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Choosing Between “No-Follow” and “Do-Follow”

nofollowMost Webmasters, particularly bloggers have had to make a decision whether or not to make their Websites do-follow or no-follow, at one time or the other. However, before making such a decision, it is very important to think carefully about some of the advantages and disadvantages of creating a do-follow site over a no-follow one or vice versa. Generally, the term do-follow describes a value that can be assigned to the rel attribute of an HTML element in order to instruct certain search engines that a hyperlink should influence the target’s ranking in the search engine index. Thus, some search engines will rate hyperlinks that are marked as do-follow and ignore those marked as no-follow, in their ranking system.

NoFollow vs DoFollow

Presently, the biggest argument in support of marking hyperlinks on Websites or blogs as do-follow are in relation to search engine optimisation, increasing visitors and getting more people to comment on blogs. However, this does not come without a sacrifice. This is because do-follow Websites tend to be more attractive to spammers and ‘false’ visitors who are only interested in getting the much coveted link juice. Unfortunately, when this happens, not only will the amount of spam comments multiply, but so will the number of spam trackbacks. I remember having to report a couple of URLs to Google in the early days of changing this blog from no-follow to do-follow because the number of spam increased in geometric proportion and I was not adequately prepared for the potential consequences of the decision.

Make Up Your Mind

It should however be made clear that the issue of spam comments, emails and trackbacks are not exclusive to do-follow sites alone and making a site no-follow will not guarantee protection from spammers. It is therefore important to always use the best available anti-spam techniques and filters at your disposal so as to limit the effect of spammers and spam content on your Website or blog.

Talking Point

How important is the do-follow attribute to you?

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25 Comments

25 Comments

  1. VPS Hosting

    November 30, 2010 at 11:05 am

    Here is the information interesting and useful that you share.Leave comments in dofollow blogs is one of the best ways to increase my website.otherwise Commenting is a great way for me to meet new people and make connections, share information.

  2. Pingback: Tweets that mention Choosing Between "No-Follow" and "Do-Follow"

  3. ielts

    November 30, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    No doubt, it is reality that because of do follow blogs no. of spammers increase on the site but plugins to stop can make your job easy. If you have smart income from your blog and you have no time to check spammers,you can outsource this one.

  4. Sophia

    November 30, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    Wise words here.

  5. silpada

    December 1, 2010 at 2:51 am

    Spammer are the great problem for the blogger and really very difficult to handle and time consuming.Blogs with no follow links have relatively less spammers.

  6. linux hosting

    December 1, 2010 at 7:34 am

    Hey ya spamming is big problem for blog owner or any site owner.Do follow blog is good for connectivity or networking but we need to focus to eliminate content that are having a spam

  7. Computers Smart Phones Technology

    December 3, 2010 at 10:12 am

    Do follow increase the rate of spamming comment in a blog and also good blog comment refresh the post and make new in the eye of search engine.

  8. Bishwajeet

    December 3, 2010 at 10:32 am

    I think it depends ont he situation you are facing after getting 1000s of spam comments a day we stopped being dofollow

    • Admin

      February 20, 2011 at 12:19 pm

      Personally, I would go for using dofollow when the blog is relatively new, however, you can decide to change to nofollow once you are satisfied with the number of visitors and regular commenters on your site as is probably obtainable in some of the biggest and most popular blogs on the internet.

  9. Wholesale Suppliers

    December 6, 2010 at 6:09 am

    Anti-spam techniques are like a must have factor for every quality website owner or anyone who is planning to launch a big site.
    No big deal comes without side effect like spammers with do-follow strategy.

  10. Trickslog

    December 22, 2010 at 2:57 am

    Thanks for clearing my doubt about dofollow….i subscribed ur feed..

  11. silpada

    December 25, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    Do follow blogs have more visitors.These blogs have interest for visitors.

  12. fantastic sams

    December 25, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    Commentluv is the best plug-in. Most of the bloggers have installed this one.

  13. tomas s

    February 25, 2011 at 8:41 am

    If we change do-follow to no-follow it won’t decrease an amount of spam and we still will have to waste our time on moderating and removing spam.

    • Admin

      March 27, 2011 at 2:17 pm

      Thanks tomas. You have a valid point particularly for those who use spam comments as an excuse.

  14. raymund

    March 23, 2011 at 2:23 am

    I agree with Tomas. I like do-follow blogs because it is a sign of appreciation to the commenters.

  15. Dan

    March 30, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    awesome!

  16. David

    April 7, 2011 at 10:20 pm

    Which dofollow plugin do you use?

    I was using the semiologic plugin on my site at Photographworks.com but have now just installed the ‘nofollow-case-by-case’ plugin.

    • Admin

      April 29, 2011 at 1:20 pm

      We used the “Do-follow” plugin however, most SEO plugins today offer the do-follow option.

  17. fabioz

    May 4, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    I think with the right spam defensive measures the do-follow can be a really boost to the site.

    For example, knowing that my comments will be do-followed estimulates me in comment in a post, otherwise i would probly just read and go away.

    In a situation like this is a win-win scenario. The blog owner ownz a comment and a refresh in the page to searches and the poster get some boost back to his site.

    The downside, of course, is probly the ammount of spam you are going to receive on your blog, but as I said in the beginning of the text, its all about using the right anti-spam and defensive measures to make your work easier 😉

  18. Nawaz

    June 12, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    Because do follow facility spammer often attack on these blogs but with careful work these spammers can be blocked.

  19. samar

    June 13, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    I got a lot of info here.But still one small doubt how to make my blog a DOFOLLOW?

  20. Leah

    June 16, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    As a newbie…I wrestled with this. The guy who helped me set up my blog suggested that it be made no-follow.

    And….how can a newbie know the truth about which links “no-follow” or “do-follow” to get going with….Like on this forum, I’ve heard both arguments….use both – as long as as the PR is high….after spending so much time searching and looking, I hope the search engines agree that any high ranking link is good!! Thanks so much for the info though!!

  21. Sammy

    July 11, 2011 at 7:19 am

    Nice post! Dofollow blogs really boost the visitors to the site, but it’s a big problem when spammers use it. And there is only way to stop spammers we can use nofollow for parent links.

  22. lilo9412

    October 2, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    i agree with silpada.
    do-follow will boost visitor add valuable comments

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