Comments on: Blog Revolution Note XXIV

By: Mefun

Mefun — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:01:40 +0000

So beautiful server design. What CMS do you use ?

By: Jon1980

Jon1980 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:10:03 +0000

So comfortable portal design. What CMS do you use ?

By: jeleinfeste

jeleinfeste — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:42:21 +0000

The good resource should be brought in bookmarks

By: propolis

propolis — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:30:43 +0000

Cool!.. Nice work… bee22.mycyberway.com/propolis-data.html propolis data

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:21:01 +0000

Thx Dave!

By: Dave Donelson

Dave Donelson — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:59:46 +0000

Joe, you are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks for the tutorial.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:58:19 +0000

Dave the short answer is that Google does not count the link to your blog. Here is the code from your comment above with * instead of > so the WordPress system will show it (WordPress automatically inserts the nofollow).

Hi Joe,
I’m kind of new to the blog scene. Can you give me a brief explanation of “no follow” as it applies to this discussion? I spend a lot of time writing things I want people to read and also do a fair amount of commenting on other blogs where I’d like to follow the discussion if there is one. What should I look for?
*cite* Comment by *a href=’http://heartofdiamonds.blogspot.com’ rel=”nofollow”*Dave Donelson*/a* | May 20, 2008 2:20 am –> | *a href=”http://joeduck.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=editcomment&c=76513″ title=”Edit comment” rel=”nofollow”>Edit */cite*

Note the “nofollow” tag inserted automatically. This setting could probably be changed via customizing my CSS cthough I tend to use the WP defaults. Also, changing this would open my blog up to spam comments as well as Google ranking me differently because I don’t use nofollow (I’m not sure if they downrank for failure to use Nofollow but I would guess it is a factor in Google blog rankings) since spam comments and spamming comments are common blackhat seo tactics.

But as with all things internet the story is more complex and I don’t understand it all. First, just because Google does not count the link does not mean the comment has no impact on ranking and search. Your text comments are processed by Google, but presumably the link out does not carry any “authority” away from my blog the way a link will if I put it in a blog post. Google invented the nofollow tag about 2 years ago to combat blog comment spam which was becoming an overwhelming problem.

However some search systems ignore this tag or handle it differently. Not sure but Technorati blog search probably pays attention to comment links, and early on with nofollow Yahoo and MSN were not supporting the tag. The obvious problem is what we have here – you have commented at my blog and a good ranking system would recognize that the link out is legitimate and should itself have internet ranking significance. It’s another example of collateral damage in Google’s war on spam, especially when Nofollow was applied to Wikipedia links which should carry authority but were not and I think still do not.

By: Dave Donelson

Dave Donelson — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:34:03 +0000

Thanks, Joe. So, if I understand this correctly, if I comment on your blog and insert a link to mine, Google doesn’t count that link to my blog? Pardon my ignorance again, but is there a way either the original blog (yours, in my example) or the blog being linked to (mine) can change that? Maybe I should stick to being a writer….

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:24:59 +0000

Dave the Nofollow tag tells Google not to follow the link to the next site and thus assign some “authority” to that linking relationship. ie Nofollow links generally transmit no link value though I think there are some exceptions. This is a Google error in my view as many comments are important and the link to the initiating blog is a good sign of authority.

By: Dave Donelson

Dave Donelson — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:20:49 +0000