I’ll be completely honest…I have used this technique before to gain links that will give me juice in the search engines. However, whenever I comment on a blog for this reason, I will only comment on posts that I have something to say. Something that will add to the post or the discussion going on about the post.

The way I look at it, if I am going to get some link juice from my comment on your blog, then you should get some quality content written by me as well. Personally I feel this is a fair trade off for both parties involved.

I would suggest you just burn the comments that are copied over all 9 of your sites that don’t really add any discussion as they are obviously spamments that won’t help your site.

Wow I never really expected that this would generate quite as many comments as it has. normally I’d reply to each and every one of you separately but since I haven’t been doing that as the comments came in I think I’ll just reply here.

The bloggers who have commented here who have been experiencing much the same things that I have know where I’m coming from. As I’ve said in my latest post I’m not against those who leave website urls when they are setting up their comment.

If you are leaving valid comments and not adding extra links- especially within the comment itself to sites that have nothing to do with my post then I really don’t have a problem with whoever comes along to leave a comment.

If you are filling your comment with “SEO” terms, and “linking” to the “SEO” words within the comment then no matter how valid the comment might be I’ll probably delete it.

By this I mean that if you look at the paragraph above where I place quotes around some words … just think if those were links to a SEO company? How would you feel if you had a comment like that, filled with links? That’s what ticks me off!

Someone also just got upset because I delete her signature link at the bottom of her comments. Well first of all I’m pulling her comments out of the spam box. I could leave them there. It’s her extra links , and many other commenter’s extra links that gets their comments in the spam box in the first place.

I’ve also been accused of making certain links within comments nofollow. I don’t do that. Perhaps my editing out signature links messed up the comment that already had a nofollow link within the comment making it look strange and now very obvious that something happened there.

My latest post is actually in response to Jim’s comment on this post. I’m not against website urls. I’m against abuse. People that leave valid comments get their comments posted.

I became a do follow blogger to reward my LOYAL visitors – not just anyone who dropped by once to leave five links in their comment.

I fully understand that people caring enough to leave comments means that I’ve generated some interest in my post or my blog and I appreciate that.

I want comments. I love comments. I love real comments.

I do not love comments full of links that have nothing to do with my post or my site.

In order for you to understand the problem, you need to see the comments. I have three blogs. I am getting comments from people leaving names like “cashmere dog sweaters” “Learn Spanish”, “Thai Dating service”. I am not making these up; I quite literally had comments by people entered these as names. The comments also included an SEO term that was linked to a web site.

It just so happens that bloggers don’t leave this particular type of comment. (This is possibly because bloggers know how it feels to try to have a conversation with someone “named” cashmere dog sweater.)

You may wonder what happens when I get this type of comment? Depending on how bad the comment is, I may report to Alexa, delete only, or just strip the link.

So do many, many, many do follow bloggers.

As a practical matter, this means that if a website owder is trying to boost their SEO this way, they are wasting their own time. They will not get a link from my blog. Period.

You are correct to point out that bloggers join do-follow in their own self interest.

I joined dofollow to increase traffic, boost my Alexa rank and gain visibility. I also want conversation. Joining dofollow works on all counts. I have attracted some regular visitors who only visited because of the dofollow list. It’s great.

But I will not give dofollows to border line comments. I will delete comments that are spammy. Who decides which are which? Me.

Is stripping the link fair? I think so. That I stripped a link or deleted a comment is entirely visible to people like “cashmere dog sweaters”. If they decide to never visit again and not boost my Alexa rank, I accept that.

If they complain, I will simply tell them they made a poor business decision. They chose to visit and leave a meanigless link on a blog I control. I have the power to delete the link. In fact, I feel an obligation to delete what I consider to be spam. I deleted it.

If they want to improve their site rank, don’t try to do it by leaving spam on my blog. It won’t work.

No, I’m not a long time reader who loves everything you write. Yes, I did find this site thanks to the do follow lists circulating. But, don’t count it against me, just because I want to leave a comment about something that I do have an interest it.

I also don’t get it, why it’s ok for bloggers to comment with a url in their signature, but not a basic website owner. Personally, I’d rather build a diverse group of followers rather than only those who blog.

I don’t think you understand the benefit of Do-Follow. You get readers… higher alexa rank… more comments for interesting conversations… more possible ad-clicks… and finally, you might get a full time reader or RSS subscriber.

You also get UGC user-generated-content in the form of comments. This “fresh content” is good for your blog.

I’m guilty of using the dofollow list to drop my site URL when I can. It’s a fun way to find new blogs and read some interesting posts. At the same time, I can promote my site.

So I find your blog from the dofollow list… now it’s up to YOU as a blog writer to grab my attention and keep me interested as a reader. I’ve found some great sites that I’ve bookmarked and subscribed to RSS feeds by reading the dofollow list. I have also found some crappy sites with re-hashed content that I will never visit again.

I don’t think you “get” the whole dofollow thing. You’re not just “rewarding your visitors”… your visitors are rewarding you. It goes both ways.

I’m not going to drop my URL here since it offends you. But you can look at my email address and figure out who I am… I’ve left comments on another one of your blogs. The comment was relevant and on-topic… it just so happens I was looking at the same product as the software you posted about.

*** Note: I’m not talking about people that don’t read your posts or spammers that leave unrelated comments. I’m totally against that.

It is quite true that there is a difference between a reader and a commenter.
A reader reads your blog and very few readers leave comments, especially if they use feeds.
On the other hand, i guess i don have to complete the sentence.

Still, if the number of comments is low, i don mind using “follow”

To avoid spammers, you can use comment moderation.

My blog host doesn’t provide installing ‘do follow’, but I would like to see it, because often I have 0 comments and it isn’t nice to see.

best wishes.