MiscBytes is now a DoFollow blog. The DoFollow plugin I’m using is by Kimmo Suominen, in case you want to know, and it has plenty of ways to configure it. I have it set to remove NoFollow from all comments, whether they are from a registered user or a first-time visitor. Spammers will be executed. 
A couple of weeks ago I wanted to make this site DoFollow, so I went to Plugins – Add New – and installed the DoFollow plugin by Denis de Bernardy. It had a five star rating there in the WordPress plugins section, and I didn’t see anything further to do, so I considered it done. But then I started getting comments, and I noticed that I could still see the nofollow in the links when I’d get an email notifying me of a comment. This would not do! I checked again, but I had no config section or page for this plugin. A little further research told me that the plugin did have such a page, but something about my setup (probably one or more of my other plugins) was killing it. Or maybe it was because I was using the Thesis theme now? I uninstalled the plugin and sulked. Who cares about DoFollow anyway.
Then a few days ago, I became more and more aware of how helpful George Serradinho is to readers of his blog and how he has the Thesis theme too, and he has DoFollow and CommentLuv. He must know some combination of those things that actually works! So I contacted him. He replied promptly with plenty of good information for me. He told me that he is using the DoFollow plugin by Kimmo Suominen and gave me the link, so if I would uninstall my current DoFollow plugin and install this one, it will have a settings page. He copied some code from his site into the email so I could see what it looks like when a user comments and their comment no longer has the nofollow attribute. And since I had also mentioned that I’d lost the Save button on the Settings – General page in WordPress, he encouraged me to upgrade to the latest WordPress version. I was so impressed with how he took the time to get all that information together for me, a stranger who had only recently found his site.
I did install the new plugin, and it works great. I know that my problem with the DoFollow plugin from the WordPress admin page is probably due to a conflict with one of my other plugins, but at any rate, everything is working great now and MiscBytes is DoFollow! Thanks George!
Update: Extreme John gave me the cool U Comment I Follow image in the right sidebar. It helps people to know that it is very well worth their time to comment here. Thanks John!
This blog is listed in the new DoFollow Directory!
Photo credit: johnb/uk
{ 41 comments }
That is cool that you are a dofollow blog now. My blog is also a dofollow. I think more blogs should be dofollow to help spread the love when someone comments. You have the right combinations to spread the love. You got commentluv and you are a dofollow blog. Greg Ellison
.-= Greg Ellison´s last blog ..How to use a FTP Program =-.
Thanks Greg! Yes I really want to give something back to those of you who take the time to comment here. This blog is so much fun, but only because of the readers/commenters.
I downloaded a similar plugin but then removed it because I thought that Google wouldn’t like this plugin. But I guess not huh? I’m activating it again. Thanks.
.-= Asswass´s last blog ..Asswass and Hiburrito’s Special Blog Directory =-.
Hi Asswass, I think it’s fine to use DoFollow. Here’s something: PageRank sculpting you might want to see about how Google looks at NoFollow links nowadays. In the article he mentions that just as Google doesn’t like sites that link to “bad neighborhoods” on the web, it does look favorably at linking to quality sites. At this point I think it’s good to treat our readers the best we can and encourage loads of good quality traffic!
Making your blog DoFollow was a great move. You may also want to have a Comment Policy page so that people are aware of what your comment policy is. I have one on my blog and whilst some may not read it those that do behave well. Those that don’t, well I have great joy in spamming their comments.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..Article Directories A Great SEO Tool For Blog Promotion =-.
Thanks Sire – I’ll have a look at your policy page!
So far I have had great people comment. Sometimes behind the scenes I get one of those, “This is a good blog. ” from an obvious spammy site, and I send their comment to oblivion. But I’m sure as this blog matures there will be other issues, and a written policy is a great idea. Thanks for commenting, and please come back soon!
OK, is this soon enough for you
Honestly Christie as a blogger you have to expect crappy comments. The thing is to not let it get you down. Fortunately we have akismet, you do have that don’t you, to take the brunt of the spam. The rest is pretty easy.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..Why I Am Not Such A Social Person =-.
I do have it, and I have even found a couple of legit comments in the queue, but otherwise it’s doing a great job.
That looks like a nice plugin, I better check it out.
Currently I’m using “Nofollow Case by Case” plugin which, I think, makes my commentors URL and CommentLuv URL’s DoFollow, and if I don’t want DoFollow I just add “/dontfollow” to the end of the URL and this plugin converts it to “nofollow”, but that’s about it and I’m not really sure exactly how well it works.
I’ll be testing out this DoFollow plugin now and see if it’s better, I think it is.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Movie Review: Knowing (2009) – Nicolas Cage =-.
I’m glad to have a dofollow plugin that works for this site, but that Case by Case also sounds good, to give you more granular control.
I’m actually back to the “case by case” plugin again
This DoFollow plugin didn’t give any option to add nofollow to certain links if you get comments from somebody you don’t want to give “love love” to.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Movie Review: Knowing (2009) – Nicolas Cage =-.
Absolutely – that granular control with your case by case plugin is great! Hah, those unfortunate ones you don’t want to give link love to have no idea they are out of luck.
Well done on the fix, I just helped out as much as I could. Thanks for mentioning me and I really appreciate it. I had also installed another version of DoFollow and there were no settings, so I eventually found the other plugin and it worked.
.-= George Serradinho´s last blog ..eBooks – Newbie Helper & Losing Weight Nature’s Way & Work From Home Riches =-.
Lol I might start considering myself a George promoter but I have reading a lot about him on many blogs because of his comments and his helpful nature, and of course he deserve it.
It’s good you have made your blog dofollow but take care of any possible comment spam. Specially people who will comment like nice post and hit the close button….
.-= Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..Friendfeed Acquired by Facebook =-.
Hi Harsh! Yeah, I feel like a George promoter too, because he really is so good and takes the time to help us all.
Oh I’ve had those “Nice post!” from real estate, lotto, weight loss, etc. and so far it’s just been one at a time so I can zap ‘em. Thanks for commenting and please come back soon!
Seems like a new milestone for you, Christie! I haven’t got the plugin installed, probably would do that somewhere next week or so? Thanks for reviewing the plugin so I know which shall I use. Better keep this post right at hand in case I need it. ^^ Appreciate it!
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..12 Ways To Reveal Suspicious Shortened URLs! =-.
Hi Ching Ya, since you’re new to WordPress and I’m pretty new to a lot of it, we can learn all this together, huh.
Definitely. I have much to learn from you and others too. I’m a WP baby. ^^ thanks to you, I got my blog do-followed. Couldn’t thank you enough for the informative post. Save time and effort!
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..12 Ways To Reveal Suspicious Shortened URLs! =-.
Cool, thanks Ching Ya!
Way to go!
Nothing better than rewarding your commentators/readers. I am thinking of adding CommentLuv to my blog soon (I bring it up because Greg mentioned it above).. Just a question though — what is the downside of adding CommentLuv to ones blog?
.-= The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet.com´s last blog ..How To Write Good Articles =-.
I don’t know of a downside except that I guess you may have people who really just want to sell something come and leave a simple comment just so everyone can see their post, “The Last Blogging Course You’ll Ever Need” or something.
A good step for all your Loyal readers. It appears that the plugin you have installed is a good one. I installed a different plugin doing the same feature and it appears to have slowed down the comment posting speed.
.-= Tech-Freak Stuff´s last blog ..Reveal the Real Long URL behind the Masked Shortened URL =-.
I have put this blog into plugin hell before, and that’s for sure. Even good plugins that have good ratings from others can play badly with other plugins you already have installed.
OK Christie, Thanks for telling. I will look into the case weather some of the other plugins are not compatible with the DoFollow one.
I love seeing another Do Follow blog, thats great stuff I recently did a post about Do Follow and actually have a post coming out with all kinds of free Do Follow images so you can let your readers know
I also use CommentLuv with Keyword Luv and of course a Do Follow plugin, I just forget which one.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..16 Free U Comment I Follow Images =-.
Yes you’re the one who forced me to set a deadline to deal with the old plugin and replacing with the new because I wanted to comment on your DoFollow post as a DoFollow blog! Thanks for getting me motivated!
Good news. I hope it will help you to get more traffic. But you have to be careful of spammers also. Welcome to do follow family.
.-= Ricky´s last blog ..FileZilla 3.2.7 Is Available To Download =-.
It is a great idea to improve the services through internet.
Hello Christie,
I have just made my blog “do follow” friendly today, and I am using the exact same plugin!
I had a hunch that it was to be useful so I downloaded it, and am happy for it being so as just discovered by your post. I am glad that George Serradinho helped you, he is such a supportive and encouraging person.
.-= Ana´s last blog ..23:23 =-.
hey now my blog is also Do-Follow, hope it will go good
.-= mostlyBlog´s last blog ..MostlyBlog.Com becomes DoFollow Comments Enabled =-.
This is good, I am doing this on Famous Bloggers Club blog at the mean time while I am reading more about it! maybe I will use a different plugin but still on the same bath!
.-= Hesham´s last blog ..37 Links for my Twitter Friends and Sponsors of FBC Contest =-.
Hi Christie,
I followed you from Ching’s great post about making her blog do-follow as well. I have a question – I still don’t understand the benefit of having a do-follow blog vs. not having one (where the comments are “no follow.”) In particular, if I don’t have a lot of comments on my blog (my posts generally average 3 to 10 comments), how does this play into making a decision to move towards a do-follow blog? I’d love your thoughts on this questions.
Thanks,
Debra
.-= Debra Askanase´s last blog ..Building a Facebook Fan Page – California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) Case Study =-.
Don’t mean to butt in, although I will give my two cents.
The main benefits of having a dofollow blog are the following:
1) More comments on your blog
2) A big thank you from your readers
Now, the disadvantages:
1) Losing “link juice”, I believe they call it
2) Possibly more spam — but a good filter should stop this.
Hopefully this helped. I, myself, have been considering changing my blog to dofollow.
.-= The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet.com´s last blog ..Using Testimonials To Increase Sales =-.
Thanks for “butting in and giving your two cents” – I definitely need to look at this more closely. Your help is truly appreciated!
.-= Debra Askanase´s last blog ..Building a Facebook Fan Page – California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) Case Study =-.
Hi Debra! So nice to have you here! The Gooroo said it very well. When you have a DoFollow blog, you will get a lot more comments. Savvy bloggers who only have so much time in a day will come and comment on the DoFollow blogs first, so they get a bit of link juice. My personal opinion is that it’s a beneficial thing for me at this stage to attract as many readers and commenters as I can. Now of course Problogger.net and other huge blogs do not need to worry about DoFollow because they have huge audiences and comment lists anyway!
I have a wallpaper site http://www.wallpaperstop.com I allowed DO FOLLOW couple of days ago ,by this way i am getting more comments and i can connect more with my visitors. This is the main reason why i am blogging. Also i got lots of great yet niche sites from my visitors. Yes it takes some time to moderate comments but so what?
.-= Derek Dorian´s last blog ..Sunset Over Ocean Wallpaper =-.
Thank you for this. I came here via Ching Ya’s. She is such a sweetie.
I had heard about DO-Follow and stuff but never understood what it ws about before.
Now, if only a blog fairy could now come and set me up with it!
Ahh, so many plug-ins, only so much time…
.-= Jannie Funster´s last blog ..It’s All Picnics And Cartwheels Until The Fire Ants Bite =-.
Hi Jannie! I’m with you on all the plugins! It takes a lot of time, then sometimes they start breaking each other. This DoFollow really is great though, and a lot of bloggers make a point of commenting on DoFollow blogs, so your comments should explode. Thanks for your comment, and please come back to MiscBytes soon!
You might want to consider adding nofollow to your top commentators list as Google frowns heavily on this. Welcome to the world of dofollow blogs. I’m dofollow myself with a small PR of 2. So far so good I’ve been able to keep the spammers away with my strict comment policy.
All the best.
@Klaus @ TechPatio: Doesn’t having to nofollow and follow some of your commentators create more work at the time of approving comments?
@George Serradinho: You sure do get around, don’t you. LMAO. It’s like you’re on every blog I go to these days and I’m left wondering who’s stalking who now? lol. It’s nice to have folks like you around.
Thanks so much for this info. I’m new to the dofollow game so it seems there’s a lot of catching up. But overall it’s a combination of commentluv and allowing links to dofollow right? I’m going to use the plug-in now.
Much appreciate,
Thu
.-= Thu Nguyen´s last blog ..Beer and Blogging. What’s the difference? =-.
I noticed that the name is now nofollow and the first blogpost is a doffollow so I had to register my site to comluv and enter my site and add the feed to the service. There was a error before I added the site to the service and now I can choose the blog post I want to include as a link at the end of the comment. I come from same country as Kimmo so it’s nice to see a fellow finn is giving something usefull to the community
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