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Andy Beard & Dave Naylor wrote interesting posts (see what I did there) :) about blog comments and specifically whether or not you should nofollow blog comments in an attempt to build a site that Google trusts and therefore allows to rank for competitive terms

We used to be a one comment dofollow seo blog. Now we remove nofollow from links only when the author has joined in on a few more posts and only if the site we’re linking to passes the smell test.

I just wanted a bit more control of comments for experimental purposes and Linky Love provides that, but I am committed to creating a blog that passes juice in some way while being conscious I am not linking to a bad neighbourhood.

But if you are starting out, and willing to build a decent site, I’d suggest and encourage you to remove nofollow from comments using Linky Love. It’s fine for visible blogs with a decent readership to proclaim ‘nofollow comments!’, but for the rest of us, dofollow increases your chance of getting the conversation going (so what if it increases the amount of human spam - it’s worth it.)

The more I read Dave’s post actually I think he is kinda turning into Google’s FUD Machine lol :) - perhaps it’s worth experimenting by nofollowing all my links?

Why You Should Nofollow Your Blog Comments?

While Dave has a point about losing trust and the amount of idiots (some quite funny) who try to take advantage of dofollow blogs, I just don’t lose sleep over this any more. I moderate all comments anyway as more of a quality control on this blog rather than spam control, and expect to see a decent site as the recipient of a link or it won’t happen. I am doing what I feel Google wants, and moderately linking out to sites that I in the end vouch for in a small way because they are not on the surface spam.

If someone is willing to join in and add keyword rich content in a few comments, Stumble me or Digg me I’m all for that. Have a search engine friendly link, if your site isn’t crap.

I actively encourage my smaller clients to practice on the Hobo blog with comments until they go out and do it for their own sites if they can find like minded bloggers in their niche. I don’t comment on blogs for seo clients any more - if they aren’t willing to do it, I am not, (actually, I spend most of my time looking at site structure than getting links anyways these days) and generally I’m now to embarrassed not to sign off with just Hobo.

I honestly think it would be a bit of a cheek for me to nofollow comments with the amount of blogs I visited just to get a link. That’s how I found Andy’s site in the first place, but I can say that Andy’s niche marketing blog on my daily reading list now, and I happily link out to Andy all the time as a result.

I stopped harassing dofollow blogs just for links a long time ago (when Google zapped our PR7 to a PR5 - quite unrelated as every seo blog took a hit in PR because Google devalued that space…. for a while) and found actually contributing on a lesser number of blogs was more worthwhile for me.

I’m in a position now where I don’t need the odd link as I rank for the terms I want to rank for (on the whole) and this site has some measure of local authority, but it’s nice to get a the odd link on a dofollow blog as by and large when I am reading them I am supposedly ‘working’! Two birds with one stone sort of thing!

People who think visitors are commenting on their blog because their writing is best selling need a reality check. The vast majority of commenters want links, just like me, just like you. If they don’t want links they want something else. Well that’s how it starts off….

I can appreciate folks who are wanting links on this blog to add to their own sites trust if indeed they aim to build such a site in a year or two, especially if the site is topically relevant to this blog, and sometimes link out to commentators if I feel they are adding to the conversation here.

All I ask is for an intelligent (hopefully relevant) comment. Though sometimes you’d be surprised at how difficult this appears to be for some folk!

PS - As someone who chased down Dofollow links, believe me, as Dave comments, most people in the end do go nofollow again because of abuse.

As such, dofollow links have only a limited shelf life, I’d rather build citable content on my site these days (still practicing that, although I’m sure Lyndon could give me a few pointers on that, the lying b@stard lol :) - perhaps I should do another interview with him!

PPS - Any more trainee ninja commenters trying to drop links to any marketing guru’s website on this blog will get that guru outed as a pain in the arse - I am getting sick of gurus whose entire Internet marketing campaign seems to involve spamming dofollow blogs (including this one!). I expect more from those guys - everybody else come on in.