Follow versus Nofollow for comments

[jshaffstall]

This is a common topic these days, and one I'm having trouble coming to a decision on. So I wanted to see what everyone here thought.

I typically see two reasons to use nofollow for comments:

1) To prevent spammers from using your comments to boost their own search engine results positioning

2) To keep your competitor's blogs from gaining page rank

From my own experience, #1 isn't an issue because Akismet catches the vast majority of the spam, and the rest I delete manually (or will, I haven't had any get through Akismet yet).

#2 seems like backward thinking to me. I'm not competing with other blogs, there's plenty of traffic for everyone. In fact, helping other blogs succeed by commenting on their blogs is only going to help traffic to mine.

Plus, page rank is overrated anyway, unless you're planning on selling links or reviews.

When I think about it like that I lean toward using follow comments.

But then, I think about these things:

1) I find it unprofessional for people to use keyword based names for comments just to gain in SERP. A real name or a blog name seems fine, but keywords rub me the wrong way.

2) Using follow links is an endorsement, by my blog, that a site is relevant for the given anchor text. In comments I don't have control over the anchor text, so how can I endorse their site's relevancy?

3) If people post junk comments just to get a link (e.g. "Great post!", or "Interesting"), do I allow those or mark them as spam?

And then I start thinking that nofollow comments are best.

Can anyone offer a perspective that'll help me break out of this cycle?

Jay

[lilmissjenny]

Well I use doFollow on my blog. Spammers get thrown into Akismet to be eaten alive so they never get any kind of promotion from me. doFollow can help in getting "link love" from whoever has you link therefore giving you backlinks which helps your rankings.

I love it, and I love "rewarding" my commenters (if they ever come back) for adding their opinions to mine.

[LennyP]

I think you need to support those who support your blog. Encouraging comments will help your blog grow. When people try to take advantage of your generosity simply delte their comments. Keyword stuffing and worthless comments should never be tolerated.

[jshaffstall]

Originally Posted by LennyP

I think you need to support those who support your blog. Encouraging comments will help your blog grow. When people try to take advantage of your generosity simply delte their comments. Keyword stuffing and worthless comments should never be tolerated.

I can see how that would work. I guess I'm reluctant to delete a comment from a real person, even if that comment is worthless. But that would be what's needed to make following comments work.

I think I'll try this out on my blog and see how it works.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

It's a tough one that is for sure. I think I'd go with allowing some PR to pass through by using follow instead of no follow as it will encourage people posting comments. Just be very vigilant with your comment moderation. Did they post for a backlink (well 90% of the time it's yes) but did they contribute something in order to get that backlink or did they just post "Great post" or something else spammy which is obviously the bare minimum needed. If they write a valid comment keep it if not delete it. In the beginnings its hard to do when you have few comments but it's necessary to encourage people who will actually add something productive. Hope this helps

[jshaffstall]

I've added dofollow to my blog in stealth mode (activated the plugin and updated my comment guidelines page, but haven't made an announcement yet).

What I ended up with was going with a 2 day aging period. I have Wordpress setup to not moderate people who have an already approved comment, so the 2 day period will give me a chance to swat any useless comments that come from that audience (I don't expect that, they've all been great commenters, but I guess I'm a bit paranoid).

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Now that G has made it clear how they stand on paid links that pass on PR do you think no follow will be used a lot more in fear of penalization?

[PaulR]

I wonder if I'm going over board with my comments, they follow, show the commenter's last blog post, and I just installed a new plugin that allows readers to leave an audio(need a mic) or video comments(if they have a webcam).

Best of luck

[jshaffstall]

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

Now that G has made it clear how they stand on paid links that pass on PR do you think no follow will be used a lot more in fear of penalization?

That's possible.

The stance seems to be, "don't sell links", and "don't artificially try to boost your PR". Follow links aren't really either of those, but are close to the latter.

Personally, I think follow links in comments are safe for now. And, they're easy enough to get rid of by deactivating the plugin...not so the paid links.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Very true. Regarding blogroll though... They *Could* of been paid for and no one would ever know. For Paid Links I think they are most targeting those buying high priced high pr links i.e: PR8,9 etc...

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

That's possible.

The stance seems to be, "don't sell links", and "don't artificially try to boost your PR". Follow links aren't really either of those, but are close to the latter.

Personally, I think follow links in comments are safe for now. And, they're easy enough to get rid of by deactivating the plugin...not so the paid links.

Jay