Does Allowing DoFollow Links Increase Commenting on Your Blog?

Ok, I am taking a big leap of faith on this blog in that today I began allowing DoFollow links on comments and trackbacks. Why is this a leap of faith? Well, I already get TONS of spam bots sending over their junk comments by obvious amateurs who are clearly just buying the next easy commenting software. For the most part, Akismet picks these up well and I don’t have to deal with them. Obviously it is not my intention to increase this.

Rather, when reading a blog post today by a trusted blog and SEO software company, I came across a little note on their comment form about KeywordLuv. And, being the curious person I am, I clicked to find out what it was.

 

 

Well, turns out this little plugin allows users to leave a comment AND get the anchor text link juice in the specific keyword set they want to link for by adding @Their Keyword to the end of their name (WordPress by default hyperlinks the name with whatever URL is entered in the URL field). Hmmm, sounds interesting!

Allowing DoFollow Links (Gulp)?

 

So, I read on and find out that you have to first open DoFollow links (gulp). I have never much wanted to do so, knowing this opens you to a greater flood of comment spam bots.In order to do this, another plugin is required (KeywordLuv doesn’t start allowing DoFollow on comments but leaves this to other plugins). I decided to use Smart DoFollow since it allows you to restrict the DoFollow for comments of a minimum number of characters (I decided on the default of 400 to start). Meaning, the commenter has to put in at least 400 characters before allowing DoFollow is turned on for the post. As well, I still have to moderate the comment before it goes live.

Allowing DoFollow Links, Step One, Get a Clean Slate

So, in order to have a good statistical start, I cleared out the few hundred comments awaiting moderation, and off we go with the test.

 

 

 

 The Test for Allowing DoFollow, What will happen?

So, here is the test. Will this, and you can chime in with your experience in the comments below, minimum 400 characters of course ):

  1. Increase my comment traffic with real people looking to genuinely add value to the site and post?
  2. Increase my spam comments to the point where I will quickly turn it off off and go back to normal business as usual?
  3. Or, some combination of the two?
My plan is to track results and let you know…

 

What has been your experience allowing DoFollow on your blog?

 

Comments

  1. Nah, much ado over nothing Bill. Trying to scam google is futile. And if we learned anything from their latest update, it’s that google doesn’t have a sense of humor.

    Most serious businesses are trying to get people to their sites, under the presumption that they have done a sufficient job with their site to keep a new visitor’s attention, perhaps long enough for a conversion, but at least long enough to gain a fan. And a returning visit bears far more google-fruit than a artificially disseminated backlinks. When all is said and done, it’s all about organics.

    ok, did I make it to 400 🙂

  2. Hi Bill, really interesting post. I’ll be honest, I was searching for a way to ascertain in advance if a blog is allowing ‘dofollow’ links. We’ve just developed a new website and I am keen to build up our inbound links. Can you check this in the source code before posting? Anyway, we do have our own blog, so I would be interested in hearing how this pans out for you. It might be a way for us to get more engagement going. All you see at the bottom of our articles at present is the occasional tumbleweed. I hadn’t heard of KeywordLuv before and I’ll definitely check it out. Thanks a million. Al

    • Bill Crosby says

      There is an easy way of doing this using the search engines (i.e. checking do follow). Search for Ryan Deiss’s Authority Codes and it will show you how exactly.

      • Thanks Bill. Thanks for the reply. I took the plunge and made our blog ‘dofollow’ and installed KeywordLuv. So far so good. We are getting lots of spam comments but Akismet flags them as such so they are easy to deal with. Thanks again for the great post. Al

  3. Bill, I will be curious to know if this actually works or just gets you a boat load more comment spam.

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