DISQUS

Amish Furniture · 1 year ago

First of all let me say that I am new to your blog and I really like what I'm reading. Your stance on the dofollow is nice to see. Unfortunately I chose a blog platform that automatically nofollows all the links in my comment and I'm not sure how to eliminate that or switch over to a platform that allows me to dictate the do/nofollow. I'm using b2 right now. Any tips on how to do that would be greatly appreciated by the way.
Here's what I think of this mentoring thing:
People taking advantage of blogs that dofollow with programs like this mentorship thing are the reason most blogs nofollow anymore. Personally I hate filtering out hundreds of spam comments a week. Everything these days seems to centered around the whole premise of how to get ahead instead of being a community.
If you want to get a link from a blog be useful in your comments something stupid like "nice post! checkout blah blah blah for great rotten fish" does nothing but piss me off when someone does that and I immediately ban them. The fact that there is a concerted effort to basically burnout the few blogs that do follow is stupid and aggravating. There is no reason for it! Very soon according to a few of the stats I have read about there is going to be over 100 million blogs. With that many blogs there is no reason to spam anything, PERIOD!
With that many blogs out there you can find blogs that are related to your niche. Those are the ones you should be commenting on with good useful information. Not the crap that this mentor program seems to be promoting.
Grow up and become part of a community. Comment and other types of spam only force the development of tools like the nofollow that just about everyone adopts. Not only that but it forces SE's like google to discount legitmate comment links and makes rankings that much harder to get. Spamming makes everybody's life harder including you the spammer. So just grow up and stop because it really doesn't work anymore.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

In this case I had 3 options

<ul>
<li>get rid of the link to a site that had no personal information</li>
<li>change the anchor text to something personal</li>
<li>hit the spam button</li>
</ul>

In some parts even a good comment isn't enough to get a link, because the perspective of who is saying it is equally important.

Amish Furniture · 1 year ago

First of all let me say that I am new to your blog and I really like what I'm reading. Your stance on the dofollow is nice to see. Unfortunately I chose a blog platform that automatically nofollows all the links in my comment and I'm not sure how to eliminate that or switch over to a platform that allows me to dictate the do/nofollow. I'm using b2 right now. Any tips on how to do that would be greatly appreciated by the way.
Here's what I think of this mentoring thing:
People taking advantage of blogs that dofollow with programs like this mentorship thing are the reason most blogs nofollow anymore. Personally I hate filtering out hundreds of spam comments a week. Everything these days seems to centered around the whole premise of how to get ahead instead of being a community.
If you want to get a link from a blog be useful in your comments something stupid like "nice post! checkout blah blah blah for great rotten fish" does nothing but piss me off when someone does that and I immediately ban them. The fact that there is a concerted effort to basically burnout the few blogs that do follow is stupid and aggravating. There is no reason for it! Very soon according to a few of the stats I have read about there is going to be over 100 million blogs. With that many blogs there is no reason to spam anything, PERIOD!
With that many blogs out there you can find blogs that are related to your niche. Those are the ones you should be commenting on with good useful information. Not the crap that this mentor program seems to be promoting.
Grow up and become part of a community. Comment and other types of spam only force the development of tools like the nofollow that just about everyone adopts. Not only that but it forces SE's like google to discount legitmate comment links and makes rankings that much harder to get. Spamming makes everybody's life harder including you the spammer. So just grow up and stop because it really doesn't work anymore.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

In this case I had 3 options

<ul>
<li>get rid of the link to a site that had no personal information</li>
<li>change the anchor text to something personal</li>
<li>hit the spam button</li>
</ul>

In some parts even a good comment isn't enough to get a link, because the perspective of who is saying it is equally important.

Alex Goad · 1 year ago

Hey Andy,

The problem is you and these people live on a different plannet.

Spam? you might as well be speaking Swahili...

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I look on this as worse than Blackhat comment spammers.

In fact normal comment spam is almost whitehat compared to this.

A blackhat knows the risk, it is calculated, and ultimately is looking for low hanging fruit. His is burning his own domains, email address etc, but who cares, it is all automated and some of it will stick.

In this case people are using their real email address, but dropping the Guru's links.

I don't mind hitting the spam button when cheaplinkbuilderin3rdword@freeinternetthrowaway... leave some manual spam.

It is when an apprentice learning how to do things from a guru that is the problem.

Alex Goad · 1 year ago

Hey Andy,

The problem is you and these people live on a different plannet.

Spam? you might as well be speaking Swahili...

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I look on this as worse than Blackhat comment spammers.

In fact normal comment spam is almost whitehat compared to this.

A blackhat knows the risk, it is calculated, and ultimately is looking for low hanging fruit. His is burning his own domains, email address etc, but who cares, it is all automated and some of it will stick.

In this case people are using their real email address, but dropping the Guru's links.

I don't mind hitting the spam button when cheaplinkbuilderin3rdword@freeinternetthrowaway... leave some manual spam.

It is when an apprentice learning how to do things from a guru that is the problem.

Josh Spaulding · 1 year ago

I have a similar comment policy and I'm actually surprised how many people either actually read my comment policy, or adopt the technique as regular practice.

I allow anchor text as long as the commentator leaves a name, that's it. I do still get alot of abuse. It's already becoming quite time consuming though. I can only imagine how it is for you, Andy.

Thanks for the plug!

Josh

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

The plug was long overdue, I just didn't want to upset other search results too much - I am going to find to do that promised write up on what we did before so expect some more link love.

Josh Spaulding · 1 year ago

I have a similar comment policy and I'm actually surprised how many people either actually read my comment policy, or adopt the technique as regular practice.

I allow anchor text as long as the commentator leaves a name, that's it. I do still get alot of abuse. It's already becoming quite time consuming though. I can only imagine how it is for you, Andy.

Thanks for the plug!

Josh

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

The plug was long overdue, I just didn't want to upset other search results too much - I am going to find to do that promised write up on what we did before so expect some more link love.

Tomaz Mencinger · 1 year ago

I agree with Alex. You are fighting GREED. ;(

BUT, your words do carry weight in this business so if you manage to convince a couple of other big names, you guys actually have a chance of changing something...

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I am not sure it is greed or them being lazy, or possibly not thinking things through to completion.

A "XYZ Is Blatantly Teaching People To Comment Spam" headline wouldn't be any different to some of the junk SEO firms that get called out.

Some of these guys actually do read my blog, as do many of the people they are training.

Tomaz Mencinger · 1 year ago

I agree with Alex. You are fighting GREED. ;(

BUT, your words do carry weight in this business so if you manage to convince a couple of other big names, you guys actually have a chance of changing something...

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I am not sure it is greed or them being lazy, or possibly not thinking things through to completion.

A "XYZ Is Blatantly Teaching People To Comment Spam" headline wouldn't be any different to some of the junk SEO firms that get called out.

Some of these guys actually do read my blog, as do many of the people they are training.

Emma · 1 year ago

I recently got one of these comments on my site. The name sounded made up but the site was that of someone starting a new mentor program. Your articles are always timely.

Emma · 1 year ago

I recently got one of these comments on my site. The name sounded made up but the site was that of someone starting a new mentor program. Your articles are always timely.

Deangelo · 1 year ago

Andy have you found that allowing Dofollow on your blog has had a positive or negative experience overall for you?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I certainly much prefer it to top commenters, and I think the size of conversations on my blog and the quality have always been disproportionately better than many others.

Comments are a measure of engagement, and if part of the motivation for coming back to comment repeatedly is a link, that is no problem, as long as I also engage people.

If you are looking for 1000 dedicated fans, I think the chances are much higher in blogging if you stimulate conversation, and not just people telling you how great a post was.

Note, whilst that topic has been discussed a fair bit in the last week, it certainly isn't a new idea.

I gain traffic from being a dofollow blog, maybe more than most, I just need to work on ways to monetize that traffic - I gave some ideas the other day and at least one person is working on something.

Deangelo · 1 year ago

Andy have you found that allowing Dofollow on your blog has had a positive or negative experience overall for you?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

I certainly much prefer it to top commenters, and I think the size of conversations on my blog and the quality have always been disproportionately better than many others.

Comments are a measure of engagement, and if part of the motivation for coming back to comment repeatedly is a link, that is no problem, as long as I also engage people.

If you are looking for 1000 dedicated fans, I think the chances are much higher in blogging if you stimulate conversation, and not just people telling you how great a post was.

Note, whilst that topic has been discussed a fair bit in the last week, it certainly isn't a new idea.

I gain traffic from being a dofollow blog, maybe more than most, I just need to work on ways to monetize that traffic - I gave some ideas the other day and at least one person is working on something.

Chris Cree · 1 year ago

Andy I'm glad you posted about this. Looking through my recent comments I see several different people have all done this at my place pointing to a German marketing site. Not being a German speaker I didn't catch what they were doing.

They just earned banishment to Spamilvania.

Chris Cree · 1 year ago

Andy I'm glad you posted about this. Looking through my recent comments I see several different people have all done this at my place pointing to a German marketing site. Not being a German speaker I didn't catch what they were doing.

They just earned banishment to Spamilvania.

Mark McCullagh · 1 year ago

Thanks for your honesty Andy. I feel the same way.

As a relative blogging newbie, I WAS using anchor text when leaving comments for a short time, but I never do that anymore. Just my name.

There is a lot of s/w now being offered to identify dofollow blogs etc. etc.

And I agree, this is spam.

I leave comments to participate, ask or add something, and if I happen to get visitors or link juice from that, great. If not, it really doesn't matter. I want to show the writer that I read the post and have some input. Period.

Mark McCullagh · 1 year ago

Thanks for your honesty Andy. I feel the same way.

As a relative blogging newbie, I WAS using anchor text when leaving comments for a short time, but I never do that anymore. Just my name.

There is a lot of s/w now being offered to identify dofollow blogs etc. etc.

And I agree, this is spam.

I leave comments to participate, ask or add something, and if I happen to get visitors or link juice from that, great. If not, it really doesn't matter. I want to show the writer that I read the post and have some input. Period.

Todd Morris · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I've been reading your blog for a while now, but this is probably one of my first comments here. As a somewhat newer blogger, I've struggled a bit with exactly the best way to implement "do follow". I settled on using a combination of commentluv and linkluv to turn off no follow after several comments. Fortunately most comments on my blog are still from people I know ... so I don't mind passing juice to them.

With these "gurus" teaching people to abuse do follow blogs, do you think there's any danger of some bloggers just deciding that it's more trouble than it's worth, and go back to letting their comments remain no followed?

As far as leaving anchor text in comments ... what's so wrong with trying to rank well for our own name? From a networking perspective, it sure doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Todd

Todd Morris · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I've been reading your blog for a while now, but this is probably one of my first comments here. As a somewhat newer blogger, I've struggled a bit with exactly the best way to implement "do follow". I settled on using a combination of commentluv and linkluv to turn off no follow after several comments. Fortunately most comments on my blog are still from people I know ... so I don't mind passing juice to them.

With these "gurus" teaching people to abuse do follow blogs, do you think there's any danger of some bloggers just deciding that it's more trouble than it's worth, and go back to letting their comments remain no followed?

As far as leaving anchor text in comments ... what's so wrong with trying to rank well for our own name? From a networking perspective, it sure doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Todd

Dennis Edell · 1 year ago

Well thank you Andy, you cleared up more confusion. I've been wondering about some odd comments.

Most hit the spam meter ans they are just waaaaaaaaaaay to blatant.

Dennis Edell · 1 year ago

Well thank you Andy, you cleared up more confusion. I've been wondering about some odd comments.

Most hit the spam meter ans they are just waaaaaaaaaaay to blatant.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Just the other day I had a guy posting two messages with killer anchor texts. In one of the messages he actually assures me not being a spammer but disappears when confronted. Have not heard from his yet...

I am really close to letting the nofollows back into the comments on my blogs.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

In this case it is very specific, and probably just 3 or 4 mentorship type programs that are doing this.

For the usual drive by spam, there is a solution in the works.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Just the other day I had a guy posting two messages with killer anchor texts. In one of the messages he actually assures me not being a spammer but disappears when confronted. Have not heard from his yet...

I am really close to letting the nofollows back into the comments on my blogs.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

In this case it is very specific, and probably just 3 or 4 mentorship type programs that are doing this.

For the usual drive by spam, there is a solution in the works.

Pete from Home Made Online Inc · 1 year ago

I remember when SPAM was just something i made a sandwich with... now, we see it everywhere and it gives me more heartburn than the "original" version...

Blog spamming seems to have hit a new high lately but have you seen some of the forums out there... My God, people really have time on their hands...

Anyhow, really like your blog Andy, thanks !

Pete from Home Made Online Inc · 1 year ago

I remember when SPAM was just something i made a sandwich with... now, we see it everywhere and it gives me more heartburn than the "original" version...

Blog spamming seems to have hit a new high lately but have you seen some of the forums out there... My God, people really have time on their hands...

Anyhow, really like your blog Andy, thanks !

George · 1 year ago

That explains it. I was wondering why I was getting comments from different people all linking to the same guru's website. I just thought maybe some of his students were such big fans they were leaving his link behind. That's too bad since I like the guru in question.

Glad I stopped by your blog. Guess I won't be approving those comments anymore... they were making me suspicious.

George · 1 year ago

That explains it. I was wondering why I was getting comments from different people all linking to the same guru's website. I just thought maybe some of his students were such big fans they were leaving his link behind. That's too bad since I like the guru in question.

Glad I stopped by your blog. Guess I won't be approving those comments anymore... they were making me suspicious.

Warner Carter · 1 year ago

Internet marketers often get carried away with whatever new thing gets to be the newest marketing fad. Often what results is 1) the new fad annoys a lot of people and 2) does not work near as well when too many people are trying the same thing.

Warner Carter · 1 year ago

Internet marketers often get carried away with whatever new thing gets to be the newest marketing fad. Often what results is 1) the new fad annoys a lot of people and 2) does not work near as well when too many people are trying the same thing.

FW Natalie · 1 year ago

Others are not keen about this. Even in forums. Good to read your thoughts.

FW Natalie · 1 year ago

Others are not keen about this. Even in forums. Good to read your thoughts.

Abi · 1 year ago

Andy is it true that removing nofollow tag can harm our blog and penalized by Google?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Do you moderate your comments?

Even if you do moderate comments, a link from comments does mean some juice goes to the person commenting and not elsewhere.
However blogs that are a community gathering lots of comments tend to gather more links, and thus they have more juice to spend.

Dofollow blogs tend to get more comments, but they will also receive more junk commments, so it is more work in moderation.

There is no specific penalty from Google (as far as I am aware) for having links from comments or other user generated content followed by the search spiders.

Abi · 1 year ago

Andy is it true that removing nofollow tag can harm our blog and penalized by Google?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Do you moderate your comments?

Even if you do moderate comments, a link from comments does mean some juice goes to the person commenting and not elsewhere.
However blogs that are a community gathering lots of comments tend to gather more links, and thus they have more juice to spend.

Dofollow blogs tend to get more comments, but they will also receive more junk commments, so it is more work in moderation.

There is no specific penalty from Google (as far as I am aware) for having links from comments or other user generated content followed by the search spiders.

Ned Carey · 1 year ago

Every one I have learned from have been saying good content is the key and artificially trying to boost your SEO will probably backfire. I guess I have been lucky in my short bloging career. I keep reading articles from authorities like you about the right way to do things. It seems I have often stumbled into doing just that way.

In reponse to the comment above, Another blog did mention about a potential Google penalty for linking to low quality sites that could come from nofollow comments. It would seem to me that liks out would be a positve thing for a search engine.

Ned Carey

Ned Carey · 1 year ago

Every one I have learned from have been saying good content is the key and artificially trying to boost your SEO will probably backfire. I guess I have been lucky in my short bloging career. I keep reading articles from authorities like you about the right way to do things. It seems I have often stumbled into doing just that way.

In reponse to the comment above, Another blog did mention about a potential Google penalty for linking to low quality sites that could come from nofollow comments. It would seem to me that liks out would be a positve thing for a search engine.

Ned Carey

Ned Carey · 1 year ago

PS: I clicked the don't be an idiot button. That's funny

Ned

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

It is one of those things that has lived there for about a year now... whilst the original story has passed, I find it helps keep comments slightly more professional and useful

Ned Carey · 1 year ago

PS: I clicked the don't be an idiot button. That's funny

Ned

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

It is one of those things that has lived there for about a year now... whilst the original story has passed, I find it helps keep comments slightly more professional and useful

Mike Gates · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I have just turned DoFollow on for my blog, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

DoFollow seems to make sense to me these days with web 2.0 and fostering reader interaction and community. But, as with everything online, there will be those that abuse it.

I signed up to one of those "mentoring" programs because I was curious. I never started because I found out that I would be working to create traffic to the mentors website, and not as an affiliate.

I guess that makes sense to some - free mentoring in exchange for creating traffic for the mentor. By why not pay the students with affiliate commissions?

Mike

Mike

Mike Gates · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I have just turned DoFollow on for my blog, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

DoFollow seems to make sense to me these days with web 2.0 and fostering reader interaction and community. But, as with everything online, there will be those that abuse it.

I signed up to one of those "mentoring" programs because I was curious. I never started because I found out that I would be working to create traffic to the mentors website, and not as an affiliate.

I guess that makes sense to some - free mentoring in exchange for creating traffic for the mentor. By why not pay the students with affiliate commissions?

Mike

Mike

John - OnlyRollTopDesks.com · 1 year ago

It may be considered as some kind of spam but you can not accuse them too much. Everybody is fighting for back links these days. DoFollow movement is a new lead, so why not exploit it, right? Don't you make use of it? Don't you comment on other people blogs and be happy with the links back to you?

I think everybody does his job the best way he can. I agree that spamming blogs is not good but if the person comment is a value to the post itself but uses keywords in name, for ex, then it is OK, in my opinion. However, I hate those "Yeah, I know what you mean" type of comments.

John - OnlyRollTopDesks.com · 1 year ago

It may be considered as some kind of spam but you can not accuse them too much. Everybody is fighting for back links these days. DoFollow movement is a new lead, so why not exploit it, right? Don't you make use of it? Don't you comment on other people blogs and be happy with the links back to you?

I think everybody does his job the best way he can. I agree that spamming blogs is not good but if the person comment is a value to the post itself but uses keywords in name, for ex, then it is OK, in my opinion. However, I hate those "Yeah, I know what you mean" type of comments.

Internet Marketing - Nigel Cop · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I've been reading up on dofollow and nofollow and can't actually decide what to do with our own comment facility. We're and SEO and Internet Marketing agency and recently relaunched our site with an independent news resource.

I've turned bb code off so that no links can be posted in the comment area and added nofollow tags to the uri, however, we still get spam posts even though we have nofollow on.

I can only imagine what would happen if we allowed bbcode and switched from the tag from no to do.

What would you suggest.

Regards

Nigel

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Nigel you need to be using some kind of real spam filter - I haven't used Typolight before, so I am not sure of all your options.

Internet Marketing - Nigel Cop · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

I've been reading up on dofollow and nofollow and can't actually decide what to do with our own comment facility. We're and SEO and Internet Marketing agency and recently relaunched our site with an independent news resource.

I've turned bb code off so that no links can be posted in the comment area and added nofollow tags to the uri, however, we still get spam posts even though we have nofollow on.

I can only imagine what would happen if we allowed bbcode and switched from the tag from no to do.

What would you suggest.

Regards

Nigel

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Nigel you need to be using some kind of real spam filter - I haven't used Typolight before, so I am not sure of all your options.

Internet Marketing - Nigel Cop · 1 year ago

the main options with Typolight are a captcha to stop automated posts and in general moderating comments before they go live. Other than that there are no other options.

i supose the main thing I would be interested in is whether or not I should allow links to be followed. Currently I've set it to nofollow

Internet Marketing - Nigel Cop · 1 year ago

the main options with Typolight are a captcha to stop automated posts and in general moderating comments before they go live. Other than that there are no other options.

i supose the main thing I would be interested in is whether or not I should allow links to be followed. Currently I've set it to nofollow

Internet Marketing - Sean Mize · 1 year ago

Hi...thanks for exposing this abuse...I think there really has to be a balance between the opportunity to post like this, and the content quality.

Sean
http://www.secrets-of-internet-success.com

Internet Marketing - Sean Mize · 1 year ago

Hi...thanks for exposing this abuse...I think there really has to be a balance between the opportunity to post like this, and the content quality.

Sean
http://www.secrets-of-internet-success.com

Hunter Jackson Columbia SC Rea · 1 year ago

I see no problem with commenting, as Im sure you feel the same way, If you have something to say. Even if just trying to get link juice, say something that contributes to the topic.

As far as the Guru program, I feel that is truly comment spam. They aren't even building the sites for themselves. geeze

Hunter Jackson Columbia SC Rea · 1 year ago

I see no problem with commenting, as Im sure you feel the same way, If you have something to say. Even if just trying to get link juice, say something that contributes to the topic.

As far as the Guru program, I feel that is truly comment spam. They aren't even building the sites for themselves. geeze