rel = external’ tells your browser to open the link in a new window. Wuppee. So what particular attribute am I talking about? I’m talking about ‘rel = nofollow’. If ‘nofollow’ is included within the rel tag (WordPress includes it by default and there’s no WordPress option to turn it off) then when Google crawls this backlink, it sees ‘nofollow’ in the tag and excludes the link from being counted as an actual backlink to your site! – NUTS! This nofollow crap was supposed to reduced spam comments (it doesn’t) and so it’s just hurting people from promoting their sites and connecting to each other.
I’ve become paranoid now about posting comments on blogs – I check its source code and head directly to the comments section, checking to see if nofollow is lurking about. I shouldn’t though; posting comments isn’t solely about generating more backlinks, but it’s a nice bonus!
There is hope though – for WordPress users there are plenty of plugins available that will strip the nofollow attribute from the HTML before it is posted, allowing your readers to post their comments knowing that they can promote their own site while contributing to your own. I’m using a plugin by Kimmo Suominen that’s easy to install and does the job well. Randa Clay has created some nice de facto official dofollow badges that one can put on their site declaring that it is nofollow free – see below this post? That’s one there!
I thought every linked post I made was a backlink to help promote this site – guess not. It’s great though to be aware about this now and to know that so many people are changing their HTML to get rid of this vestigal piece of code.
Update: I’m going to be a complete hypocrite now, I want to see if adding the nofollow tag actually has an influence on a sites pagerank. As soon as I find out for sure I’ll put the nofollow tag back in 
Technorati Tags: u comment i follow, dofollow, commenting
I understand your frustration. I DIDN’T know about the wordpress no follow conspiracy! Wow, good thing I use Drupal…
Hi solacetech, this nofollow idea is nuts if you ask me – I hope more people join it. Good to see you’re onboard!
I’ve never heard of Drupal, your … tells me to go look it up
I guess I knew some of them did that, but I usually don’t comment ‘just’ for the backlink, so I don’t really stress about it. There’s bigger things to worry about, and I don’t have the time to check the source on every blog I might want to comment on, KWIM?
The no-follow tag isn’t new in the blogging world nor is it exclusive to blogging or WordPress.
It is used to help the blog that the comment is being placed on preserve its PR and to prevent being penalized by Google for linking to bad neighbours.
I don’t use the no-follow tag myself but I can understand why people use it.
@Becki: I’ve stopped the source checking now! – it was a fleeting moment of misfounded paranoia
@Geoserv: Good point, I hadn’t considered nofollow’s use from the point of view of protecting against “bad” links. I guess with comment moderation though a webmaster can filter out at least most of what he/she considers to be spam comments and by extension the bad links.
HI this melissa from entrecard. I like your site.
Melstephens from entrecard visiting you today. God bless
thanks for sharing this issues about backlinking, i just get a little serious about blogging when i joined today
I don’t use no-follow as well. When I found a blog and the entries are worth to read– I’ll leave a message. Maybe I should read more about it in the future.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend,
Anah
I think no follow is good in general. I *think* I removed it form my blog but I am in blogger so really need to get that checked before I put up the banner hehe, lest I am guilty of false words which is most uncool.
most uncool indeed
I’m using no follow for a long time and more people should use it to.
I also have created a nofollow badge, check my site for it, you’re free to use it!
Hi BioTeck, great button!, I see how it’s optimised for your site – unfortuantly I don’t think the colour scheme would fit here
Glad to have another dofollow blog to visit!:-
Your blog is already doing so well so this would be more of a “thank you” to your readers, I guess.