Vlad - Couldn't agree with you more. Too many people are like sheep - they follow the crowd without doing any investigation or thought on their own. Take care

Morgan,

I just can not see some one going "Dofollow" and then going back. There is plenty of plugins that can help bloggers to fight spam. To me if "nofollow" is implemented to prevent spam, the blogger automatically presumes all his visitors and comentators to be spammers.

OK then, I'm going to not be a sheep here and disagree with you. An overwhelming influx of spam is something that any blog owner has good reason to be afraid of when implementing a DoFollow policy on blog comments. It is only natural. To tell them they are shallow for having a legitimate concern - even though they are doing more than most bloggers by even 'trying out' a dofollow plugin - is just silly.

I thought about the issue for a long bloody time before taking off the nofollow tags on comments. I went back and forth on my thoughts about it for awhile, not because I was following any trend, but because life is too damn short and I have too much work to be spending hours every day sorting through comments to find out if any of them are spam.

We're not talking about blatant spam here trying to sell you some pill. We're talking about someone leaving a slighly-relevent, but very shallow comment for the purpose of getting a link to a site that you may or may not want to link to. This takes time. Instead of checking real quick to see if the comment links to a pills/porn/casino site, you need to check the page you're linking to so you can make sure they aren't doing anything that would make you not want to be associated with them.

Yes, I get it. I agree that someone who takes the time to comment on my blog in a meaningful way - whether they do it for the link or not - should get a followable link for their effort and contribution to the discussion. I think it's B.S. that Wordpress comes standard with nofollow comment links, and that this entire NoFollow fiasco in general hasn't accomplished what it was supposed to accomplished and, much like the war in Iraq, should NOT continue to go on just because the powers that be can't admit that they were wrong.

But if my comments get out of control in regard to automated comment spam, and my Askimet and Captcha safe guards aren't keeping most of it out of the main comments, one additional step that I might take in combating this would be to remove the Dofollow plugin.

This hasn't happened, of course, and I doubt that it will. But to call people shallow for considering that as an option is shallow itself. Stop being an elitist. We get enough of that attitude from Digg.

@First Page Fitness

Everett,

Silly is to leave comments with authors name "First Page Fitness". I would not mind if you left "Everett from First Fitness Page".

>>
"This hasn’t happened, of course, and I doubt that it will. But to call people shallow for considering that as an option is shallow itself. Stop being an elitist. We get enough of that attitude from Digg."

Everett, if you do not like my blog why are you commenting? Even worse, why are you reading it? It is my blog and I write what I think I should write, if you do not like it do not read it- but please do not tell me what to write and what not to write.

@Everett

You are developing Borderline Spammy Habits I do hope that you are following comments here on this post. If you are not, I will most likely replace "First Page Fitness" with Everett.... Or maybe I just should mark you as spammer????

Vlad,

First of all, I never said I don't like your blog. I said that I disagree with you. Just because you like a blog doesn't mean you have to agree with every single post.

Now how can you accuse people of being "sheep" and then get upset when someone doesn't fall into line like a sheep and agree with everything you say? Can you see the irony of that?

As for my signature, I was talking about the FPF blog, which is where I used the Dofollow plugin. That is why I signed with FPF. If this website were about camping, or surfing, or snowboarding, or chess I would have signed Everett. But it is about affiliate marketing, and I was reading it while 'working'. My work IS my business and my business IS my name.

If I wanted to spam you for anchor text I would have signed 'Fitness Marketing'. As you can probably see, I have no trouble ranking for my own business name and do not need comment spam to help.

I'm sure you'll make a snide comment about me or this post, and I'm sure you will not admit that what you just did was rude or uncalled for (i.e. accusing me of 'borderline' spamming your blog when I went out of my way to make a constructive comment about your post that was much longer, more thought-out and took more time to write than 99% of the comments anyone else bothers to leave - just because I signed my business name.) but I am not about to get into a blog comment war. There are better things to do with our time. So go ahead and have the last word if you will.

But I suggest you give your readers a little more respect because you just lost one. I have been subscribed to your blog for a long time and I think that might have been the first comment I've ever left. Rest assured this will be the last.

By the way, for someone who is supposed to be gathering people together for a cause, you sure are quick to alienate and disenfranchise those who are willing to join the fight.

I have dofollow up on my comments, but most of the people commenting on my stories don't have websites of their own.

I can imagine that many blog authors are getting tired of one and two line comments dominating their pages, and the people posting those comments being at the top of the "top commentator" list.

I've found that it does pay to check comments often and maybe "redirect" the conversation accordingly.

Hi Vlad,

I use dofollow on my blog as well. However... I'm starting to look like a comment smammer because my signature looks like anchor text. The problem is, I've been using this name as a signature since 2003. This is how people know me.

When I came up with this name, I thought it would be good for personal branding. (I live in Hawaii & do SEO) Everyone loves Hawaii & SEO and my hope was that those positive feelings would transfer to me in some way. (So far so good)

It was never a problem until people recently started implementing dofollow on thier blogs and second guessing every comment and signature.

I like the name I've been using and I don't feel like changing it.

Aloha,
Dave.

@Everett,
If you think that disagreeing with your comments constitutes a "comment" war, it's you right to do so.

Look I knew writing this post that is going to "rub the feathers the wrong way" of many bloggers. And I welcome their opinion here. I do however like to decide what to write and what not to write on my blog, this is why I took offense to this part of your comment:

"Stop being an elitist. We get enough of that attitude from Digg."

I am not about to get into a blog war either so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

I hope following will help to clarify a little:

I am not against blogs with "nofollow", I am against using DoFollow for the wrong reasons.


@Dave (Hawaii Seo)
I am familiar with your brand. In fact I have written here and there about SEO myself. So I would not be surprised to see another SEO blogger stopping by. Actually I would expect SEO blogger making comments on my blog over some one who writes about fitness.

@J.D. Thanks for stopping by. I think that Top Commentator plugin rewards your commentators in a different way that DoFollow does. I just think that "noffolow" is not appropriate way to fight spam.

Vlad I don't write about "fitness". I write about internet marketing and SEO. I happen to do so from the perspective of the fitness industry, but my posts are very much related to SEO, SEM and affiliate marketing. Your blog is about affiliate marketing, which is why I 'used to' read it.

I did think when I first installed the plugin that I would get more blog comment spam, and I did leave open the option of removing the plugin if that were to happen. So I come here and read your blog post because I like to see what others are saying, and you basically call me, someone who reads your blog, shallow. Although I do think my comment at the end about being an elitist would have been better left out, I was just being honest about the way your blog post made me as a reader feel - alienated as if because I'm worried about spam I'm not 'good enough' to be part of the DoFollow blog movement.

I was a blog reader providing you with honest feedback about one of your blog posts. I thought that's what the comment area was for.

Sure I will continue to follow the conversation (no, I don't consider it a comment war, but was worried that it would turn into such. You know how these things can get.) but beyond that you have lost a reader. That's all I'm saying.

Everett,

I am sorry you have to go (unsubscribe), but you have to do what you have to do. The beauty of blogging is such that it allows us to express who we are.

I stand buy my conviction that fighting spam on the blog that you moderate daily with "nofollow" is wrong. Especially with the array of so many spam filtering plugins out there. Sure spam will slip here and there, but if you moderate your blog I found that is fairly easy to detect spam.

@Everett

I just replaced link to google with url to your blog. I would rather share the little juice that my blog gets with your site rather than Google. They got plenty of it. ;)

Thank you Vlad. And I have decided to keep your blog in my reader. I would rather continue getting good information about affiliate marketing than to stop reading a blog because of one disagreement.

Regards,

Everett

In theory the flies should be attracted to my blog more than many, and I just don't see enough junk comments to justify people being worried.
Sure I get some, but the majority of the comments I get are from regular contributors. Some of the people who left comments for SEO purposes I have actually converted over to being Dofollow themselves, and at least one is PR7 I have moaned at commenters who used a company name in their sig, but their company have multiple employees. I couldn't tell who was writing the comment..
The biggest tell-tale is to have commented on a few blogs that had posts linked to from the Dofollow list using subscribe to comments.
When you get emails of new comments every few minutes you know who exactly is gaming the system working down a list.

@Vlad - I don't agree with you on this. I believe it was I who said the above comment. I would like to give something in return(in addition to the information provided by my blog) to those who contribute to my blog. Hence I decided to install the DoFollow plugin. It was my own decision, inspired by some other great bloggers. I knew well the advantages and disadvantages of using the plugin, but had no idea on the extend of spam it can cause. And I decided to try out the plugin and to find out whether it was going to be useful or harmful for my blog (and it turned out to be neutral). In case it is harmful, I can't find any justification in continuing with it.

Further, prevention is always better than cure. I know that no spammer are going to read my warning before they start spamming, but still I wish to maintain my stance clear.

@Joyce,

Actually it was another commentor that raised the issue and you simply agreed. I understand your fears as well as the fears of any one else contemplating to go "Dofollow".

I think the question that I would have for any blogger. Would you let your comments be filled with spam just because you use "nofolow"? Probably not, and as soon as the spam that slips through the filtering is detected is also dealt with.... If so "nofollow" is of no use after all imho.

Good God!

I randomly stumbled onto your site...holy crap you have the longest and most confusing domain name I've ever seen?? How do you expect people to remember your blog's name? I guess there's always bookmarking..but wow! :)

-Raymond (MONEY BLUE BOOK)

Raymond,
Thanks for stopping by. Well at least there is no temptation to sell this domain. Who would buy it after all? ;)

I no longer care about NoFollow. Anyway I am not getting any comments, let alone any spam comments. So why worry about something that is not going to affect me :)

@Money Blue Book
That exactly was the first thing that came to my mind when I first found this site. :)

Well at least you have a sense of humor about it...but wow is all I can think of everytime I look up at the address bar...... :)

But anyway...Does No Follow actually increase traffic? Are you seeing related traffic from people coming in from the No Follow Blog lists?

-Raymond (MONEY BLUE BOOK)

Ray,

Do you mean whether removing "nofollow" will bring more traffic?

In my humble opinion this a pluging that reflects the "giving" side of the blogger implementing it. The main benefactors of this plugin are the people who live the comments. I personally can not tell if DoFollow plugin brought me any traffic. I know that I have benefited greatly from commenting on other peoples blogs that removed nofollow..... Again this is a sort of "giving" on my part, as thank you to those who take time commenting on my blog.

As for my URL it is a very long story. However I have learned a thing or two along the way. Here are few posts you may be interested in:
http://sageblogger.com/whats-up-with-your-url/
http://sageblogger.com/good-domain-to-make-mone...

I whole-heartedly agree with Everett on this one. I was going to go into more detail, but he already said everything better than I would have said it :)

Egon,
No offense but you don't even use "nofollow" on your blog.

I have removed nofollow in all of my site and blog :)

I'm completely in agreement with you.