Are You Worthy of the DoFollow?
Ok, so something about the DoFollow blog movement is really starting to irritate me. Blog newbies who see any one of the hundreds of blogs that are on any one of the hundreds of “DoFollow Lists” and rush out to post a meaningless comment so as to get a free backlink.
DoFollow, of course, is that little wordpress plugin that removes the “nofollow” tag from blog comments and passes link juice to people who comment on your blogs. It’s basically a way for the blogger to thank their community for taking the time to add some value to that community by making meaningful contributions via commenting.
Jamdo has been part of the DoFollow movement for quite a while.
But I have to admit, if I get too many more people who add a generic comment like “Yeah, that’s a great insight into [INSERT BLOG TOPIC HERE]” then I will start to think a lot more about removing the plugin and reverting to the bad old days of nofollow.
So too people who make their username (and thus anchor text for their link) some keyword they are targetting like SEO, or Database or something like that. Nothing screams spam like that.
Now, the thing is while the above behaviour is irritating, I would happily accept it from longer term readers who had already proven their worth with meaningful comments. After all, there can be some give and take in building a community.
But if you have never commented on a blog before and are unlikely to return, then making a spammy comment with a spammy username, even if done manually is STILL spam. It is rude.
So don’t do it.
Use your common sense and make a few meaningful comments that are longer than 10 words. Join the conversation of a blog. Show the blog owner that you have taken the time to actually read the whole post and not just the title. Add an insight and anecdote of your own.
Your comment and link will have a lot better chance of not being deleted.
And you will be going a lot further to building COMMUNITY - which after all is the whole strength of blogging.
