Saturday, February 28, 2009

Why Commenting On Other People’s Blogs Won’t Improve Your Google Page Rank

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There’s a common misconception out there that commenting on other people’s blogs will get you incoming links (backlinks) that will improve your Page Rank within Google.

This isn’t true. I learnt this the hard way.

Let me say from the get go that there are two types of blogs. Those that are self-hosted (they own their own domain) and those that are hosted for free (i.e. Blogspot, Wordpress).

Commenting on self-hosted blogs – No Problem

Commenting on blogs that are hosted for free (i.e. Blogspot, Wordpress) – Big Problem!!!

At least when it comes to gaining a bit of Google Page Rank in the process.

As I said earlier I learnt this the hard way.

THE ROOKIE MISTAKE

I’m still a rookie when it comes to blogging only having started my own blog 7 months ago. So my best bet to get site traffic was through commenting on other people’s blogs. A common and well-meaning piece of advice that is floundering around the blogosphere.

So there I was… happy as a clam… commenting away…

Not spamming, mind you, but actual commenting, in my delightful, intelligent and witty way. Being supportive and encouraging.

I did a site search on my own blog in Yahoo recently (this was the first time I tried this - only having done site searches on Google before) when to my dismay –and horror– realized that my site only had 2(!!) incoming links. Those that I posted on a self-hosting blog. The rest, as they say, were…well, gone with the wind.

This shocked me a bit so naturally I googled around for a while and sure enough I found the information I was looking for.

“DO FOLLOW” BLOGS AND “NO FOLLOW” BLOGS

You see evidently there’s a system (which I didn’t know of) that Google (meaning Blogspot) and Wordpress implement.

They attach a “No Follow” tag for URLs (that is, your http://www.yoursitename.com/) in blog comments as a standard. This means that all the URLs in their blog comments are ignored, overlooked and just simply not paid any darn attention to at all.

This was of course implemented back then to stop or at least minimize spamming.

However, spamming hasn’t stopped and it sort of discourages simple folk like me to comment on Blogspot and Wordpress blogs now that I know about it. I don’t think they meant for that. I hope not.

The answer to this problem however is simple. “Do Follow” our blogs!

This means that we enable URLs in our comments to be picked up by Google spiders thereby giving others a chance to increase their incoming links and thereby their Google Page Rank. And in the end through both the links and the better Page Rank ultimately we help others generate traffic to their site.

BLOGSPOT

Here’s a very simple step by step guide by The Blog Doctor named Remove No Follow Attribute On Comments that will help you to easily change your Blogspot blog from a “No Follow” to a “Do Follow”.

Afterwards to avoid spam change the settings in your blog so that you will now moderate your comments. Here’s a step by step guide on how to do this called How do I moderate comments on my blog? from the Blogspot Help pages.

WORDPRESS

For Wordpress Users there’s a “Do Follow” plug-in. You just install it.

And as for spam you will need to use a spam filter called Akismet. Or alternatively also moderate your comments. A quick guide on how to do so can be found in this eHow article called How To Moderate Comments On A Wordpress Blog.

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And if you want to know more about “Do Follow” blogs and the whole “Do Follow” blog “movement” (not my words:) in general then read the post Why “Do Follow”? on dofollowblogs.com.

So what do you think? Show me the comments!

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