Screw you Google. I believe if you have something to say you should be recognized for your contribution. Nofollow is a great idea in theory but I think it’s the wrong way to battle spam. It doesn’t work for one thing, and for another it goes against the whole idea of the web. So if you’ve got something worthwhile to contribute to any of my posts you will receive some link love for it.
My Akismet does a decent job of blocking most of the spam, and I moderate comments on a daily basis; it isn’t very hard when you have the massive volume of comments that I have :b. I’ve installed DoFollow which is a nifty little plugin that removes the no-follow attributes from WordPress blogs. You can specify how long comment links stay nofollowed and/or if only registered users are allowed this feature. I have mine set at 24 hours and then nofollow will be removed.
I know this is painting a giant red bullseye on my site for spammers, but right now I’d rather deal with a little spam and get some conversations going. One caveat; “Nice post”, “I agree” comments will either be quickly deleted or manually nofollowed. So for everyone that’s commented thus far, and for those of you that will contribute in the future, I’ll give you a little something back for doing so.
For those of you who feel like sticking it to the man, here is a list of plugins that remove nofollow and here is the Dofollow D-List that lists other blogs joining the Dofollow movement (this list appears to have originated at GeekySpeaky). I’d also like to give props to Randa Clay Design for the logo.
Bring it on trackback spammers…I can handle it!
{ 23 comments }
Thanks for the link love and glad to see the “I Follow Movement” still has some steam. I’m sort of the poster child for the thing, and the comment spam has really not been all that bad, so hopefully you won’t be any more annoyed by it than you are already.
Thanks for the comment Randa and that’s good to hear about the comment spam. I just think nofollow is a disservice to the web. Google and the other engines all tout “content, content, content” but they don’t want to give credit to the people who write the content. The original idea of “authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment” has been twisted into something unrecognizable.
Welcome to the anti-nofollow club. I have had the plugin for a while, and I have not noticed any effects on the spam levels, so it will not hurt. And I do agree about sharing the link love.
Thanks for stopping by Nenad! Your URL was broken by the way, but I fixed it for you cause I’m so generous ;P
Good thing that you removed the nofollow thing for those that want to contribute to your posts. Ever thought tho to incentive your readers to comment by just removing the nofollow for the first commentator?
It is an evil idea, but might work to put the readers a tiny little bit in competition (tho it is risky as it might increase the number of the comments like “Cool post, i like it” of the people that first will post to be the first and than read the post maybe 
Anyway, i am new to your blog, so will take a look around and see what’s cookin’ here
Welcome to wonderland Astrit! It did cross my mind to only give cred to the first post, but I’m a believer of giving credit where credit is due. So anyone who takes the time to contribute should gain something from it. I hope you like my belligerent rants!
MadHat,I’m new to your blog and I found it because I was looking for peoples experiences with using the do-follow tag. Have you seen any increase in the number of comments or spam attempts?
Hi Hat,
Thanks for the kind welcome, and your believe on that point of view stands and i have to agree about that, but sometimes i like to incentive people.
Mikael, well i doubt he was doing the do-follow to increase comments number (at least from what the Hat said)
Correct Astrit, I’m just against Google trying to control and diminish the value of the web for their own profit. As far as spam I have not seen any increase at all. The Dofollow may add some incentive for people to comment, but it’s not like opening the flood gates or anything.
I am new to the do-follow movement, although I have been against the nofollow tags forever. I just didn’t know how to get rid of them. I’m still trying to figure things out on some of the other blogging sites, but I have my Blogger “nofollow” tags removed now. Thanks for the info.
Kelly
Glad to help bring in another do-follower! Just Say No to Nofollow!
Hi,
Welcome to the Do Follow List!
There are around 250 websites here awaiting for your comments!
Regards,
Nick
do follow is good for all of us to bring up pur pr. feel free to visit my site and comment i follow too
Excellent idea and post.
I have a fairly popular real estate blog that breeds comment spam, but the combination of Akismet and moderation winnows out the worst of it. I like the idea of getting rid of the nofollow tag and creating a reward for those who give worthwhile comments. Also using the delay allows me the luxury of cleaning out the junk.
Thanks for the comment Tom. Just to give you a heads up, I have not seen any increase in spam at all. Everything pretty much operates as it did before, just without the stupid tag.
Congratulations and thank you
mad hat 4 president!
i agree about nofollow. blogs=allfollow plz
@taky: I think the option should be there (for spam purposes). As long as you utilize askimet or similar, there’s little reason to use nofollow.
I think WP 2.5 gives you the option to remove this.
So, I was just wondering why this post states that you use “do follow” when in fact all the comment links have the “nofollow” tag?
I had to temporarily disable it a couple days ago. Comment spammers are getting good. As soon as I get a work around it will be back on.
What I hate about do follow blog list, I found from the list, nofollow blogs also listed there. luckily, I have tools to see nofollow blog, So The cannot fool me.
So Beware guys!
I turned it off, spam was getting out of control.
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