When DoFollow Blogs Can Hurt You
Being bloggers we all like good comments. A good comment adds to the conversation, provides useful information and relevant links. The commenter doesn’t drop many links to his/her multiple blogs or websites in the comment text.
And we all hate spam. The owners of "DoFollow" blogs observe an explosion of borderline spam comments and moderate like crazy!
You may think you did everything right. You typed your SEO terms into the "Name" field and wrote a comment. And since the blog is "DoFollow" why not add one more link in the signature to get more backlinks and clicks?
You think this is smart. However, you hurt yourself.
Don’t think the blogger is stupid when you leave a comment. If the blogger considers your comment as spam, you just wasted your time and you will not get backlinks with your keywords as the anchor text. At best, the blogger will simply delete or edit your comment. At worse, they will report you to Akismet. In either case you won’t get any link juice.
The thing to remember is that if you are reported often, you will have troubles with commenting on all blogs protected by Akismet or Spam Karma (most known anti-spam plugins for WordPress). Akismet or Spam Karma will reject you before the blogger sees your comment.
How does the plugin recognize spam comments? It analyzes the following things:
- Time between the page loading and comment submission. If the comment is posted immediately after the page is loaded, the plugin thinks this is an automated submission. It’s supposed that people will take time to read the post before submitting a comment.
- Occurrence of the "stop" words in the comment text and URLs (comments containing "blacklisted" words like "porno", "viagra", etc. are automatically marked as spam)
- Quantity of URLs in the comment text. More URLs, more risks to be flagged as spam.
- The size of URLs in the comment text is compared against the text size. If the whole URLs size is bigger than the size of the text, the comment will be marked as spam.
- "Spammy" IPs are filtered (if your comments are reported as spam many times, your IP will be blacklisted).
- The plugin looks at how old the post is and how much time passed since the latest comment on the post.
In addition, some blogs can have plugins that give a "DoFollow" link after you leave several comments on the blog. So, you should not count to get a "DoFollow" link on your first visit.
Things to Avoid When Leaving a Comment
I would suggest that you remember this rule – "Don’t be greedy". When you comment on a "DoFollow" blog for the first time, post a well thought comment with one link and your name as an anchor text. It’s like asking for a slice of pie. The blogger won’t begrudge you a slice but they won’t give you a whole pie!
Well, below is a list of common things you should avoid when leaving a comment on a "DoFollow" blog:
- Many irrelevant links in the comment text. Your comment will look spammy if you insert a lot of URLs that are not related to the post or to the comment text.
- Too short answer. Some bloggers may treat your short comment like "Thank you, great post", "Thank you, I agree", or something like this as spam even if you have the proper "Name" and don’t abuse the links. Of course, you can thank the post author for a great article if you liked it. But also, think about adding some information to this, maybe share your own experience, or add some more useful resources to make your comment more valuable.
- Duplicate signature at the bottom of the comment. As you already have your signature in the "Name" and "Url" fields, there is no need to repeat it in the comment text. The readers who will want to visit your website can click on your name.
- Large number of similar comments per day (if a search engine bot finds, for example, 100 comments with the same anchor text and comment text per day, it looks a bit unnatural and your links will be devalued).
There is one more important thing to think about: SEO term in the "Name" field. Some bloggers may allow the use of the keywords in the "Name" field, others may not. Before submitting a comment, take a look at other comments (if the post has any) to find out if the keywords are allowed in the "Name". If other people submitted the comments under their names or nicknames, you should do the same. Some bloggers can let you write something like "Julia — Directory Submission". But again, look and make sure other commenters did it.
With all that said, I would highly recommend that you avoid using automated comment submission tools. Yes, you are able to submit dozens or even hundreds of comments every day using an automated tool but will those links do any good for you? I bet no. You have no control over your comments. The program just fills in the form with your name, URL, email address and writes some text it thinks appropriate. The search engines are (or will be) smart enough to recognize automated submissions and devalue your links. A hundred of comments with the same URL and anchor text per day is the first "red flag" for the search engine saying that the comments were made automatically. In addition, the submission rules differ from blog to blog. What is OK for one blog may be considered as spam on another blog. You risk to be added to the "blacklist" and won’t be able to post comments anywhere. They will end up in the Akismet or Spam Karma spam folders.
In short, if you want to improve your search engine position, visit "DoFollow" blogs. Read the post, scan other comments to know what is allowed in the comments and only after that leave your well thought comment on the post. Quality over quantity - that is the rule to follow when building links from blog commenting.
Remember that there is no "easy button" to push. You can’t just set the things and sit patiently waiting they will work without you putting ANY effort! You will get outstanding results only if you are willing to take time to make them happen.
Please, share your thoughts in comments below.
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although tools such as fast blog finder can help make things easier, i will still only submit comments on blogs that are relevant to my site, or on posts that i truly have something useful to say, as i have always said, i would rather a handful of links from relevant sources rather than a bucketload from all over the place.
Spamming blogs with comments (or using automated software) won’t hurt your rankings in theory because otherwise you could damage your competitors rankings using this tactic - and that is not possible as the Search Engines are designed to avoid that loophole.
Don’t get me wrong! I’m not condoning it in anyway.
However, it just simply is not ethical, will annoy other blog owners and as this article states can lead to you being on spam blacklists. Commenting will bring much better effects if you take the time to do it manually and leave real decent comments.
I find commenting is best used to attract other bloggers to visit your site. Bloggers often read and moderate the comments and will visit your site. I’ve found that they will come by and start commenting on my site and even link to some of the posts I make over time and can even lead to stronger business relationships.
Thanks for the words of sanity. I was hired to do posting for a very “successful” website, and found after I was hired, that there was not one blog left in his market that still allowed live links.
I think this article basically said it all. Just like with the content of your own site, there are no short cuts; be smart and do things manually, reading the article before posting your comment.
In fact, since I started using FBF, there has been many blogs that I have found relating to my keyword search but the articles has not been suiteable or commentable that I have chosen not to post a comment because the best thing I could have come up with in response would have been a ‘great post’ or ‘I agree with you’ and that serves no purpose, not for me (risk of being blacklisted) or the additional work it took the editor to remove my rather useless comment.
With that said, I appreciate the list that Julia included in her article about things not to do when commenting. Some things are obvious but seeing it in print makes them even more important and easy to remember.
Great article Julia!
–Tony
Hey Julia- great post! I actually made some notes on some of the things you said. So, do you suggest having “do follow” blogs or “no follow” blogs? I think that having “do follow” blogs can be extremely beneficial- plus you can always change the settings so that other blogger comments have to first be approved before they are posted. Wouldn’t this help to weed out some of the spammers?
Julia,
As alway your posts are a great help. As far as no easy button, for me fast blog finder is as close as I’ve found!
The software allows you to read the post and decide whether or not your comment will provide value.
Keep up the super work.
George
Julia –
You’ve done it again…you are publishing some of the most well-thought material on blog post commenting techniques to be found anywhere on the web today. What is great about your post is that you don’t parrot what ‘everyone’ knows or what ‘everyone’ thinks should be done. You go into detail and explain the “why” — the rationale behind the strategies you recommend. Your blog should be on everyone’s must-read list. The info regarding characteristics that will get your comments flagged as spam is actually worth paying good money for, IMHO…keep up the GREAT work with these posts!
I seen those submission tools at work. The only time so far that I seen them stick is to an abandon blog. Might even be one of their own. There are tools that can creat those as fast as they can post comments. I might be getting bad link back but I’m not even using anchor text in my comments because I’m not seeing those out there either.
I am getting the links back. Maybe they like my comment and want to link naturally. I don’t know, I’m new to this but I have always enjoyed blogging so its ok with me. The old saying I’m here to make money not friends doesn’t work online. You need to make friends to make money.
Hi Julia,
You mentioned the possibility of combining your name with keywords:
[write something like "Julia — Directory Submission". ]
I might turn that around and place the keywords first, using something like:
“Directory Submission by Julia”
so the keywords appear first in the resulting link.
To take this a step further, it’s probably smart to vary the link text (i.e. the name field) from post-to-post, right?
Hello Janelle,
It depends on the blogger how he will set the blog: “DoFollow” or “NoFollow”. I personally think that by having a “DoFollow” blog is like saying “thank you” to people who comment on it. People took time to visit the blog, read the post and leave a comment and in return they get a “DoFollow” link.
You are right, you can change “DoFollow” to “NoFollow” at any time but I don’t think this will stop spammers. “Quantity over quality” is their first rule. So, they seem not to think much about what the blog is. Their purpose is to submit as many comments as possible.
Hi there,
Thank you all for your comments. I’m glad to know that you liked the article.
I’ve just got a proof how easily the comment can be moved to the spam folder. I opened my spam folder (my blog is protected by Akismet) and saw 3 comments there. They were OK and I approved them. But if I didn’t go to the spam folder, I would never seen those comments. So, it looks like somebody has already flagged those comments as spam in the past and now they went directly to the spam box. Well, it proves one more time that we must be careful when submitting comments and follow the rules of the blog.
There was a time I had like 3 weeks without any comments on one of my blogs which gets a lot of comments. I kept wondering what was wrong with my articles .Was my writing quality dropping or was my readership ignoring me as a crank. I just happened on the spam folder and I had a lot of good comments hidden in the spam folder.
I now make it a point to visit the spam folder when I can and do get worried that some of my comments have ended up in someone’s spam folder. Is there a way to undo that if it happens? It would make no sense to comment on other blogs if your ip or email has been marked as spam by Akismet would it?
Hello,
Yes, this is even better. It reads easier. I will take it into account.
Yes, you are right. If you vary the “Name” field, the links look natural and get more value in search engines.
I’ve been following your posts (pun intended) about commenting in blogs, but I’m just having a difficult time coming up with keywords for my name that don’t make me look like a goof….or too much of a nerd.
My site is about technical issues, and I can’t seem to get my head around “naming myself” as some sort of technology. And that makes me wonder if the real people who read comments and tend to follow links manually will also think that I’m an idiot. Considering the fact 99% who use the ‘Net will have no clue as to why I didn’t just type my name in the name field, how do I come up with a “name” that doesn’t look to weird.
Do I add the word “fan” to the keyword(s)? Will that dilute the value of the real keywords?
Ideas?
Thanks for this post. Now I seem to get a picture of why most of my comments don’t appear after posting. Most of the time I get the “comment awaiting moderation” message. Coming back to check after a few days, my comments are nowhere. I will try to take your advice and practice them. If I succeed, I will be too ready to post a comment here.
Hi,
You can vary your anchor text in the “name” field. This is even better if you have different “names”. You can use your keywords, or similar words, you can use your name or nickname, you can even add the word “fan”.
Hey Julia,
Thanks for the information. I was just about to start using an automated blog commenter software tool and decided now (after reading your warnings) to not use it and ask for a refund. It seems at first that automating may help your website ranking or link-backs or whatever and there are many out there who will sell you this automation software - making claims about what it will do for your website or blog. Everyone is catching on now and little by little, the comment spammers will be discouraged and perhaps even be stopped but in the meantime, buyer beware. Thanks again.
Bruce
Hi Bruce,BTW, I have recovered your comment from Akismet Spam folder. Seems that you already hurt yourself by using that automated blog commentator software. Take care
I totally agree with the post. I have found that I will read the whole post and also read the comments. There is always something that you have an opinion on. I usually only leave the one link in my name and not in the comment. Unless it is is right on target with what the comment is about and then it is used as a referral to what I am talking about. You get one chance at leaving comments and if you abuse it well that is it. Just take you time and find the correct post to go after and offer quality. I know I pass up many blogs just because it is off topic or it is a subject way over my head and cannot come up with anything that is good.
I’m new to all the marketing tools utilized for promoting my website. When I read articles like this one on blogs. I learn so much. I had no idea you could use keywords in the name field. Is the way I used my keywords on this post alright or would you suggest another way? I too had no idea that when you receive “comment awaiting moderation” and then when I checked back, my post was not there, I was posting the wrong way. I’ve learned a lot, thank you for such an informative article.
Jan
The issue is whether you are looking to acquire just backlinks (in which case the quality of comment isn’t so important as long as it is not removed) or you are seeking both a baclink and visitors to your own blog. I’ve taken the view that I must maximise my efforts by providing sensible comments that help the conversation and are totally relevant to the post and put me in a favourable light. That way there is every chance that a human reading the comment I left may think it worthwhile checking out my blog and if they like what they see will become a subscriber / regular visitor.
One of the sure ‘giveaways’ is stuffing keywords in the name field. If the culture of that particular blog does not allow that (based on prev. posts) I suggest to keep away from that. Why? because if there is a page rank involved, you will get the PR benefits and even if that particular page would not rank highly for the keywords, the PR will allow all the pages on your site to benefit and move up in search engine. So risk/reward.
steve
Blog spam is a silly way to approach the problem of promoting a site. The best way has always been and will continue to be sitting down and typing comments to well though out posts. If the person posting put 30 minutes into his/her original post and you take 10 seconds it will be good bye post. Blog Spam is like being on a commuter train with some kids and their iPods who are blasting the entire compartment. Not a good way to make a friend. Even a jaded equity trader will say hello if you are considerate.
I am struggling with using keywords as a name. I can justify by modifying it a bit to make it look like a nickname like “blue widget guy” or “small business loans sherpa” but I am wondering how much we hurt your chances of getting a post approved by a mod by including a keyword rich name.
Another angle is establishing yourself as a poster and then asking the blogger if you could change your name or signature to something directly related to your site. I have even gone as far as letting them know in advance that I’d like to do this.
When is a blog post too old and it is not a good idea to post a comment? I know some blogs stop allowing comments to be posted after a certain period of time automatically, but if they don’t is it then OK to post a comment even if it is an old post and no one has commented in awhile. I need to update my fastblogfinder as I haven’t used it in awhile (been preoccupied) but I remember in the past several of the blog posts it would find were from old posts. Sometimes I would post a comment on the post it found (which was most relevant) and sometimes I would go to the home page of the blog to see if more current and relevant posts are available.
Well, thanks for a well thought and well written article again.
Still I think, that it’s a bit awkward to think of blog-comments as trafic-drivers. Though I appreciate your more respectful way of thinking it. I am still a quite romantic guy, who likes to believe, that people who comment on a blog has an interest in the topic posted. Personally; I will not waste time thinking about what opinion to have, writing and posting, if I couldn’t care less about the subject - even if it generates trafic ie. a few clicks.
/Claus
The information provided at this blog was exactly what I thought. I use to find blog relevant to my site and then post comment with some time gap.
Clearly this thread allows keywords in the name field
But I agree with your advice and the comments following, that you really need to see what the blogger allows. It also depends on your goal, if you want appropriate anchor text, then you should keep pushing your keywords — even if a good percentage of them get turned down.
But, I would say you should ALWAYS add something relevent to the discussion. Otherwise you are basically spamming and none of us want that.
I have a number of blogs and added a do-follow plugin for Wordpress to all of them. I also have Asikmet on all of them and this combo seems to work well. On one blog with PR of 3 Asikmet catches appx 300+ spam comments per day. Who has timre to review so many? I just clear them all.
Bob
Hi Julia
As usual another informative post, I have used my real name and I’ve used keywords, I make a call depending on the Page Rank of the blog. If it a high 7,8,9 rank I tend to use real name and go for visitors rather than the SE spiders.
The question I’d like to ask is when setting the URL should I stick to the home page or is it acceptable to deep link into the site ocassionally?
I think I got the answer I was looking for. I’m still curious if the url in the form that you fill out counts as a backlink for a do follow blog? I have never really gotten a solid answer on this. Thanks….
To First,
Julia thanks for article-post. I know about it from e-mail subscribe. You create good seo stuff. Very interesting because you open new solutions for SEO. The New The Creative Link Building Hint.
To Second,
Not all comment posters write comments by your rules. I found many stupid-short comment ( Great blog, nice post ) and they are aprooved
p/s Wrtie more, Julia
Julia,
“BTW, I have recovered your comment from Akismet Spam folder. Seems that you already hurt yourself by using that automated blog commentator software. Take care”
Actually, I am writing this comment live here in person. I never started using the automator. My comment above was also written ‘live’ contained no spam, did it? Perhaps Akismet got it wrong? Bruce
“Too short answer. Some bloggers may treat your short comment like “Thank you, great post”, “Thank you, I agree”, or something like this as spam even if you have the proper “Name” and don’t abuse the links. Of course, you can thank the post author for a great article if you liked it. But also, think about adding some information to this, maybe share your own experience, or add some more useful resources to make your comment more valuable.”
Try quoting the article itself and talk about the related topic. You can make it short and simple, but just mention a positive aspect to the quote, and try to seem interested.
Then try closing with something like, Hey great post, nice article, thanks for the post, and then simply end with a polite thanks!
Then you will be on your way to great commenting that doesn’t get deleted!
Thanks.
I tried to operate a blog with a do follow policy, and found that I was deleting over 200 spam coments a day, I didnt know about the anti spam ad ons that have been mentioned so I have learned a lot from you blog
Julia , even after I did activate Akismet on my blog I was getting over 100 Spam messages daily , God knows why ? and I have noticed one thing the blogs hosted on Godaddy recieve more spam than hosted on other blogs . I might be wrong but In my case it is true. The blog which is mentioned above gets over 150 Spam comments daily and is hosted on Godaddy while I have another (I will not mention url , as you said it would hurt rankings) on Blue host and it does not receive spam comments at all.
i agree with you in most of this once i had do-follow blog pagrank 3 and i felt bad when they make it a link farms i think it would also hurt my blog if i kept those links so i remove it thanks on this great article and i think most of honest webmasters will agree with you
Debtfreedave asked
“I’m still curious if the url in the form that you fill out counts as a backlink for a do follow blog? I have never really gotten a solid answer on this. Thanks….”
I would be grateful if someone could clarify this. Do we put url,including <a href and anchor text in the name field, or do we put just the anchor text in the name field and the url in the website field?
Can you tell I’m a newbie at this?
I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact I’ve used several other blog commenting tools (won’t go into names) and have discover exactly that irrelevent posts onto nothing-in-comment sites only serve to lower my PR. I really enjoy the no-follow feature of Fast Blog Finder, as well as the PR feature.
There’s nothing like good quality content and good authentic comment sto the blog posts. I know I get insulted by the barrage of spam comments on my PR 4 sites… and why shouldn’t I?
This excellent post really demonstrates to the uninformed, spam the blogs, type of marketer’s days are truly numbered! With the ever increasing interactivity of Web2.0 websites it’s just a matter of time until they will have to reinvent their IP and identities more and more… even those will eventual not work.
This is a great discussion.
I have put a lot of thought into this as I build my online presence. I know there are many out there that are looking for an answer. Trying to bring in a dollar. It can get somewhat desperate and I think one can loss focus. If you are thinking money and traffic, you probably won’t last. If you are thinking of adding actual value to a discussion you will do better.
Further, you help the site you post to by adding posts and good keywords (sorry I didn’t do any research, I just like this discussion). I think it is rude to spam a blog just for a backlink. It takes a lot of work to build one of these sites and one should respect the owners efforts, not exploit them. I have posted to some blogs when I stumble onto them and find them interesting. My site is not even complete yet and my purpose was not to drive traffic yet, just to contribute out of genuine interest. Yet I have discovered that my traffic is going up (so I better hurry and get my site finished).
Change the focus and what you are trying to accomplish from self serving and financial gain to establishing a reputation of being honest, provide your audience with value, help them find what they are looking for. Join in discussions to help others. In doing so, you are going to better help yourself. I often will add links to other peoples sites because they have validity and value in the discussion. This helps my competition, which….really. I think is ok. Its a tuff world online, sifting the garbage for the gold, if you find some, why not share?
Thanks so much for this discussion.
Great info, especially on the timing because many times I would simply browse the blog and leave a comment rather quickly.
Is there a min. amount of time b4 you should leave a comment?
Thanks,
Sean
Hi Julia!
Thanks for your email regarding this incisive information on blogging.
Back in the late 70’s through the early 80’s there was a computer programming and data input term that often floated around.
The acronym GIGO : Garbage In Garbage Out!
Your last paragraph is spot on! The Internet can be a very useful tool, and like all things constructed, sometimes people take shortcuts. Most often it comes back to bite them in the @$$.
A level head and time will make efforts shine through. Be patient, and continue to work!
Peace and Grace
I totally agree with you. Finding backlink by commenting on blogs really needs time. But if enjoy reading and learn something from articles or even discuss with blogger, we will get some benefits: backlink, knowledge and friend.
Wow, what a great post and thread,
I really take exception with the person above who said that “content didn’t matter just the link” they must be new or completely clueless. A blog, website or anything with poor content is just that - junk. This thread is getting a lot of great post simply because those replying are reading good stuff and want to participate in the conversation.
If the comments were limited to “great post” or other short comments you would not have near as many thought out replies. Content is king, always was and always will be. Doesn’t matter Werther its written , audio or video good content is what it’s all about.
If your not going to put any thought into a reply, shame on you. You might get a link but you will also get an automatic “No follow” from those reading the post.
What a refreshing change this is, from comments I read in other blogs that seem to focus on tricks to get around Google and so on. One thing about the internet business world seems to be that conscience gets the short end of the stick.
And automated comments merely for the sake of links and traffic… even if it works… well, it just offends one’s sense of natural justice. Unfortunately, we have to resort to using anti-spam software just to weed those out — enforcing the ‘letter of the law’, where ‘the spirit of the law’ does not prevail.
So, yes, this post is a good and timely reminder, especially for anyone who might be wavering about buying an automated commenting software, and enriching the purveyors of these systems!
I became so engrossed reading all the excellent info you offer here, Julia, that I almost forgot to come back and leave a note to say, “Thank you!”
I’m just getting started with SEO, and I feel lucky to have come across such superb guidance. I’ll be giving Fast Blog Finder a trial run tomorrow morning. Many mahalos for everything!
Debi
Thanks for a good set of tips and what blog owners look for.
One good way of getting into this mindset is moderate your own blog without the automated spam plugin assistance for a while. You soon will get a feel for what you appreciate a\s a worthy comment and what typifies spam. You can then ensure that your comments on other blogs are well received.
Hello Bruce,
It’s nothing if one comment from you is flagged as spam. Akismet won’t block you in this case. The problem arises when many bloggers flag your comments as spam. BTW. This comment from you was also recovered from my spam folder.
Hello Jan,
For me your anchor text which contains your name and your keywords is OK. But you can vary your “Name” field if you post comments on different blogs. For example, you can use “Jan - pet potraits”, or “Pet potraits by Jan”, or “Jan, watercolorist” or something similar. Just play with your name and keywords.
Hello Margaret,
In the “Name” field you put your anchor text, for example, “Margaret” or “Margaret + your keywords”. In the URL field you just enter your website link, for example http://www.yourdomain.com/. When the comment is approved, your name will be hyperlinked. If the reader clicks on your name, he or she will be redirected to your website.
Yes, the URL you provide when you submit a comment is counted as a backlink from a “DoFollow” blog.
It is your choice what URL to provide. You can enter the link to the home page. And I think the blogger will have nothing against a deep link to a page on your website.
I appreciate the good information. Be a good neighbor is the rule of the day. I like FBF because you can save a lot of time searching through all the blogs for relevant posts, yet still have the flexibility to write an intelligent comment. When you find a good blog you can participate on a regular basis and build credibility for your site as well as learn new things from others.
An interesting post. Personally when I’m submitting to a “dofollow” blog, I always read the article rather than posting some quick and nasty comment like, “great article.” I often find myself not able to understand what the blog is all about, perhaps with an unfamiliar subject, and in this case, I just move on without commenting. Like you mentioned above, I don’t want to be seen as a spammer and so I regulate my comments to subjects I can discuss with at least a little knowledge.
Thank you Julia. By way of a forum, I found myself here. Probably a link my SEO guy sent me. Sometimes I get dizzy and just find myself somewhere where they’re really is useful information worthy of a comment. I’m somewhat new to blogging and now I’m beginning to see how much fun it is and I’ve decided to develop a blog on my site. I have seen only one good blog in my topic and that makes me sad, but I have my cerebral side and studying seo techniques is one of the ways I fulfill that need. Your suggestions I fee were spot on! Each one you mentioned I intuitively have come to realize, like checking the names and conventions on each blog before leaving your “name” and comment. I’m very respectful and really am a firm believer in quality of quantity and I enjoy reading the posts and then putting my two cents in as well as a good strong link back to my sites. I will remember every word you said and add that to my growing bank of knowledge and hopefully in a year or two, I can be as savvy as you and know as much as you do.
Quality blog comments are hard to come by on most of my blogs all I get are comments that are clearly there just for the free backlink. That is when my blog is nofollow, I could not imagine the spam I would recieve if I made it dofollow.
Thanks for such a great post. I asked a question on a recent post and I think it was answered here.
This post surely made me wise about blog commenting.
Thanks Julia for pointing out reasons why other comments are not being posted because of anti spam plugins. Their downside is when these plugins treat good comments as spam. I had friends who were leaving comments on my blog but then filtered out. But one good thing about Akismet is the ability to ‘tell’ it how to spot the good comments among the others.
Clearly this thread allows keywords in the name field
But I agree with your advice and the comments following, that you really need to see what the blogger allows. It also depends on your goal, if you want appropriate anchor text, then you should keep pushing your keywords — even if a good percentage of them get turned down.
There is a WP plugin that will allow individual posts that the moderator thinks is spam, to mark the post as a do not follow link, while other posts are do follow. For example, two posters wrote - “great post, very informative.” Spam? One was a friend and the other I did not know. My friend gets the dofollow backlink and the unknown person gets the nofollow treatment. Of course, I did not send the unknown person to Askimet as spam.
Julia,
I really enjoy this discussion. Its rather hard to wrap my head around.
I am thinking about this talk of leaving posts just for the purpose of a back link….
When someone does this by simply posting “great post, thank you”, does this help the site the post is made to?
For example, lets suppose I have a blog on my site that I am trying to raise the ranking for. If someone stops by and posts “great post, thank you” does this cause harm to my blog? Does this help my blog? Does this serve their purpose and help their ranking? I thought that there is an element of relevance as well. If the post has no substance, does Google use that back link as part of the ranking analysis?
I hear talk of a plugin to mark posts ‘do not follow’.
I don’t have a active blog on my site as of yet, but I have moderated some comments. I will either accept it or not. If it is relevant and not ‘buy product x’ I will approve it. If they at very least are saying ‘good job’ why block them? For what purpose?
My thought is this, if a person has actually taken the time to read my blog entry and then make a comment “great post, thank you”. Even if they just skimmed it. I don’t see the harm in allowing a follow link. They were at my site, found it somehow and must have paid at least a little attention to its content. I have left this type of brief comment a number of times, because I genuinely liked the content and want to let them know I was there and thought it was good. The comment is sometimes brief because I may be trying to pull myself away from the computer, or I have specific project going on and was sidetracked, which happens a lot online or maybe they covered it all and I really don’t have much to offer besides acknowledging they have done a great job. Does leaving that that type of comment on the blog do anything to harm the blog? If not, why not leave the back link alone?
Perhaps this type of post is intended to be self serving, or perhaps the person actually read through the post and thought it was good…..so they said so. But the owner doesn’t know what the intention of the poster was….so what do we do with this type of post? To give the visitor the benefit of a doubt, perhaps one could write a generic reply saying something to the effect;
“thank you for visiting my blog, while I appreciate your comments on my blog, I require a minimum of x sentences related to the topic of discussion. This is to facilitate a interactive and productive discussion for all visitors to benefit from. Please consider revisiting my blog and let the us know your thoughts on the topic of discussion. Do you have any questions about my blog? Do you have any additional knowledge or ideas that can elevate our understanding of the blog topic? ”
Every time you are in moderating your blog comments you can simple send this generic message to the authors of short posts, letting them know. That way they have an opportunity to come back and provide more interaction, if so inclined, but you are also acknowledging their comments as positive.
Another thought, I have scene some blogs starting to have the ‘human test’ within the submission fields. That image that shows distorted text that you need to enter. Perhaps a good plugin to find would be one that creates this extra field in your submission form to prevent automated postings. I think this is spam. leaving a comment saying “great post”, I don’t think I would call that spam.
The thing I like most about ‘DoFollowers’ is their sense of charity. Web 2.0 continues to separate itself from ‘old media,’ and DoFollow is a great example of that. How many ‘old media’ publications would allow their competition to freely advertise? None.
That’s what is so great about blogging, it’s not all about the money; people don’t mind helping each other.
Hi,
Ive started reading your blog recently and am enjoying it, I look at blog commenting as my main source of SEO. The way I have been commenting is a bit different from what you have said.
Here is what I do, I take the time to read the blog entry then I write a meaningful response, something that adds to the article or negates it in some way, then after writing a neatly written reply I also write at the end:
Check out my site [keyword] [link]
so should I stop doing this? and only rely on the link in the name field?
Hello Faraz,
You should better stop providing your website link at the bottom of your comment text. You already have the URL that will be hyperlinked to your name or keywords you typed in the Name field and if you deliberately include the same URL one more time in the comment itself, this can become a decisive factor for the blogger to reject your comment or flag it as spam.
Long has there been a debate about nofollow dofollow blogs and comment spam so I’m not going to sound like a broken record. The reason I use this tool is to actually find content that I’m looking for, it’s better than a search engine in a way, you type out your phrase, hit enter and walk away. Then I can view some interesting sites, info, etc when I have the time to read. If I do come across something I can comment on that I think adds value to the blog, then I do. Try it our for yourself, type in a random keyword (not business related) and take a look at what you find, you’ll be suprised.
That is a great post here…and especially about the anti spam software…i did not realize that, and the akismet thing…does it ban IP or the URL i post?
hello,
looks like a good programm for blog search, cause not all interesting blogs are good listed in the big searchengines. The Spam problem is getting more and more every day but the no-following thing is not the way. I hope that the bloger scene has an open eye for spammers in their blogs, just like me ..i know its a lot of work but its necessary to keep the blogs alive. Hope my english is ok