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You comment, I follow
There are a lot of blogs I've been reading that have a badge that says "u comment, I follow". What exactly does this mean? I thought all comments link to the comment poster?
Yes, you are correct in the fact that you can add a link back to your site on most blogs; however, behind the scenes those links are tagged as "nofollow"...meaning when a search engine crawls the site it skips over the links in comments. If a particular blog chooses to remove those nofollow tags, the search engine will not skip over the links in comments and your site essentially has earned a backlink from the blog you have commented on. For those interested in improving page rank and search engine results ranking, this is a good thing.
Almost all blog platforms initially are set up as nofollow. If you want to switch your blog over to dofollow, the method to do this will depend on your blog platform.
- Wordpress users can install a plugin, such as the one found here, to remove nofollow.
- Blogger (blogspot) users must modify the blog template to remove the nofollow tags. Tips 4 blogspot has written a great tutorial on how to do this.
- Typepad users must also modify the blog template. Follow the tutorial here for more details.
If you'd like to promote yourself as a "do follow" blog, see this blog to get an official "u comment I follow" graphic. Also explore the option of adding yourself to directories and indexes of sites that are do follow, such as the Do Follow Blog Directory.
When removing the nofollow tags from your blog, keep in mind that you may need to be more active in the moderation of your comments. There is a potential for increased comment spam, but in my experience it's no more so than if you are nofollow.
September 16, 2008 10:05 AM
Thanks for the plug!
You are right that having a Dofollow blog may increase spam a bit, but no more than usual. Some of these guys are real idiots and easy to spot, and they do it on Nofollow blogs as well.
Welcome to the club!
January 1, 2009 11:32 PM
I too have recently removed the nofollow tags from my blog.
I've also modified Randa Clay's original badge design for a 88*32 size. You can get the html code for the smaller badge at:
http://companiesactingbadly.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-comment-i-follow.html
January 16, 2009 10:07 AM
Thanks for sharing
Best Regards from Turkey!
February 23, 2009 5:18 PM
Thanks for a great tip. Nofollow in effect stifles the incentive to comment and socialise. I noticed you have a 'u comment, I follow' banner. I think that it is great to advertise the fact that you have this enabled to encourage dicsussion. Would appreciate where to get this.
March 30, 2009 11:16 PM
Allowing comments with rel tags other than the nofollow is a very good trend in the blogging world. I applaud all sites that allow for link love.
March 31, 2009 11:57 PM
I don't think having nofollow on your comments stops spam. Even Akismet doesn't completely stop spam. You have to look at the comments if you really want to control what is submitted and what stays.
April 26, 2009 8:25 AM
Thanks for the three Tutorials. Very helpful. If you have a DNN example, that would be awesome.
May 18, 2009 4:58 AM
Hi, its nice to see one more in the U comment,I follow movement. As I can't understand why many of them still stick to no follow when there is no reason to do so except to stop spam which can be done by many other means. Do follow not only spreads the link juice but also encourages the commentators to comment on the blog.
August 1, 2009 6:12 AM
so does this blog use the do-follow plugin?
im asking cause i thought all blogger blogs are no-follow
August 1, 2009 10:29 PM
@faraz you are right. By default, all blogger blogs are set up with no follow. You can set up comments to follow by modifying your template. See the second link in the article above for a step by step tutorial
August 22, 2009 6:14 PM
No follow will not be followed any more.
Go on
Batt
August 29, 2009 8:04 AM
But you have to look at the comments if you really want to control what is submitted and what stays.
September 29, 2009 8:39 AM
Thanks for quick tutorial. I am about to implement Do dollow relation to one of my blog.
October 27, 2009 9:27 PM
I beleive "nofollow" tags are now removed from being taken into consideration by search engines when it comes to link juice.
March 9, 2010 10:18 AM
I am about to start a blog, and I will definitely make it dofollow.
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