U Comment, I Follow
I’ve noticed, during my blog reading adventures, a little “I Follow” badge on some blogs. I didn’t know what that meant, so I Googled it. (What WAS this world before Google??)
Evidently blog comments have a “no-follow” rule, so that when you leave your site link in a comment area, it doesn’t get picked up by search engines. This is not a nice thing. In the interest of “link love”, I have downloaded the WordPress plug-in, installed it and now when search engine bots visit my blog, they will also pick up your links (should you comment and leave one). The point of the no-follow rule was to help fight comment spam. From everything I’ve read online, it isn’t effective. And since my comments are moderated- not a concern for me in the first place.
If you’d like to join the “movement” and get your own badge, visit this blog. If you want to know more about I Follow, here’s the link to the site I found, that led to my enlightenment.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
But those little tags do the very most important thing…bring readers to your site that want to continue exploring a discussion or issue… Google does pick up on the comment text though…so when I leave a comment, it’s your site is searchable based on words I’m typing. Also, links ping google to count the density level of your link popularity.
My site is fairly link popular because I’ve left hundreds of comments. Google “Danny Vice” and see how many links pop up with my name in them…
January 15th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
oopps…. I don’t want to cheat my link popularity… so here.. =)
Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice
http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com
January 16th, 2008 at 4:32 am
But this can make Google (and others angry) I think.
I don’t know for sure, but please read some articles that promote “no-follow” too. So you will get both sides of the argument.
I think search engines penalise your site if you do not “no-follow”.
Again: i don’t know for sure. Please check that out.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Dear Niyaz,
I read a lot of articles about no-follow in comment areas and I never saw anything that said that Google, or anyone else, is upset by the allowance of links to be followed. I also have never heard of sites being penalized because of allowing it.
Either way- I think it’s only fair that my visitor’s links not be blocked. Period. And I will not reinstate the no-follow tags. I really don’t care who this pisses off.
As for the second comment you left, asking where your comment was: My comments are moderated. They do not show up until I approve them. This keeps spammers from dumping their links into my comments.
Thank you for commenting!