One of the ways to avoid getting spanked by Google!
Every time I write about a useful blog tool or plugin I find online, some other free wordpress plugin comes into mind. It is so very hard NOT to mention anything to do with WordPress (a free blogging & CMS platform), so it seems I am always promoting WordPress! lol
“What good are these DoFollow and NoFollow tags? Why would these tags help me as a webmaster or website owner?” These 2 tags mainly affects any links, comment and possibly “Blogroll” links.
Okie…lets’ say someone comments in your travel-related wordpress blog, and the person comments and puts a link back to his toy blog. If your blog isn’t about toys, Google.com frowns upon such “linkage”.
When you may be previously listed at #5 for your travel blog, your ranking for it may slip to #1. And yes, all because someone came to your blog and commented with a link back to his toy site – an innocent act with a ‘deadly effect’ – for both the blog owner’s site and the commenter’s site.
In other words, Google has penalised you for such “linkage”. Being linked to a porn site or a spamming/blacklisted website is equally ‘dangerous’. (Just a month ago, I learned that this penalty was often referred to as a ‘Google Spank’.)
Using a NOFOLLOW tag in comment links prevents the penalty, at least until you have the comment removed (or you can make WordPress comments appear only upon your approval). That’s one reason why NoFollow tags are used on websites.
The only way for a webmaster/blog-owner to disassociate external links (links added via comments etc) is to place a NOFOLLOW tag. WordPress and its free plugins allow you to do all that without being a geek/techie or nerd!
In short, Dofollow is like your site/blog giving the link a THUMBS-UP or VOTE!
Nofollow is like a NO ENTRY sign to search engine bots from Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Note that both tags DO NOT prevent spam (even if the plugin-owners say otherwise!); these tags simply instruct search engines whether the site/blog’s links should be followed or not.
PerishablePress has an amazing list of reviews for most of the DoFollow and NoFollow plugins, even though the entry is dated way back to 2007!
HOW TO DOFOLLOW or NOFOLLOW TAG in non-wordpress websites/blogs?
Depending on what you want, replace <a href=”http://www.whatever.com”>
with <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.whatever.com”>
or <a rel=”dofollow” href=”http://www.whatever.com”>.
Andy Beard has a good list showing all the wordpress plugins that allows you to configure your comments tags without a lot of f**kin around.
David Naylor: Why should you add NO FOLLOW to your blog comments?
11 reasons against NO FOLLOW (in support of Dofollow)
Why I added DO FOLLOW to my blog comments? Cos it lets search engines find my commenters’ sites, although this may penalise me in Google search engine results somewhat. Hey, I love my commenters yah…and without them I am just talking to myself!
It is a personal choice – whether you want a do ‘do follow’ or ‘no follow’.
For wordpress self-hosted blogs, the Dofollow and Nofollow tags are all automatically churned out for you by using the appropriate plugin from WordPress directory of free plugins.
WordPress layouts are better known as “wordpress themes”. There are loads of free themes to download online. In fact, you can find some good ones and carefully selected premium themes here. Just search for “download” or “wordpress” in the right sidebar.
