Is Commenting on Dofollow-Blogs a Link Building Strategy?
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This post is about commenting on so called “dofollow-blogs”.
Does commenting as a link building strategy make sense?
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t in most cases. Yet it can. Let me explain why!
The Bad Habit of SEO Worst Practices
No doubt the power of habit is the reason you perpetuate the worst mistakes sometimes.
Don’t believe me? Let me give you an example most of you can relate to.
Some people will vote for the same party again and again.
No matter what disastrous laws it will enforce. They just always voted for them!
Their parents did it before them. All their peers do it. It’s expected! It’s not to be questioned.
That’s also how many outdated SEO worst practices seem to work or rather backfire.
Bad Habits of Early Webmasters
Webmasters are prone to be victims of the power of habit.
The power of habit can be even inherited! Then it’s called tradition.
People who have never done a thing before will do what they perceive to be a habit of others.
They just practice the same things others have done before them.
After all they worked for generations already.
On the Web people stick to the same habits like in the real world.
The Web changes at an amazing pace though. What worked yesterday may backfire today.
Thus many webmasters still stick to the habits of the late twentieth century while we’re already part of a very different Internet nowadays.
One of the hopelessly outdated habits is: search engine and directory submission.
Search engine submission is obsolete since the appearance of Google more than 25 years ago!
Yet directory submission did make some sense for a few years longer.
Google vs Directories
In 2007 and 2008 Google killed off most general Web directories for being too low quality.
Ever since directories were a thing of the past.
By now even DMOZ – the most important directory of the early Web – ceased to exist.
The popular Yahoo Directory disappeared even earlier.
The nineties are irrevocably over. Yet many people still can’t give up their habits.
Just like animals that come back to the same place where they’ve found some food before.
Sometimes when the place is gone they are trying to do the same thing in other places.
Some directories still exist but they are a completely different breed of directory.
Crunchbase is my favorite example of a modern web directory.
The Bad Habit
I do not want to write about directories this time though.
I want to write about the “directory submission approach”.
It’s clearly a bad habit. Its like smoking.
It is very often part of the typical SEO 1.0 mindset.
People just don’t get the change that took place.
Even without directories people still want to act as if they do.
Most webmasters still seemingly assume that the best way of gaining links is to “submit” them somewhere.
Where can you submit nowadays when directories almost disappeared?
You can press “submit” on blog comment forms. It’s even the same word!
It looks very similar and does not take that much time.
Many people still recommend commenting on “dofollow-blogs”.
Blogs that do not add the “UGC” or “nofollow” attribute to comment links are popular among spammers.
This way the links do not get discounted automatically by Google.
They are meant to be helpful to improve your ranking in search – theoretically.
The nofollow Stigma vs UGC
Usually the nofollow attribute marks links as low value for search engines.
Especially Google rather discounts them for being “not trustworthy”.
Now Google also added more link attributes: UGC and sponsored.
Market leading CMS WordPress adds the UGC attribute to comment links by default as of now.
UGC is not as bad as nofollow but still tells Google to trust these links less.
To make sure their comment links count many low level “best Seo experts” still collect “dofollow blogs”.
My blog became part of many “dofollow” lists over the years. The more popular I became due to these lists the more
clumsy commenters visited my blog and left their meaningless comments here just for the link.
For a while I have formulated quite strict instructions as to how you should comment here.
Yet many people failed to follow those simple common sense rules.
Low quality “commenters” who aggressively self-promoted simply got their comments removed.
Why? For breaching my commenting guidelines. Yet it did not suffice to prevent that kind of “manual spam”.
Thus I simply removed all “name” links from comments one day using a WordPress plugin.
Also I’m amazed at how people apparently assume that blog commenting is a viable link building strategy in the first place. Why?
Dofollow links in comments get discounted as well!
It’s widely known at least since 2006 that Google knows where a link resides on a given page.
They can trace whether a link is in the footer, in the sidebar or in the editorial part of a page.
Google Reads Comments
Google knows that a link is a comment link.
This is no wonder as most blogs out there are either Blogspot or WordPress blogs.
Additionally most other platforms have a similar page structure.
Not surprisingly Google assigns less value to comment links.
Other types of low value links have been discounted over the years simply given their position on the page.
- Footer links have been discounted many years ago – I think 2005 or 2006.
- Sidebar links have been discounted a while ago as well – in 2007.
- So called “blogroll” links have been demoted when the first anti “paid links” campaign by Google has been started.
Google simply prefers editorial links! What’s that?
Links added to page by the author or publisher of that page are what Google is looking for.
It’s no secret whatsoever. It’s a SEO best practice to seek those!
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Even when your comment link is on the same page as the high value editorial link in the post your link counts much less if at all.
Watching the bizarre ways people comment for links I can only scratch my head:
- Barely any context agreeing: “I also like SEO”
- Bot-like flattering: “Thank you, great post”
- Stupid questions: “What is the difference between blogs and SEO blogs?”
- Repeating a phrase from the post or rephrasing it, sometimes ignoring the message in the post: “Dofollow blogs are great for link building”
The ways people used to circumvent my guidelines were ridiculous as well.
- Making up a keyword containing nick name like “SEO guy”: I said a name not keywords, besides, I’m the SEO guy here.
Do you really think that dropping a nonsense comment on my blog will be of advantage for you?
Do you really assume that I won’t notice “solely for SEO” links as a SEO practitioner since 2004 and online publisher since 1997?
Google by now discounts or even downright penalizes sites for having too many low quality comment links like these.
Even when you link out too much to low quality sites you may get penalized.
Finally I had to bow down to the Google pressure and simply remove all the comment links from my blog.
Literally thousands of them were broken or redirected already anyway.
Most ended up linking to parked domains at best.
In general be cautious when commenting just for the link juice. It might backfire.
When you add genuine comments you are more likely to get an editorial link in contrast.
Real People Comment
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Luckily a few real commenters also visit my blog, be it other bloggers or my peers from social media.
Even without seeing their names I can already recognize their style of commenting:
- It’s adding value
- it’s conversational
- it’s not flattery even if it’s a compliment
I check each of my comments and I visit the sites you link to.
- I will delete links to empty pages etc.
- I will just take a short look at the “directory submission style” comment links.
- I will visit the pages of real commenters and read the content there
- I may retweet your posts or share it elsewhere
- I may bookmark or link your blog
Do you notice the difference? The SEO 1.0 type commenters add no value and receive no value.
The SEO 2 type commenters add value and get more value back.
Sense vs Nonsense
OK, then. Does commenting on dofollow-blogs make sense as a link building strategy? No, it doesn’t.
Does it make sense to participate in debates on comment sections of blogs to get links and traffic?
Yes, it does! In case you have some valuable content it will often end up getting a reshare!
I will spread the word about you to my engaged audience of thousands followers.
Often I will even add a bookmark or a link to you resource later on.
In the best case I add your resource to the original post!
* Creative Commons images by Sprout Labs
Great post, Tad.
Dofollow hunters suck and are pretty easy to spot. You’ll see a new visitor popping in via an online dofollow blog spam list of some sort, followed by a comment from someone named ‘Profesional SEO company’ -which is a pretty weird name, even for a misspelling-, leaving a comment that barely says anything… Yuck!
It’s stupid not to mention your URL when you’re commenting on a blog while you’re building links, but it’s even more stupid to just drop your link because you’re building links…
I also like SEO
For me commenting on other people’s blogs was always a way to network with other bloggers and form long term blogging relationships.
I actually do set aside a brief block of time each day to find new and interesting blogs to read and on which to comment.
My own traffic hasn’t received an automatic bump, but readership has built consistently. And the quality of the conversation has grown as well.
I drop my link anywhere I can. Just as you say however, the best value is not in the backlink but in the added value to bring to the discussion.
I always note that good comments that add value deliver traffic. Not only from the webmaster of the blog but also from other visitors that are following the discussion.
Great strategy and it helps you building a network and an online presence.
Only thing with this discussion is that my blog is in Dutch, haha.
Nevertheless, good article and to the point.
Great post!
Personally I use commenting to build the blog awareness when starting a new blog. People still do seem to click on the link after reading the comment, and for a new blog it is one of the quickest ways of attracting visitors.
Search engine rankings are something that I see as a long-term project so getting some visitors via writing comments or via social media is a great way to get the first visitors, while building content and working on seo.
I compare this to an advise from an accountant-friend many years back in Germany: He told me not to buy any property just for tax reasons – even without the element of saving taxes it must still be a good investment. Applying this to blog commenting means that writing the comment should be a good investment (in your time) even if there was no google. That also means that it does not matter if the blog is follow or no-follow. If investing the time to write that comment is a good one, then do it. Even if at this time Google might not be able to see the semantics in the comment, at one point it will be able to, and then that link will become also relevant for link building.
I’m in total agreeance with you.
Blog commenting can be an awesomely powerful in gaining new readers for your blog etc. But it must be done correctly. Even sweeteners such as “Nice post! I stumbled!” go into Akismet. It doesn’t work, plain and simple.
Also, it makes me think they have some sort of software to do it. Reason I am aware of it is that one guy commented under the name of “your website name here”. Fool.
Really from what I have found, trying to gain traffic and link building in comments only gets you a high bounce rate, not worth it.
Great comments guys. :-) Now I can’t add much to the conversation… Next post: How to encourage discussion and NOT make everybody agree with you ;-)
I’m not convinced that Google is as infallible at reading where and how important a link is, as they and you would have us believe.
Equally, I don’t believe that no-follow is designed or indeed effective at stopping anything other than transfer (for want of a better word) of PageRank.
IMHO Goog got sick of paying bloggers a larger amount for AdSense because they’d blog commented up their PageRank. No-follow is effective at saving Goog money, it’s less effective at denying any advantage in the SERPs.
SEO 2.0 is sounding more like Rand by the day… I hope you’re not going to follow him down his outing route!
PS Most other places I call myself Gidseo – not because I think it gives me any useful link value – it’s just what I tend to comment using – how does that fit in with your rules?
Haha…late to the party. But nevertheless this is great advice. I love it when people come and comment on my blog (and ADD value) SEO 1.0 commenting…not only is irritating, it detracts from its original intent. I wish more people would understand this when they write things like “great post” on my blog. Thanks for the post Tad.
While spamming dofollow blogs is a super lame linking building strategy, people will continue to abuse abuse it. Why? Because it works. People are lazy.
It’s as simple as that.
While yes dofollow links can be devauled, as any link can, Sites can rank entirely on blog comments alone. I don’t feel Google is perfect at filtering out the rubbish just yet.
But it won’t be long I’m guessing.
I’m with you on the solid comment philosophy. Say something semi human, i’ll check out your stuff.
I also like SEO.
Great post.
:p
Commenting on blogs has never been one of my recommendations for link-building because it is too easy and I know my barely updated personal blog gets enough spammers and I don’t want to add to that.
I agree with your commenting philosophy; however, I did not know Google disregarded this type of link even if it is dofollow.
I have heard this comment-spam link-building strategy recommended at search conferences as recently as a few months ago (I know some people don’t consider it spam, but I sure do). Are the black hat SEOs not being truthful with us? Should I even ask that question?
I also like SEO.
Ha! You have to love John Doe’s comment above. So appropo! (not sure if i spelled that right). But anyway, loved the post, agree wholeheartedly, but unfortunately, the silly commenters will continue on because it’s just what they do. It’s rare to be able to get thru thick skulls, but who knows, maybe you’ll change the habits of one or two. :)
I consider myself to be a reasonable guy, so when I get a new comment, I check out what is said and immediately approve it if it is related to the post.
If it isn’t, it never sees the light of day and I move on.
Odd, if people would just add a thoughtful and related comment to the thread, I’d approve their message. Their laziness (and rudeness for distracting the conversation) is never rewarded by me.
I agree with Erik “the best value is not in the backlink but in the added value to bring to the discussion”. The main point of leave comment is we can share our mind with other reader. Backlink is just bonus.
I’m wondering how Google can see if a link in a comment is spam-like or not. I mean, you can build links this way just by placing comments which are adding value to the topic. So when are you just placing comments to build links and when not. Who says I’m not ‘link-building’ right now?
Nevertheless, I think when you’re involved in a lot of blogs of your interest and you’re placing some quality comments here and there and you don’t, in the first place, do this only for link building… I don’t see the problem… Google neither I guess.
Is this not a contradiction of terms; first you say that there is no value in leaving comments on Do Follow Blogs and then you say it adds value for traffic and links.
For sure there are dummy’s out there that leave stupid comments that give no value to the discussion, while there are good commentators that leave interesting views and are of value.
If the search engines are discounting these comment links, is this because they have honed in to the more lucrative higher traffic blogs and websites or do they just see this as buying or bribing for links, therefore breaking their T.O.S ?
Thanks’ for this great read. I have a post due out tomorrow on this very subject.
I agree with the philosophy that you presented in the post. That is, I understand why commenting on do-follow blogs shouldn’t be something that bloggers do for the sake of getting a higher PageRank.
I do, however, agree with a previous commenter, erik, in the idea that dropping my link anywhere I can is something that I like to do. To be honest, I wish I did it more. I just don’t think that specifically commenting on do-follow blogs is the best way to do it; I agree with your assessment that it’s like directory submission.
To add something else, I’ve noticed that a good chunk of my visitors these days are from do-follow lists. Those visitors don’t make up a huge percentage, but I notice several a day (many of which happen to be from India). If your looking to increase your international audience, getting rid of the nofollow attribute is a good way to do it.
hey Tad.
am also in partial agreement with Gids above that these links are not entirely useless, but obviously do not a whole linkbuilding strategy make..
kevsta
[…] Tad wrote up a few tips for everybody who drops (dofollow) comments as their main link building strategy […]
Really what I found, trying to gain traffic and construction of link in the comments that you made a high bounce rate, it is worth nothing.
I find even funnier all the people trying to drop links on my no comment blog.
Now blog commenting can be a valid strategy for building traffic, when you have something intelligent AND interesting to say (controversial is good too), but random dropping of links, regardless of “follow”, just makes no sense as a primary SEO strategy
No I disagree. You can say spam-commenting on dofollow blog is unethical but it does make perfect sense for SEO.
When you’re aiming on long tail, low-to-average competition SERP, blog commenting works (which explains why people are doing it) – it simply improve a site’s ranking. In fact the ranking can be lifted drastically if your comment slips into a related blog with high authority.
Proof? Check out the blog ranking mid (i wouldn’t name the site) on this SERP: http://www.google.com/search?q=review+lunarpages&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enMY239MY242
I’ve been testing this for a while and it’s been hard to see a big difference in SERPs. I’ve been slowly adding to the strategy to gain more diversity.
It just takes a lot of time!
Well, building links through blog comments seems like an entirely valid way to pass time in the office. Beats looking for stuffs to bid for on ebay.
If you post a helpful comment it does not matter if the blog is “do follow” or not.People will visit you anyway to see what more you have to say.
Thanks for writing this up. I just discovered the world of ‘dofollow’ and wondered how effective it actually was. If at all. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog too! It seems to look an awful lot like it would attract spammers up the you know what.
I can’t imagine this tactic will work for any length of time. G hates people gaming the system and this seems to attract gamers, and not the good kind!
(sorry for the @Manzanillo Mexico and the deep link in the ‘bounce’ post, as I said, I was experimenting)
I guess the main point here is to prove something useful in your comments, and then repeating it an enough number of times. Traffic is sure to follow
I have some high pagerank blogs and I keep the do-follow tag on all of them. I get a lot of spam comments and I get the regulars, its easy to tell them apart since its a fishing blog and not as many people are out to leave their link behind as are seo bloggers. Adding to the blog discussion is what makes me approve, if they give google and my readers a nice chunk of content then I will let the comment stand and give them 1/100 of my page rank link juice. Commenting to get pagerank will work but using commenting for the purpose of solely getting ranked for a keyword, sometimes, in most cases no. Google looks at how many links are on the page and if the page is related to your anchor keyword, that is how you get the juice. If someone left a ‘cheap hair dryers’ comment on my pr4 fishing blog and i approved it, they would get less juice than leaving a comment on a pr0 blog that is all about hair dryers. Relevancy in the google algorithm seems to be the best way to rank for keywords these days, not commenting on non related pr5,6 blogs with your unrelated anchor text.
[…] an interesting post at SEO Blog (the one that’s actually cornered that name) about how going to do follow-only blogs to comment […]
OK, now I feel like a total idiot. I came here looking to make an SEO-friendly link in a comment. I admit it. I was going to write something thoughtful, but I was also looking to increase PR on my new blog.
You say, “Not surprisingly Google assigns less value to comment links.” But they’re still more valuable than nofollow, right? So your main complaint is the nonsense spam commenters, but is it really a terrible SEO strategy to comment on high PR sites with do follow comments? Better than nothing still seems better.
[…] by seowordsmith on November 25, 2008 There’s an interesting post at SEO Blog (the one that’s actually cornered that name) about how going to do follow-only blogs to comment […]
Well I think I followed the rules. I hope my site gets some link juice!
I see there’s alot to learn on this blog. Very interesting post for what I’m into. Thanks for all the hard work and staying true to the craft and giving back :)
Stumbled
I think that what comes into play here is that a lot of high PR dofollow blogs end up with a lot of ‘link juice dilution’ on the high PR posts. If there were only 5-10 comments then a good amount of juice would be passed but when there are 50+ there is a lot of dilution of PR.
I’m rather confident that commenting on dofollow blogs works well when this dilution isn’t allowed by the blog owner performing vigilant moderation.
Why would commenting on blogs be any different than links in forum signatures. G can likely tell that as well. I think it all passes juice but how much… only G knows.
At least commenting on blogs you don’t run as big a risk of getting flame sprayed by someone having a bad day such as a forum comment…
Hope you accept my comment! I like SEO too
well, here is my experience with dofollow.
I think Google hasn’t yet sophisticated enough for judging the link value…since all my website could reach page 1 (for my my target keyword)only using commneting on blog, even–I thought–it’s hard competition keyword.
let’s see 1 or 2 years later
[…] SEO 2.0 I have formulated quite strict instructions as to how you should comment here but many people fail to follow those simple common sense rules and get their comments removed for breaching my commenting guidelines. Also I’m amazed at how people apparently assume that blog commenting is a viable link building strategy in the first place. Why? […]
I have set my blog to DoFollow, because I think that if I give something in exchange, people will be more likely to leave a comment.
By giving something back, I hope that the buzz around my blog will increase and then Google will notice the activity and maybe pay more attention to it.
Well, that’s my strategy and hopefully it will turn out in my favor.
Commenting on other people’s blogs was always a way to network with other bloggers and form long term blogging relationships, but with all the spam out there today, it has really hurt that scenerio.
I used to use commenting on other peoples blogs to get links and network, but since everyone now seems to get their blogs spammed into the ground I’ve virtually stopped it.
A lot of people take the short-cut of link building through blog comments. Many use software to run up their post count, I’ve seen sites go to PR 4, on the strength of 20 blog posts, with the traditional “like your blog” BS comment. It can be very discouraging when you actually think about what you post and try not to abuse the moderator’s courtesy.
Companies runnig on a low budget making comments on any blog related to their business, brings awareness.
If the blog is a DoFollow then there is the additional benefit of having a lesser valued link to their website.
Requirement:
– Plenty of time
Advantage:
– Low cost if you have the time
– Link
We have a DoFollow blog too and everyday we browse through the 30 post on Akismet spam blocker.
When I watch my incomming links on my wordpress blog from an do follow site I happened to comment on it does seem like it is a good thing. But I have long abandon any concious link building plans and turned my time to more content building. I know this is cliche but if I was to spend 1 hour a day commenting on other people’s blogs or one hour a day building something meaningful on mine, I would choose the latter for SEO purposes. With exceptions from time to time.
Whilst I am a long time web user I am a relative blog newbie and I suspect many newbies like me do not understand the etiquette of commenting on blogs. I have read quite a few blogs of late and yours is the first I have seen to have commenting netiquette, nothing wrong with that. I have no idea when I comment if blog is follow or not, for me it is not an issue.
lorne: Most blogs have implicit commenting guidelines. They will just delete you.
I found that I was getting so many “spam” type comments I had to switch to admin approved first.
It was the only way to save my blog. Since then I have seen the attempt of “spam” type comments drop to almost nothing and the “real” comments go up.
Not 100% if they are just pulling one over on me or if it’s real, but the commenting has improved.
I am a newbie in the blog world too, but I think PR doesn’t really matter if you have stupid content. I have a website with PR 1 which makes me more than my PR4 website.
and I don’t really care if the blog I am commentig is dofollow or nofollow.
Hello, I think everybody who has given a good comment deserves a follow link, even if the person comments with a keyword as name.
The problem is to give a norm to the expression “good comment”.
[…] SEO 2.0 | Commenting on Dofollow-Blogs as a Link Building Strategy […]
One common misconception is that if you go to a site with high PR, you have to have your link on the page that has the high PR, and if you go to a page with no PR, you don’t get credit for having the link on an authority site.
When asked about this, Matt Cutts basically said no comment. IMO, his silence is deafening
I just learned about do-follow links and, in all honesty, I was wondering if attempting a campaign of blog-commenting would be a valid SEO approach to marketing. Something in my gut says that it would be worthless and that Google could easily be smart enough to “notice” a site trying to spam blogs. I think, in general, when it comes to SEO, if it starts looking unnatural, even if it feels unnatural, a smart SE like Google will pick up on it, and who knows, it could even hurt your PR in the end (yes remember how Google punished all those pay-per-post bloggers)? So thank you for this article, I think I’ll listen to my instincts and rescind my plan for blog-spamming
I always find it difficult to find a blogger’s commenting rules so I generally try to take the high road and post if I have a meaningful thought to add to the blogs post.
If I don’t I just move on.
People who spam just to get links ruining it for the rest.
I think that people will stick to blog commenting for SEO until they come up with a new idea. I am not sure how effective it is and I guess that google will make it totally ineffective in the future.
Hi, interesting post. I’m not sure how much of this you hold to be true still, but footer links DO work well, still, case in point stop by my blog, go to footer, and see the blog theme I’m using then go to that PR site… it’s a PR8 solely through footer links via blog themes being given away.
Also, aarketing buddy of mine put a REDIRECT link at the bottom of his blogs, all of the relevant ones, and he out ranks the site he’s linking to using the same anchor text, name of site itself…
Question for you…
I realize why sidebars (blogrolls) and footers and comments may be less valued, or devalued, but what are your thoughts about blog commenting for getting a site indexed quickly?
Thanks,
Dan
P.S. Would appreciate your thoughts on my latest post about doing well SEO-wise for a product launch, thanks again
As a relatively new blogger, this kind of stuff is a bit overwhelming. I have dreaded doing social bookmarking but finally came round a bit. I learned about dofollow because it was installed on my blog for me, so here I am trying to figure out what it actually *is* and what to anticipate. I often wish that I had the background to do something else that I learned about instead: ‘rescue’ domains that are for sale that meet certain criteria (decent PR being one) develop them a bit and set up the links between the sites in special ways so I can get PR and links from sites that I own myself instead of endlessly trying to get rank in other ways. I learned about this on the Warrior Forum, but it’s too advanced for me at this time.
I’m pretty new to the field of SEO myself, but i read the article with interest. Its given me food for thought which i have passed on to others who might find it interesting.
I have also left dofollow on comments on my blog, but all new comments are premoderated and deleted if don’t comply with my comment policy which every commenter must read before commenting.
I like your idea of removing nofollow after third comment. This sure makes your blog less interesting to at least 90% potential spammers.
tanks…in indonesian blogger do fol low is the populer atribute for link building….niche article
Thankyou Tad.
I felt very strongly towards keeping my blog comments as nofollow. Reading this post has nearly convinced me otherwise and I will strongly consider using dofollow in my comments as a method to build traffic.
Very good article. I think that the best way to get good backlink is from big blogs like political blogs or university blogs.
In france we don’t have a lot of blogs with high popularity except on politic
You know, it’s a toss up. While I agree dofollow blogs are abused by non related comments that add nothing to the post itself, why should one be penalized for entering the URL of his choice when posting a valid comment? Whether it’s a matter of link building or recognition… so long as the comment satisfies the article, I let them go through without removing them. Anything else otherwise does get removed.
Coming across this article just stopped me from wasting a lot of time and some money dofollow blog commenting using Fast Blog Finder. Should have assumed google was smart enough to figure all of that stuff out. Oh well, off to go make some thin blogs.
This was very interesting read, and I agree, as a new blogger the reason that I am posting comments is to ask questions and learn more about certain things, I have seen how people do come in and leave one or two word comments like the thanks but don’t really comment on what the post is all about. I have also learn’t that is far better to use a real name than a keyword. I like to read and learn and if I can do this by blog commenting and build a relationship with fellow bloggers and gaining more knowledge then this makes me happy and helps me not to make the mistakes that a lot of people out there do make
Regards
Kim
I strongly disagree with you on most points you make. Even Google emloyees (not excluding Matt Cutt) do not know for sure many things that you proclaim here as absolute thruths.
1. “Footer links have been devalued long ago” – It’s your wild guess, nothing more. I know many sites that have the biggest part of their link mass from footers and they DO rank pretty well on highly competitive terms.
2. “Sidebar links have been discounted a while ago too” – It’s your wild guess, again. Sidebar links still count. How much? Nobody knows, but they are certainly NOT neglected!
3. “Dofollow links in comments get discounted as well!” – You can’t possibly know that. If you just said “I suppose” or “I think…” and then your statements would not look so unfoundedly categorical and maybe smart people would take a note of your opinion (I emphasize that – OPINION!) too.
And one final thing – the way you treat your audience is unacceptable for anyone who has respect for himself.
You threaten them, order them how to behave and generally treat them as a bunch of idiots who came to catch every word from a mouth of a SEO profit. I am shocked to find out that with such an attitude you have an audience at all.
All in all, I am hugely dissappointed with your article and especially with negative consequences it may bear on unexperineced webmasters.
I know you can do better.
Some people say that inlinks are now considered as spam to. There is no logic in that. Since with these statement oif yours and that added, you simply cant get link that has some value.
I am in Sulumits Retsambew SEO contest and my entry is curently in lead. My link building consist from thing you mentioned that dont work anymore. Sitewide links works, Footer links works too, Directory submmision also. I did not do anything special. Some of the contestants use article submissions, social bookmarking but these things you mentioned that dont work, still work.
Thank you, great post!!!1
Just one question:
What is the difference between a blog and a SEO blog??
@Wiep
Lol, you hate commentors so much huh? Yeah, why are there so many noobiez prowling.. calling themeselves SEO consultants.. yak yak yak
i post comments honestly to market my product (i know my comment will be removed for saying this).. i have my personal blog to post my opinions..
sorry for beingg brutally honest!
Submitting to web directories is a vital part of every successful link building strategy. Apart from driving traffic to your website through direct referrals, web directories provide static, one-way links to your site, boosting your link popularity and improving your rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo
link builiding helps you to give power to your websites
yeah wordpress should make the option of dofollow/nofollow more visible because i doubt the majority even knows the difference exists.
Um, do-follow commenting does work. I found this blog while looking at the backlinks of a site which had risen to the top of a competitive key phrase. He did it with tons of do-follow comments.
And so, I’m doing a bit of that now. However, I am also adhering to the implicit contract of those sites which allow do-follow commenting: I read every post that I comment on. In fact I read several posts on this site — which I would not have done if I weren’t looking for do-follows.
Interesting post. I write blogs, comment in other blogs but i have always never bothered about this dofollow or nofollow because i do it to just empower my knowledge and not for backlinks. It is only through numerous blogs that i have gained various information that helps my job. When i knew something that relates my knowledge, i just go and comment on them. But i do give links on them, though i never bother it is dofollow or nofollow.
Great post!!! One-way link building using blogs, blog reviews, contextual link services are really helpful for increasing back links, provided the blogs with which you exchange links is do-follow blog. One should not miss use this tactics otherwise again this way of link building will become ineffective.
i hope my site gets some link juice via blog commenting.
Hello Every Body!!
According to me do-follow blog commenting is one of the better way for not only getting one-way link and getting traffic, but also the best way get great information from great webmasters or bloggers. I love to read blog post and also the comments made by others, some time I get innovative ideas from blog post and comments, and I believe this could help in growing up online business.
I agree with Hellas. Something that you said not working anymore, still work for me. Blog walking, directory submission, and other. Can you give us the data that supports your conclusion.
doin seo is a way good work…
i think i agree in part. but despite thwat google says i think all methods still have some validity. though as my granny said manners cost nothing and taking time to actually show some respect to a blog and post properly doesnt take much more time!
Yes, I agree that blog comments make great sense nowadays for more link building purpose, also its gaining importance by the webmasters and they are focusing more on genuine blog comments.
I would also say that blog commenting greatly help in increasing the site traffic. Specially if i talk about it in my case, it definitely increase challengers for me.
i hope my site gets some link juice via blog commenting.
Only do follow links can help you for getting high ranking in Google. Mostly blogs comments posting and social bookmarking website do not provide do follow links.
Do any of you notice a lot more spam type comments (i.e
i really appreciate the use of nofollow in blog commenting, as first of all this help those blogs which are less informative and just lots of spam comments makes them a popular one. And the second one is that many SEO people use blog commenting as a backlink tool for their site. So i do support this step of Google to keep their service at it’s best.
The content in your article stirred a discussion that has continued almost a year and a half! Well done.
I feel people should comment on a blog post to share their insight or to add helpful information. I have learned a lot from reading a number of interesting blog articles.
The “drive-by” (e.g., “Great post! Thanks!” type commenters are missing out on a world of interesting and helpful information. Their loss.
Thank you, great post!!!1
Just one question:
What is the difference between a blog and a SEO blog??
All SEO s accept commending on blog is a method of link building strategies. But if that will be a no follow link whats the use for that thing?
Really from what I have found, trying to gain traffic and link building in comments only gets you a high bounce rate, not worth it.
I am new in this industry, that’s why I couldn’t say much. But I don’t like the idea of commenting just for the sake of back linking your site. It won’t make sense at all. The value of the writer’s page will surely go down because of non-sense commenting or spam.
I put a lot of effort into my on page SEO. Therefore really all I need is time and great keyword rich in-links to get to a prominent position in the serbs. So instead of dissing everyone trying to do their best, what is your best solution for getting these valuable in-links?
Yep is more good to build links directly by commenting on site, but the traffic from the submition is ok too.
Really what I found, trying to gain traffic and construction of link in the comments that you made a high bounce rate, it is worth nothing.
Coming across this article just stopped me from wasting a lot of time and some money dofollow blog commenting using Fast Blog Finder. Should have assumed google was smart enough to figure all of that stuff out. Oh well, off to go make some thin blogs.
I just got this article, and I’m very interested, although I only a little understand about SEO. I also ever got similar article in Indonesian Blogs. I think it is useful for me and will improve my knowledge.
Hi. I enjoyed reading your post and was glad to see that at the end you do agree that commenting on blogs can actually be of benefit.
I believe that link building as a profession is rather berated at times and I understand why, with all the spam out there it’s hard to see the woods from the trees. I do use blog comments as a means to obtain back links for both my clients and my own websites but, i hasten to add, I only leave comments which I feel contribute to the discussion and not simply to get a link but to maintain my professionalism on the internet as a whole.
I am new to blog commenting and really like your nice link building tips too much.
Thank you very much tad!By giving something back, I hope that the buzz around my blog will increase and then Google will notice the activity and maybe pay more attention to it.
Hey John: You don’t even seem to have a blog ;-)
Make sure to set up one.
To be honest I find it quite hard work finding do follow blogs these days, it’s much easier to pay a GOOD link building service to do it. I do leave the odd comment here and there, but usually more because it’s a genuine topic of interest and relevance to me, and that’s regardless if it’s no follow or not
I think blog commenting is going the same way as directories in terms of value. The more and more blogs I try to participate in and offer my opinion the more spam i see it is funny to see some of the nick names though. It actually helps decents SEO’s though if an seo company uses this kind of tactic it isn’t difficult to beat off the competition! I’ve really started focussing on on page factors and creating good content over the last couple of years, I find it attracts links anyway.
Although I have used an agency in India to build links via blogs and the results were quite good. But for how long?
I agree that dofollow blog commenting shouldn’t be the foundation of an SEO strategy but surealy it can play a part.
You said yourself that the backlink isn’t completely worthless. If you have a site that you work on everyday for a year, commenting on a blog a day is harmless, takes a couple of minutes and as long as you GENUINELY contribute to the conversation, will more than likely be approved. I tend to comment only when I have a valid point that no one has said that will spart another thread of convorsation.
This means that you have a whole bunch of extra backlinks that you wouldn’t otherwise have. They may not be the most powerful links in the world but in the words of my local supermarket, every little helps, right?
Really what I found, trying to gain traffic and construction of link in the comments that you made a high bounce rate, it is worth nothing.
Commenting on dofollow blogs works but is time consuming in coming up with lists. I don’t understand people who share their lists since these blogs won’t stay dofollow for long once the floodgates open.
Great post!!! One-way link building using blogs, blog reviews, contextual link services are really helpful for increasing back links, provided the blogs with which you exchange links is do-follow blog. One should not miss use this tactics otherwise again this way of link building will become ineffective.
yes, i think it’s tiring but strong. walking from one blog to another. finishing readind and then commenting sometimes make us bored. but whatcha say, it’s one of the most powerful link building tricks
I agree that dofollow blog commenting shouldn’t be the foundation of an SEO strategy but surealy it can play a part.
I agree with Hellas. Something that you said not working anymore, still work for me. Blog walking, directory submission, and other. Can you give us the data that supports your conclusion.
I think blog commenting is still beneficial. It not only provides you link juice but also helps you in getting some traffic.
Blog commenting is not only useful for commenters but also for blog owners.
Blog commenting is always free while some directoy sites asks for a service fee for every submission and promised somethin which they can’t hardly deliver. I say this because im also into some directory sites and some good directories often ask for a fee and so does those unpopular sites.
Good explanation :-) I have my small blog with dofollow comment and i am facing the same problem. I get many “”Thank you” comments every other day :-) Now, i understand that why people prefer to keep the nofollow tag for comments. But i still dont want to add this tag on my site.
Hooray! You look at every comment! We’re viewed! Find us at our nutty site.
Looking at some competitor profiles on behalf of some clients I have been recently shocked to see how blog commenting still has an upwards effect in some niche’s even some highly competitive ones. I agree whole heartedly with the underlying argument here though, that good SEO, SEO which lasts, which truly benefits our clients, is all about building relationships and to build relationships we need to take part in the conversation.
Great stuff. You’re certainly changing the way I think about promoting sites. I admit to being here because the old stuff no longer works.
As usually done with your posts, your give me pause to consider my efforts. I generally find that I am reading ‘and’ commenting on blogs not for links but more so to learn. I have learned SO much from serious SEO bloggers and forum posters.
Yes…I take the links back as well and YES I seek “dofollows” as opposed to “nofollows”. I believe all links (even some “nofollows”) to be a part of a natural link building campaign.
But your approach Tad of truly appreciating what we are all trying to do for each other in SEO 2.0 is truly amazing. I hope it catches on.
Mike
I spend the odd bit of time deleting the odd comment spam that makes it through the spam filters at cplus.about.com, so spammers obviously see this as useful.
Interestingly, I recently got a page 1 google result (no kidding) for the not very much used phrase (without quotes) “writers q & a” within five days of registering writers.im. Not exactly a popular phrase (17 million results though!). It makes you think though! A .im as well!
David
There is also some added value in branding and getting potential click through traffic. I have toggled back and fourth from a pr of 1 to a pr of 0 that we feel is based on do follow blogs shuffling old pages to the rear so the do follow blog advantage can sometimes be temporary. That is why I try to do it for other reasons. And don’t forget blog writers love comments even if sometimes only slightly related to the content. We all love traffic.
I am revisiting SEO after many years of not really needing to worry about it. I’m in the moving home industry and got a web site live in 2001. Now that’s no big deal, there were heaps of web sites around back then. I left the industry in 2006 and have just returned to find the online marketing landscape to be quite different. Think ‘living under a rock’ for the past 5 years or more. What has changed a lot in tens years (as far as I can see) can be summarised in a few sentences.
1. There are a lot more web sites around in 2011 than 2001!
2. The web is the first port of call for most people looking for something. Back in 2001 SEO really wasn’t a big deal in the moving industry; people still used things like the Yellow Pages and other print media.
3. The moving companies getting somewhere quickly in my market have an SEO strategy. They have backlinks (of varying quality I must say), they’re in directories, some do article marketing, there’s also do-follow blogs.
Which means SEO is now a must have marketing strategy. Ignore it and perish.
Am I on the money?
Further to my previous comment, I also found your blog post interesting. I found it googling about SEO after crawling out from ‘underneath my rock’!
Nice article! You can get more information about successful poet by reading about Franz V. Hurtado. He is a great poet. He know new technology about poetry.
Great post!
Personally I use commenting to build the blog awareness when starting a new blog. People still do seem to click on the link after reading the comment, and for a new blog it is one of the quickest ways of attracting visitors.
Search engine rankings are something that I see as a long-term project so getting some visitors via writing comments or via social media is a great way to get the first visitors, while building content and working on seo.
I know some people do not like you to spam their comments, but having a well written comment that is content related should be welcomed. Some people say to comment on dofollow and some say not to. I always figured that a content related link is always good.. dofollow or not!
Thank you for your thoughts, well written post. I too agree and am amazed at the lengths some go to with blog comments.
After reading your article, I will change up the way that I feature links on my blog and website as well. It is great that you read over and finely pick the comments that you allow on your blog. Good comments can only improve your reader’s experience.
Thank you!
I pretty much agree with your post. When using blog commenting as a way of building back-links. It should be done in a way that add value to what has been discussed instead of spamming someone else web property.
Does it really take more than 15 minutes to read a post, formulate a quality response then submit it? It frustrates me more than anything as a small amount of time reading an article might actually teach you something.
Your posts are informative, to the point and arn’t so long that I lose interest. This isn’t kissing your rear but a genuine take.
So many SEO sites claim stuff that is simply not true. Thank you for saying it as it is.
Agreed. Link building can be seen as a viable marketing strategy. However, as is also the case in the offline world, only relevant information targeted at the right audience adds value. Thus, comment spamming should have a negative impact instead of positive one and should be treated as such by Google and others.
Thanks for the article!
No doubt, posting a comment on do-follow blogs is an outstanding strategy, but I’ve seen that plenty of sites (usually with PR>5) are hell bounded to reject even the genuine comments. Could u plz explain me the reason that why they do so?
I’m very new to linkbuilding. I like to read the comments on blogs to validate the bloggers information. If I see good comments then I respect the blog.
I would imagine that Google could use the comment section as a way to validate the blog too?
I think google has been cracking down on spam commenting .With all the algorithm changes such as penguin update ,i doubt dofollow commenting still works.
John Woods: Have you actually read my article or just the headline?
Wow! I could see that comments made here actually created more value than the article itself. I still believe blog commenting is a tedious work which should not be done just for getting links but for connecting to more people.
In reality there is no specific Guideline for search engine optimization, everyone is experimenting. some strategies work some does not.
Tadeusz I like your Hat ;)
Really from what I have found, trying to gain traffic and link building in comments only gets you a high bounce rate, not worth it.
Team
Giftipedia.com
Agreed. Link building is seen as a viable promoting strategy. However, as is additionally the case within the offline world, solely relevant info targeted at the proper audience adds price. Thus, comment spamming ought to have a negative impact rather than positive one and will be treated perse by Google at al.
Hey Jasson!
Thank you for the feedback! Did you mean “adds value” though?
What do you mean by “will be treated perse by Google at al. [sic!]”?
Sincerely, tad
Great article! Glad I came across this as I was just thinking about if this strategy was even possible of not. In addition, I honestly never knew that Google reads comments. Added this article to my homescreen to read again some other day. Thanks!
Just a quick question before I take off, how can you tell if a blog allows “do-follow” links?
Hey Garrett!
Thank you for the feedback and appreciation!
To find out whether a link is nofollow; UGC or not you just need to look up the source. On Firefox I even have a “view selection source” feature in the right-click menu.
Other than that there are tools that mark links on a page as nofollow or not. IMHO most SEO extensions do that by now.
I’d just comment whether the links are nofollow or not. The goal should always be the relationship and to get a link in the post itself.
Sincerely, tad
Hello Garrett
Strategy is something we all need
Read your article, I agree that comment (even dofollow ones) give you less link juice. But I read some of Neil Patel’s experiments where he showed that they give some authority to your site. Especially for the New players like me, who do not have any authority whatsoever. So I think this can be a part of an overall strategy to grow the authority of new sites. In addition, searching for these strategies, we get to read different opinions which help us grow overall.
hmm.. I am fairly new at this and after reading your post I am wondering if I picked up a couple bad habits.. I understand no on wants unwanted or nonsense comments on their blog, but what I am learning is the internet in like the old west, where anything goes. Some stuff will stick and others won’t. So if one is just starting out, where does one go to build high quality backlinks to their site?
Hey Steve!
Yes, you have I guess. Where to start? I have written about it for more than a decade here. Just look up some of the related posts below the article.
Spamming blogs with comments won’t help. It will rather be used as a red flag for your site by Google.
Sincerely, Tad
Great post! Here are a few actionable tips for using commenting on dofollow blogs as a link building strategy:
Research relevant blogs: Look for blogs that are related to your niche and have a high domain authority.
Read and engage with the content: Before commenting, make sure to read and engage with the content. This will help you come up with a thoughtful and relevant comment.
Use keywords: Include keywords in your comment, as well as in your name and website fields, to increase the chances of your comment being approved.
Be valuable: Provide valuable insights and add to the conversation. Don’t just leave a generic comment for the sake of getting a link.
Follow up: Follow up with the blogger and continue the conversation. This will help build a relationship and increase the chances of getting a link.
Track your progress: Keep track of the blogs you’ve commented on and the links you’ve gained to measure the success of your strategy.
By following these tips, you can effectively use commenting on dofollow blogs as a link building strategy.
I used to think that blog commenting put less value on off-page SEO, But after follow your instructions I am getting some good result there, it completely depends on the comment relevancy and we should definitely avoid senseless commenting