Our Blog Site is a Do-Follow Blog
What does that mean?
In 2005 Google drafted a standard called the no follow tag. What this was meant to do is to combat comment spam by telling Google, Technorati and other spider systems not to follow a particular link. By default it is switch ON on your standard blogging software including Wordpress.
The problem is that this tag has result in disadvantaging small real bloggers who want to build on the world wide community of discussion. The big guys like TechCrunch, Lifehacker and others don’t need our help building a linked in community and they invariably have it switched on. However the little guy IS disadvantaged because we need these links to help people find us and be a legitimate voice in the discussion.
Almost all blog platforms by default are set up so that a “dead end” piece of code is inserted wherever there is a link in a comment, so that search engines will not “count” the link as they are crawling the internet. This was originally designed to help stop comment spam, but it doesn’t work. What it does is remove some of the incentive for your readers contribute to your site by commenting on your posts.
You can read the Google Blog discussion on this here.
But Isn’t Comment Spam a big problem?
The answer is yes and no. There are some excellent SPAM detection plugins now available that can help. Akismet is a great SPAM tool and for me knocks out 99% of the spam. The number of false positives are quite low these days. I strongly urge that you look at Wordpress as your platform because of it’s strong community of plugins.
Once you get a ton of traffic then you are reassess the use or non-use of the nofollow tag.
How can it help me as a blogger?
By building a community of bloggers who consciously disable their nofollow tag and cross promote the fact that they do that, then invariably the community will be strengthened by the cross linking and the “Link Juice” it provides. Secondly by creating a DoFollow policy for your blog you will invariably get a following of bloggers who are willing to support your blog.
How do I know if I am a DoFollow or noFollow Blog ?
That is pretty straight forward. You just need to open your browser to your website.
Then go View>Page Source.
Then look at the Comments Section.
If you see this:
then you have nofollow enabled.
If you see this:
Then you are good to go.
How can I become a DoFollow Blogger?
If you have Wordpress, then you simply need to add the plug NoFollow Free. We also use Nofollow Reciprocity which adds back the tag for the super big websites who don’t need it.
If you have a Google Blogger blog, then follow the instructions here.
How do you Kiwibloke manage your DoFollow Policy?
We have a two step policy. Firstly we look for blogs who actively support DoFollow for their comments and we engage in that community. It is our express wish to cross polinate the discussion and we think we have a lot to add.
If you don’t like what we comment then you can vote with the delete key. However we rarely delete a comment unless it is obvious spam or crosses the boundary of decency. That means ad homen attacks and foul language. You can call our argument completely stupid, but you cannot call us (or the readers) stupid or worst.
Our site by default is DoFollow with the obvious exception of images and other stuff that should not be followed. We also apply nofollow to large sites like Time, New York Times, CNN etc because they don’t need us.
Do you offer Additional Benefits?
Why yes we do, thanks for asking. We employ a DoFollow Blogroll. This Blogroll is on our front page and the link is given to people to are part of the DoFollow Bloggers. These blogs have explicitly given us a Technorati Authority and we are returning the favor. The Blogroll for Technorati is specifically spidered and counted as an Authority. It is exactly the link they are looking for.
So in order for you to get on our blogroll you need to:
- Firstly be an explict DoFollow Blogger (and we check)
- Secondly we have contributed to your community through comments or guest blogging
- Thirdly at some stage we have ended up with Technorati Authority because of you
Even More Benefits
We also do Technorati Fav exchange. This means if you favor us in Technorati then we will do the same. Simple as that.
You are welcome to copy this information and use it on your site including the nice green logo below. Just right click and save to your desktop.
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29 responses so far ↓
1 BlueCow Hosting Blog » Blog Archive » Making A Do Follow Blog - The Blue Cow Community for Wordpress Bloggers // Mar 16, 2009 at 5:52 am
[...] Read Kiwiblokes Do Follow Page here. [...]
2 Madeleine from Christian Philosophy // Mar 26, 2009 at 4:03 am
We just went DoFollow but now I want a nice button that will match my layout and one that says we follow instead of I follow as my blog is a collaboration.
3 martin from london escorts // Jun 27, 2009 at 7:59 am
thank you for your generousity . while other blog owners dont even approve a comment and you are accepting do-follow comment loves . awesome . i hope that will bring traffic to your blog.
4 Chris Thomas from free iPhone3GS // Jun 30, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Congratulations on implementing the DoFollow plug in on your blog. I hope it’s is working out for you. I’ve just set up a blog on my site (only two posts so far!) but I’m thinking of using the plug in to hopefully drive more traffic there. I’m a little wary of spam but I think that because the majority of it is automated it probably won’t make much difference.
5 Nick Bentley // Jul 14, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’m going to switch to dofollow today. I’ve heard of “Google juice” being drained by people afraid to turn it on but some of the sites in your blogroll are PR 7 with 650k comments and they don’t seem any worse off for it. Think I’m going to moderate at first to see how it goes (I use a spam filter).
6 Boris from Scratch My Back Marketing // Jul 15, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Hi,
We are a Do Follow blog. We will be launching a networking site soon for only Do Follow bloggers who believe in ethical link building practices.
I invite you to follow my link to learn more about this network. I would also considering adding Tan Tan noodles to stop auto spam. You are about to get a whole bunch of it.
7 kiwibloke // Jul 16, 2009 at 8:12 am
@boris, thanks for your comment. We use both Askimet and WP-spamfree. They both capture hundreds of spams each day. It is well under control.
8 Albert // Jul 25, 2009 at 9:51 pm
The dofollow movement is a great one. I hope it changes Google’s impression of dofollow and the nofollow tags in general.
9 chai // Aug 3, 2009 at 9:41 pm
this is great.. i just know what is do follow when i read your blog
you’re rocks bro
10 JD from Anime MMORPG // Aug 15, 2009 at 6:06 am
First I have to say thank you for making your blog do-follow. I’m having a hard time now looking for do-follow blogs, the only problem for me since I’m using blogspot platform are spam comments. blogspot doesn’t have enough control over your blog compared to wordpress. SO if i’ll be converting my blog to do-follow I have to do some research on what means they can control spam
11 Emerald from seo marketing ireland // Aug 15, 2009 at 7:09 am
Kudos to you!I appreciate do follow blogs since it benefits avid commentator’s site too.Thanks!
12 techno blog // Aug 15, 2009 at 10:33 am
thank you very much for your post. now, i know what and how’s usefull of dofollow
13 Moshiach // Aug 19, 2009 at 3:51 am
Great article on this topic.
14 Hypnotherapy herts // Aug 20, 2009 at 1:40 am
I don’t know no follow and do follow but after reading your post my confusion become clear.
15 Jeff // Sep 2, 2009 at 5:55 am
Yes you are correct that using nofollow tag we can easily remove the spam comments but on the other hand we misses a lot of follow bloggers. In this context your suggestions of turning a blog from nofollow to dofollow is great. I will surely use it and hope it will bring traffic to my blog.
16 Mington // Sep 3, 2009 at 7:36 am
Nice one man! follow me to you doom
17 Joseph from Restaurant City // Sep 15, 2009 at 12:43 am
Love that this is a do-follow blog; not only do I love reading but its very nice that you give backlinks to people as well. Keep up the good work on the blog!
18 Kristi from Oes Tsetnoc // Sep 15, 2009 at 7:13 pm
DoFollow is really a benefit for both bloggers and commenters. It’s a reciprocal benefit, as dofollow bloggers get more traffic and comments than nofollow bloggers do, and the commenters get more backlinks by participating on dofollow blogs. It is a win-win situation.
~ Kristi
19 Souto // Sep 16, 2009 at 8:52 am
Yes, kudos to you. This is a win-win relationship and serve the good cause of independence from the search engines that seems that wants to rules our world.
20 Whale // Sep 22, 2009 at 5:52 am
i agree with Souto.
and I am going to make a dofollow blog now .
21 sindy from London Escorts // Sep 24, 2009 at 8:15 am
I know there is still a rumour that google still counts no follows as link backas and would be interested to hear peoples opinions on that
22 Thomas from Anaheim Cheap Hotel // Oct 2, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I am glad you have joined the dofollow movement. I have made all my blogs dofollow and have seen noting bad happen at all. I still rank well for my keywords, the span is nothing I cannot deal with. I cannot stand these sites that hog their PR…..I say spread the love!
23 chris from draculacostumes // Oct 10, 2009 at 2:21 am
A lot of bloggers dont even take the trouble to approve comments. I think your approach is good and will bring a lot of interest and traffic.
24 Allister Sinclair // Oct 13, 2009 at 12:04 am
Im glad you are supporting dofollow. I think it is a big benefit to both sides and nofollow a big disadvantage.
25 Chaussures pas cher // Oct 22, 2009 at 9:17 am
Thanks to support dofollow!
This is a very good idea
26 bryan from london escorts // Dec 9, 2009 at 7:32 am
There is a rumour that google still counts no follow but not sure if this is actually true.
27 Kevins Promotional Products // Dec 14, 2009 at 12:50 pm
hmmm i need to see how to set my blog.net blog up as a do follow blog.. i hate the no follow tag…if anyone knows how to set up that blog as a do follow please let me know
28 Paul from Sony MDR 7506 // Feb 19, 2010 at 2:25 pm
DoFollow is a rising movement. The benefits defineatly outweigh the current negatives.
You’ll always have your comment spammers, even if you are a nofollow blog.
I’m glad you are DoFollow and I urge others to try DoFollow if you are not already using it.
29 nowGoogle // Mar 2, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Do Follow blogs are getting bigger these days, also getting more spamcomments. So it takes a bit more work by manually checking and approving the comments, but this makes the value of your blog alot higher
Go on leave a comment, it's easy...
We don't use the nofollow tag out of principle, you are welcome to comment, but please respect it or it could disappear. If you want to understand what this means please read my DoFollow Page. We also don't moderate because we believe in instant gratification.