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Jan
21st

What’s rel=”nofollow”?

Posted in Blogging, Online Marketing by Douglas Karr at 2:51 am

LinkBy default, whenever anyone comments on your blog WordPress will add rel=”nofollow” in the link. I didn’t realize this was something that WordPress actually did… but I was curious why anyone would utilize it.

Google actually utilizes rel=”nofollow” to simply ignore a link when calculating a website’s Pagerank. The theory behind automatically adding this information in blogging content engines was that it would dissuade comment spammers from clogging up blogs. The problem is that comment spammers really don’t care about their site’s Pagerank… they simply care about getting the link out there for people to click-through on.

As a result, “nofollow” may actually hurt good blogs instead of helping them. If you’re as picky as I am about approving comments, you only allow comments in your blog that add to the conversation. If one of my readers throws a link in there to a great tool or another post that may support or argue what my post is about, that site does deserve credit that they are being referenced.

So tonight, I installed the Dofollow plugin to each of the blogs I manage for my clients. All of the blogs have strict comment management so I’m not concerned with comment spam getting through.

Additional Info:

  1. WordPress on nofollow
  2. Wikipedia on nofollow
  3. Dofollow Plugin for WordPress. UPDATE: 10/13/2007 – this plugin was actually breaking some of my comments so I removed it. Read my post about hacking the WordPress source code to remove nofollow from the source.

  • Thank you for explaining this. I am just getting a website started, and am looking at all the blog options. Unfortunately the canned blog software that I could use with my site stinks on ice, and I have been thinking of using wordpress, so thanks for talking about the follow or no follow issue. I have 2 websites, one with no google back links, and the other day my second site showed up 10 google backlinks out of the blue, and I was really excited! I post on blogs all the time and didn't even know you could get a link that way, (duh, newbie!) and all of a sudden I had 10 links from Dawud Miracle - who in the heck is he???? I followed the link back to his site and realized it was one of many many many blogs I had posted on, thanks Miracle, it WAS a miracle!!! Then I wondered how it had happened, and why it hadn't happened before! So now I get it. When I get my blog software up I will definately have the follow, not the no- follow type. There's enough success for all of us.....
  • the funny thing doug is that majority of those who "advocate" nofollow have nofollow attribs in their sites/blogs.... isn't it funny that people say something and do another? u got my admiration for having a dofollow here just like in my blog... i'm not just sure how this will affect my PR in google.
  • doug, this nofollow thing has really been painful for both the blogger and legit commentator... i just wish someone could create a plugin that will enable/disable nofollow at the admin's will. all nofollo plugins i've used rip off the nofollow tag on all comments and/or commentator. like u said, some people are picky in approving their users' comments
  • I agree, Jessie! WordPress has gotten that feedback loud and clear, but I think they may be under pressure from the Search Engines to not make that an option.
  • Hi, I installed the DoFollow plugin a few days ago, and I received some thanks from some small blogs I linked to in my articles and comments.

    Great initiative too, but ONLY in combination with a strict comment/user management, otherwise blogs will become spam sources quicker than we think.
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