Nov

29

DoFollow Blog Lists Not Always Accurate

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 10 Comments

How accurate are dofollow blog lists?

Most dofollow blog lists contain blogs that are actually nofollow.  If you check blogs on these lists using the SEO for Firefox extension before you comment on blogs you have probably already discovered this.

If you don’t check the blogs before you comment, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it’s worth your time to check them out or not.

I’ve had a couple of people who have commented on this blog, questioning me about why some of the dofollow blog lists are so inaccurate.

Following are their comments:

“Hello there, I agree with the thing that is not all that easy finding real do follow blogs, I always try to search blogs related to my websites but most of the times this kind of blogs don’t seem to be do follow, so I have to search any type of blog and definitely that is not an easy task.”

“What I really want to know is why when sometimes I search for Do Follow blogs, then when I access to some blog I realize that is not dofollow? so why is this kind of blogs in those lists? That’s because the list is not updated? Or which is the real reason?”

There are three main reasons why some blogs on dofollow blog lists are nofollow.

1. They were dofollow when they were put on the dofollow blog list, but after receiving too much spam they go went to nofollow, and were never removed from the list. It’s very time consuming, if not impossible, to keep these lists up to date unless users of the lists are reporting the blogs as being nofollow to the owners of the lists.

There is also a lesson to be learned here - Always, always, always leave good quality comments that are relevant to the post.

2.  The blog owner may be using a plugin like Lucia’s Linky Love that will turn your comments to dofollow after a certain number of your comments have been approved.

For example the blog owner may set the number of approved comments to be five.  So, you may look at comments on the blog and they appear to be nofollow, but the person who made the comment may have only posted one comment so their link hasn’t been set to dofollow yet.

The blog may actually be dofollow but it doesn’t appear that it is. I would look on the blog for their dofollow rules, or look for references to comment plugins like Lucia’s Linky Love.  Many comment plugins will have a little advertisement for their plugin at the top or bottom of the comments box.

3. They blog was never dofollow, and it was not checked when it was put on the list. I’m sure some blog owners have tried to get their nofollow blogs put on these dofollow lists to get more traffic. It’s important that the list owner check these blogs when they are placed on the list, but I’m sure some are not checking.

So, how accurate it my dofollow blog list?  Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee that all blogs on it are dofollow.  I do check the blogs when they are placed on the list, but blog owners can go back to nofollow and I will never know, unless a user let’s me know about it.

So, like all dofollow blog list owners, I need you to help me maintain an accurate list.

Mike

Oct

21

DoFollow Blog Comment Spam

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 10 Comments

As this blog becomes more popular I am seeing more comments that, though not obviously spam, add no value to the post or comments of others. Therefore, these comments are seen by me to be spam comments.

I hate to see people go through the work of adding a comment only to have it deleted by me, but I will not allow comments that do not add to the value of the post.

Comments like “This is great info, I now understand this better. I like your blog and layout and will be returning often”.

Although this is a nice, complimentary comment, it does not pass my “smell test”. Compliments don’t necessarily add to the post discussion and this type of comment makes me think it’s a standard comment probably being used across several dofollow blogs.

If you are not going to read my blog post, and comment on the content, I will remove your comment. I don’t mind taking the time to do that, but hate to see people waste their time.

So, to get the most out of commenting on blogs and avoiding being seen as contributing blog spam, I suggest you read my dofollow blog comment rules.

Dofollow blog comment spam has caused popular dofollow blogs to turn nofollow on again. Please do the right thing and contribute quality comments on dofollow blogs.

Mike

Oct

1

Dofollow Blog Incoming Links

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 26 Comments

Do dofollow blog incoming links from bad neighborhoods negatively affect page rank?

This is a really a follow up to my last post about Dofollow Blogs and Page Rank.

One thing that was mentioned on the blog I refer to in that post, was that page rank may have been negatively affected because of incoming links from other websites that Google may not like - many times called “links from bad neighborhoods”.

It appears the her dofollow blog ended up on some forums, and on some blogs, in dofollow blog lists. You can do a search on Google and find a number of blogs and forums that contains lists of dofollow blogs. You receive a link back to your blog, which you would think is a good thing.

And it probably is a good thing unless Google sees this a something like a link farm, or a site that sells links - something bad that Google doesn’t like. This could result in a link to your blog that is not desirable.

————————–

Side Note:

Many times there lists are not accurate regarding nofollow vs dofollow. Plus, you did not request to have your blog be put on these lists, and it may be difficult getting of the list if you wanted to.

With my DoFollow Blog Directory you place your blog in the directory, I don’t search for dofollow blogs and add them to the directory. The only way you can get in the directory is to initiate it yourself.

You also get to choose your desired link text, you give your blog a description and you choose a category for you blog. This adds much more value to your blog than just some link on a blog or forum.

————————–

So, could being on these lists negatively affect your Google page rank? Good question, and I don’t know.

I have heard that links from bad neighborhoods to your site will not count against you, and also not count for you. This would make the most sense and I hope that’s how Google handles these situations.

If Google counted these bad neighborhood links against you, that could cause some real problems. For example, let’s say you are a devious low life scoundrel - I know this is not true, but the is a hypothetical “what if”.

YOu have a website related to Golf Clubs and you are number 5 on the first page of Google. Of course you want the number one spot, so you devise a devious plan to get that coveted spot.

So, you find a number of bad neighborhood spots on the internet, and you start placing links to your top 4 competitors sites on those websites. Google starts noticing all these bad incoming links and starts dropping your competitors. Your site rises to the number one spot on Google for golf clubs and you win.

But wait, another devious scoundrel knows the same low life strategy that you do, and starts placing links to you on bad sites and knocks you out of the game.

As you can see, this would create a lot of chaos. So, even though bad incoming links won’t help you, I don’t believe they will hurt you either.

I don’t think you need to be concerned about dofollow blog incoming links from bad neighborhoods. But, why not get incoming links from good neighborhoods like the Dofolow Blog Directory.

Mike

Subscribe for more Tips and Updates

Name:
Email:

Sep

29

Dofollow Blogs and Page Rank

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 24 Comments

Well, it appears Google has done another page rank update.  So, how did your dofollow blog Page Rank do?  Does having a dofollow blog affect your page rank?

Honestly, I don’t know.  My page ranks have not changed at all - up or down, so I don’t know how they would have been ranked if they were not dofollow.

There are some who believe that your page rank will drop if you are a dofollow blog.  Since you will have more out going links, you will be losing some link juice.  There is probably some truth to that.

I came across Melissa Eaton’s Niche Website Building Tips blog, and she made a post claiming dofollow blogging affected her page rank negatively.  Her PR did drop, and it could have been related to dofollow, or it could be related to some other factors she mentions in her post.

She has turned dofollow off and is going to use a different plugin, that allows you to give your commentors dofollow links after a certain number of posts.

So, you if your PR is negatively affected by dofollow outgoing links, should you turn off dofollow?  Of course that is for you to decide, but here is my view.

Since going dofollow on 4 of my blogs, the page rank has not changed on any of them.  I would have thought that since the last Google update their PR would have increased since they are older, have more incoming links, have more content and have more traffic.

I think there is a strong possibility that my PR could have gone up on at least two of them if they were not dofollow.  So, I have to decide what I would rather have - a better PR, or more traffic.

Since going dofollow on my blogs my traffic has gone up and my Alexa rank has steadily improved on all the blogs.  I really don’t think my traffic would have increased if my blogs were nofollow.

I know that Google PR is important, but I really wonder if it’s as important as it used to be and as important as people believe it is.

I have seen websites with a PR3 or PR4 that I suspect received a high PR because they were ranked on obscure keywords that no one searches for, and they probably don’t have much traffic.  I have seen these sites with an Alexa rank of over 3 million in popularity, when my blogs are steadily dropping to the low 200K in popularity.  FYI, with Alexa lower is better.

I have also seen sites under 50K in Alexa with no PR, or a PR of zero.

So, my belief is - PR, though nice, is not as good as more traffic with a low, or no, PR.  Of course, ideally you would like to have both high PR and a lot of traffic.

I will continue to have dofollow blogs until I have strong evidence that it’s hurting my blogs to the point of costing me traffic.

Mike

Sep

14

Backlinks From The DoFollow Blog Directory

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 10 Comments

Now you get another dofollow backlink from the FollowList.com dofollow blog directory - and you don’t have to do anything to get it :-)

If your blog is not dofollow yet, it should be. You can find out more about dofollow blogs here.
After you have changed your blog to dofollow, I suggest you add it to my dofollow blog directory.

Adding your blog to the directory will help those looking to post on your blog, find your blog. Plus you get a dofollow backlink from the directory.

DoFollow Blog Directory
Now, when you add your blog to my dofollow blog directory, you will also get a dofollow link from EFixx.com.

EFixx.com is a social bookmarking, voting site similar to Digg, that is dofollow enabled.

All blogs in the FollowList blog directory are automatically being imported into the EFixx.com, DoFollow Digg Clone. You don’t have to do anything, this is being done automatically.

DoFollow Digg Clone

Note: If you don’t see your blog in the EFixx.com listings, it just means it hasn’t been imported yet, but it will. I want the EFixx Digg clone service to import the blogs slowly, over time, to appear as natural as possible, to get Google to love it - making your backlink more valuable.

I have big plans for your links in the dofollow blog directory, adding them to EFixx is just the first step. I have plans to have them added to several other Digg clone sites (maybe even your own Digg clone site) to increase your backlink exposure.

By the way, feel free to add all your blog posts to EFixx.com, to get a backlink to those posts. You simply register at the DoFollow Digg Clone site and submit links to your blog posts, articles, and even your websites.

Next time I will need to talk about getting the most from the data you provide the dofollow blog directory.

Mike

Sep

5

A Simple Backlink Strategy

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 17 Comments

As you know, one good way of building backlinks is by posting on dofollow blogs. This is one of my favorite backlink strategies, that’s why this blog exists and why I created my DoFollow Blog Directory.

Because I am always interested in building backlinks, a post by Alex Sysoef caught my eye. He has a great post, Build Oneway Backlinks Through Influence Guide, that contains a video he did that shows another way to build backlinks.

This video has a couple of great tips on how to use Google and Google Alerts to notify you when someone links to your blog. His strategy is to reciprocate by doing something in return for the link - like Stumbling or Digging the post that links to him.

This has two benefits:
1. Gives you a chance to use the law of reciprocity
2. Can bring you more traffic as you Stumble and Digg those posts linking to you.

This is one of those simple strategies that makes so much sense that you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.

You can implement this simple backlink strategy today - it will only take a few minutes of your time.

Mike

Want to save this post to your computer for later reference?  Download the Backlink Strategy Report

Sep

1

Criticizing DoFollow Blogs

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 6 Comments

I follow the dofollow blog movement closely, and I’ve seen a number of blog owners criticize the dofollow blog movement.

There main criticisms are:

1. If you go dofollow on your blog, you are inviting comment spam - it’s just not worth it.

2. If you write good content on your blog, people will comment anyway, so you don’t need to go dofollow. So, you should pay no attention to nofollow vs. dofollow when commenting on blogs.

Now, I’m not going to totally discount those two opinions, there is some truth to both.

But, those blog owners need to understand a few things.

1. As an owner of 4 dofollow blogs, I spend about 5 minutes per day total, moderating comments on those blogs and deleting those comments that don’t add value.

So, the spam comment is really not a valid comment, unless you have a very high traffic blog.

I would guess that very high traffic blogs could have a difficult time moderating hundreds or thousands of comments.

Of course, if you have a very high traffic blog, you don’t need to be dofollow because you already have the visitors.

You will need a spam comment plugin regardless of whether your blog is dofollow, or nofollow - Askimet is a good one and is included with Wordpress. SpamKarma is the one that I use.

2. Just because you have great content does not mean I am going to comment on your blog. I, like most people, am a very busy person. I visit a number of blogs during the day and read some good content. I may Stumble your blog, or social bookmark it, but if your blog is nofollow the chances of me taking the time to comment are very slim.

If I am looking at two blogs of equal quality content, and one is dofollow while the other is nofollow, which one do you think I am going to spend my time commenting on?

I have news for you nofollow blog owners with this attitude - your content is not so great, it’s not so much better than many other blogger’s, that I am going to comment strictly based on your content. Perhaps I am being too honest here, but that is reality.

Okay, I have to make a disclaimer here - I may comment on your nofollow blog to explain to you that you are wrong in your opinion of dofollow blogs, but that is the only time I comment on nofollow blogs.

As I stated earlier, I read a number of blogs daily, and many are very good - but I may have not commented on your blog because you are nofollow and I will save my commenting time for a blog that is dofollow.

It’s also interesting to note that most of these nofollow bloggers that criticize dofollow blogs, have very, very few comments on them. Even when their content is very good.

These blog owners are missing out on a very good opportunity to get more comments, and more readers just by going dofollow.

People are actively looking for dofollow blogs. Yes, they are doing that with the intent to post comments and build back links. But, most will read the post they are commenting on, and then leave quality comments.

Are people actively looking for your nofollow blog?

There will always be critics of the dofollow blog movement, and that’s okay - if every blog owner went dofollow, we would lose the advantage we have being dofollow blog owners.

Remember, those people actively looking for your dofollow blog? Help them find you by listing your blog on my DoFollow Blog Directory.

Mike

Want to save this post to your computer for later reference? Download the Criticizing DoFollow Blogs Report

Aug

10

DoFollow Blogs Q and A

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 20 Comments

I’ve had a number of questions being asked by people commenting on my blog, so I compiled a list of the most common questions on DoFollow blog and have answered them here.

In some cases I have reworded the question slightly. In all cases I have tried to protect the privacy of the commentor.

DoFollow Blog Question:
I have submitted my site listed in “website” to 5 do-follow blog posts but I don’t see anything significant yet.

My Answer:
Submitting comments on 5 dofollow blogs is good, but it may not be enough for your chosen keywords.

I noticed on your comments to my blog you used the anchor text “keyword phrase withheld to protect the poster”. If you go to Google and do an exact match search by putting quotes around your keywords like “keyword phrase withheld to protect the poster”, you will see there are 13,600,000 competing pages. That means Google has over 13 million pages listed with the exact keyword phrase that you are trying to use.

You will probably never be able to compete with that phrase, it’s just to competitive.

Instead you need to find a less competitive keyword phrase. Of course, if you pick a keyword phrase that’s too unique, you may not get any traffic to it. So, you need to find a keyword phrase with enough traffic to make it worth your while, without it being too competitive.

I have also seen people who comment on blogs using their website address, or just their first name, or some other link text in the comments “website” box.

This is useless, since people are not going to be searching for those terms. You want to use terms that people may seach for on Google.

DoFollow Blog Question:
Can you tell me exactly what do-follow blog comments are, and why some people are mad about getting comments posted to do-follow blogs.

My Answer:
Most blogs are nofollow by default. There is an html nofollow tag that tells Google to not follow that link to the target website, and to not count it for ranking purposes.

This tag was created because people learned they could comment on blogs and get link love back to their sites. So, they spammed blogs with comments that were of no value to the blog owner, and created problems for blog owners.

I have a couple of blog posts that go into more detail on what dofollow blogs are, and their benefits. One is a serious explanation of dofollow blogs, and the other contains a video I did for fun (yes, this was fun for me - I am a nerd) that is spoof of the history of dofollow blogs .

Today, there are still blog comment spammers, but there are some good Wordpress plugins that catch a lot of the spam. Plus, blog owners are wanting to do more social marketing with their visitors, and so they want to encourage them to comment, by giving them a dofollow link back to their site.

Some blog owners don’t want anything to do with allowing dofollow comments, because they are afraid they will get killed with spam comments. I can understand this if you have a very high traffic blog - you wouldn’t need to encourage comments and you could be opening yourself up for a ton of comment moderation.

For newer blogs, dofollow is great, for older very high traffic blogs - probably not so much.

BlogSpot DoFollow Blog Question:
I have some blogspot blogs. I would like to give my blogs dofollow. So, how do I insert dofollow in my blog?

My Answer:
My expertise lies in the area of Wordpress blogs installed on your own domains. For information of making Blogpsot Blogs DoFollow, I will refer you to a Blogspot dofollow blog expert

Do-Follow Blog Question:
I want to learn as much as possible about posting do-follow blog comments, where do I find more information?

My Answer:
I have a number of posts about dofollow blogs, commenting rules, how to identify dofollow blogs, etc. on my dofollow information blog.

If your answer is not found on this blog, leave a comment with your question and I will answer it.

Mike

Want to save this post to your computer for later reference? Download the DoFollow Blogs Q & A Report

Jul

16

Finding DoFollow Blogs With Google

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 33 Comments

Finding dofollow blogs is not always an easy task. There are a lot of do follow lists out there, mostly lists on blogs.

Most are great lists, but not every dofollow blog owner wants to be on those lists. They are afraid that being on those lists will bring out the comment spammers.

Since there are a lot of great dofollow blogs that are not on any lists, how do you find them?

Paul at SearchEnginePeople.com provides a Google search query to help you find dofollow blogs based on a keyword search.

Using Paul’s keyword search is great since it will help you find dofollow blogs for your niche. It’s always preferable to comment on blogs related to your website.

I’ve tried the search for several keywords and it works very well.

Use this Google query to find dofollow blogs for your niche, but remember to post good, relative comments.

Here are some common sense dofollow blog commenting tips that will help you get your comments approved.

Mike

Want to save this post to your computer for later reference? Download the Find DoFollow Blogs Report.

Jun

30

DoFollow Blog Comment Rules

Filed Under Do-Follow Info | 20 Comments

My blogs have been dofollow for a few months now, and for the most part it is going very well. However, I do get a few comments that I will NOT approve because they are obvious comment spam.

I want to give you some real life examples of what I consider comment spam that I will not approve, and provide you with some dofollow blog comment rules.

Before I do, I want to stress how important it is to post quality comments, related to the post you are commenting on.

Remember, DoFollow blog owners are giving you some link love, in exchange for your quality comments.

If you, and others, post junk comments, blog owners will get tired of seeing the junk, get tired of moderating junk comments, get tired of being taken advantage of, and will turn nofollow back on.

So, please be considerate, and appreciative of dofollow blog owners by doing the right thing and leaving quality comments related to the post you are commenting on.

DoFollow Blog Comment Rules

1. Read the post you are going to be commenting on! I also read several of the current comments if there are some. It only takes a few minutes to read the comments and get a general feel on what people are thinking.

Then, post comments directly related to the blog post, related to the general tone of the comments, or related to a comment left by a specific person.

2. Be kind, even if you disagree with the blog owner’s post, or some individual comments. As a blog owner if you blast me or some of my posters directly, I won’t allow your comments. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. Disagree, offer more information to support your disagreement, and do it respectfully.

3. I prefer at least a short paragraph of comments, that adds to the comment conversation. A simple “I agree” is not going to be approved by me.

4. Don’t use your comments to list every website you own. After leaving some good comments, don’t blatantly advertise your other websites. I’m already giving you an incoming link with your selected anchor text. If you add additional websites, I probably won’t approve your comments.

If you add a website in the comments that is directly related to the discussion, even if it’s yours, I will allow it. If I think you are just trying to get more links, I won’t allow it.

Okay, so here are some examples of posts that I did not allow.

Comment #1
From my post: Do-Follow Blog Directory - New Feature
———
I changed my blog to dofollow also:

http://www.website-withheld.blogspot.com/

http://www.website-withheld.com (Note: This is the same website user used in the comments form)
———

Sorry, but I want more comments than just telling me you changed to dofollow, and giving me two more websites in the comments field.

Plus, this was in a post that didn’t really fit, I don’t think the user really read the post. If you want to let me know about your dofollow blogs, add them to my dofollow blog directory that is mentioned in the post.

Comment #2
From my post: How Do I Know if A Blog is Do-Follow?
———
Well when you open a website you can right click and check if it is a dofollow or no follow by clicking on properties. Do follow allows you to make comments where any link in the website can be track. No follow stop there itself.
———

The above comment is a nice paragraph of related text, but it’s apparent they didn’t read my post at all. My post was all about how to tell if a blog is dofollow or not.

That comment added absolutely no value to the discussion, and was just stating information I had already stated in the post.

It looked to me like the user just read the headline “How Do I Know if A Blog is Do-Follow?” and thought - oh I know the answer to that. So, they posted the answer without having any idea what the post was about.

Sorry, doesn’t pass my approval test :-)

Comment #3
From my post: How Do I Know if A Blog is Do-Follow?
———
it is interesting! thanks!
———

That one is pretty obvious. That sort of comment just makes me mad, and gives us responsible dofollow blog commentors a bad name.

It only takes a few minutes to read before you comment, and only takes a few minutes to post a relevant comment that adds value.

The blog owner will approve your quality comments, and appreciate you adding value.

Others who read the comments are also more likely to click on your link if you are contributing good content to the discussion.

If you have additions to my list of dofollow blog etiquette, please leave a comment with the suggestions below.

Mike

Want to save this post to your computer for later reference? Download the DoFollow Blog Comment Rules Report.

  • Page 1 of 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • >
Subscribe via RSS
Find out more about RSS

Subscribe for more Tips and Updates

Name:
Email:

  • I Support Do-Follow
I support the Do Follow movement and allow comments with Do Follow. Comments are monitored and I will delete comments that do not add value to the current post. See My DoFollow Blog Rules.

I Follow

Add your Do-Follow Blog to my Do Follow Blog Directory!