What’s DoFollow, you ask? Read NoFollow, DoFollow – Do You Know or Even Care? first. Then you’ll understand Tom saying he’d heard that by being a Do Follow blog you somehow get less of a ranking with Google. If you’re willy-nilly about it, yes, you can hurt your page rank.
Page Rank Is Like Your Reputation
Your page rank is, among other things, a numeric representation of your reputation in Google’s eyes. When you link out to other sites and allow the search engines to “follow” the links, it’s like putting your reputation on the line and endorsing those sites you’re linking to. Allowing the search engines to “follow” your links is like saying, “Yeah, they get my vote cuz I think they’re good.” Endorse a bunch of crap out there and what happens? Your reputation suffers.
There are many, many things that increase your page rank (your ‘authority’ or ‘reputation’) and you work hard to achieve it. But you don’t have to be in an all or nothing situation when it comes to putting that reputation at risk in order to help other bloggers.
NoFollow Case By Case
Though there are other plugins available, I use the NoFollow Case by Case plugin on my sites so I have control over whose comments I give “Google juice” to, and whose comments I don’t. You won’t catch me endorsing every stranger who crosses my path in real life, and I don’t do it online, either.
As this plugin’s name suggests, you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to allow the search engines to “follow” the links left by your commenters. The plugin’s default is to allow following, but let’s say some dork comes along who leaves a decent enough comment, but his site is tacky as hell, or a porn site, or screams SPAMville. Do you want to cast a vote of confidence to the search engines for this site? Uhhh…NO. And with this plugin, you don’t have to. You can, for just that one comment, put the NoFollow back and not sully your good reputation in the eyes of the search engines. Everyone else’s links will get your vote, but this one won’t. See? No all or nothing required.
DoFollow Is More Work?
Some of the people I’ve told about DoFollow, once they understand it, come back with the complaint that it sounds like it’s a whole lot more work. That’s only true if you’re not monitoring your comments well in the first place. If you are, then it’s not much more work to selectively reapply the NoFollow to the links that don’t cut the mustard. I mean, you’re usually looking at the sites of your new commenters, anyway, aren’t you? (Hint: You should be.)
Join the DoFollow Blogroll
If you’d like more exposure for your blog, you can join DoFollow bloggers and let the world know you reward substantive comments at your blog with “Google juice” for the links.
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Thanks for the quick response to my question. Your post makes it easy to understand and it seems to be a no-brainer especially if you care about building community.
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work´s last blog post..Does a Business Startup Have To Be Hard?
You’re welcome, Tom. And yes, that’s how I feel, too.
i think you’re absolutely right here. the important point is that if you want to maintain your “rep” you do need to take some time, and if your blog is extremely popular, you need to weigh the costs/benefits. i have a couple blogs i’m considering going dofollow with, now that i can dedicate some staff to monitor such things. i’d just make sure people realize that remaining dofollow can be an issue if your blog blows up.
Great post as you have explained the consequences of dofollow very thoroughly. Having said that I intend leaving my blog as a dofollow as I don’t really care what Google thinks of it.
I don’t really need the plugin as I reciprocate every comment on the commentator’s own blog. If that blog turns out to be a porn site there is no reciprocation and if it’s a good comment I leave the comment and remove the link.
Sire´s last blog post..Can You See The Human Apparition In This Splash Of Water