What is nofollow
Frequently blogs will receive lots of junk comments.The purpose of these comments is to get back links to someone’s website
To combat this sometimes blog owners will put a nofollow attribute in any links posted in comments.
An example of this:
<a href="http://www.mysite.com/" rel="nofollow">
See the part that says rel=”nofollow”?
That’s the part that tells search engines not to follow this link. When Google sees this it won’t follow this link and renders the link almost useless for search engine optimization.
So if you’re trying to get back links by posting comments on blogs your work may not get you the results you’re looking for if you post comments and links on blogs that use nofollow.
Not everyone uses nofollow
I would guess that most blogs online now use nofollow for links in their comments. But there are a few who don’t use it.
For example I don’t use no follow for comments on this blog because I think it decreases comments and I have found other ways to deal with comment spam.
So when you’re looking to leave comments on blogs make sure that they are not using nofollow.
How to find blogs that use don’t use it
These blogs can be a pain to find so I have made a list of them here: Huge List Of DoFollow Blogs
Get the Firefox plug-in
It’s can be a major pain to comb through the HTML source code of a website to see if it uses nofollow or not.
Luckily there is a Firefox extension for this:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5687
This extension makes it really easy to see which links are follow and which ones are nofollow. It will turn all the links that are nofollow to a pink color and all other links to a purple color on a webpage.
Photo by jpockele
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Nice info about nofollow. Sometimes they are surely important.
# This is a firefox addon (a must have), to find dofollow/nofollow links (+ a lot of other features including Alexa rank, google page rank, metatags, keyword density etc.)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchstatus/
Also, having firebug is important. Here you can actually view which links have these “rel” attribute relation & what values they have – nofollow, dofollow, etc.
Thanks a lot for the link!
hey nick, thanks for this article. I use this plugin too since last year. It save me alot of time. @tech-magenta, thanks for additional link.
Really this matters that is why I am also finding more information on No follow and dofollow links..thanks
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I have also installed this add-on and I think it is a great. All you need to do is install it in firefox, open a page, right click and select NoDoFollow and you would get all dofollow links in Blue and nofollow in red. Thanks.
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Thanks for the link, safe me alot ot of time
I wish i had read this article before posting my comments on different blogs for backlink purposes.
My regular blog about: iPod Touch
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Thanks for explaining it in simple to understand terms so I can figure it out! Even the firefox add on didnt say what color was what!
Yah, the addon’s instructions were lacking.
Thank you for the explanation. This whole “Do Follow”/”No Follow” thing was confusing me.
I wanted to add that the SEOQuake add-on also has an option to show “No Follow” links. They display with a strikethrough (crossed out). I really don’t understand a lot of what SEOQuake does but turning that option on last night was a real eye-opener for me. And I was using it with article directories.
Awesome. I didn’t know about that. Thanks Meg.
Thanks for the post, it would be useful if there was a directory of blogs that follow as a resource for those looking to build genuine links
Try this:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/3931_huge-list-of-dofollow-blogs/
Thank you for your explanation about Do-follow links now i understand how it’s works
Great explanation, there is nothing wrong with nofollow as long it helps but I do most prefer to dofollow because it is much contribute greater help to have more traffic to your site.
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Thanks a ton. I’m just getting back into blogging and I was looking for a way to find do-follow blogs. I think Wordpress makes comments no-follow by default, but I never thought of changing that to get more comments like you said. That’s actually a great idea.
Isn’t there a way to do a search in google for find do-follow blogs also? I remember reading that somewhere, but I can’t find the bookmark.
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I don’t know of any simple ways.
Hey Nick,
Thanks so much for posting this info, it’s just about the best explanation I’ve seen on nofollow links. I think I’d have to agree with you on the way you control your commenting, because having nofollow does not prevent comment spam & prevents the Web from being a web! I’m using SEOQuake toolbar with Google Chrome to see which are nofollow and follow links, really liking it so far!
I’ve been checking out some of your other content, really great stuff, keep up the awesome work! :^)
All my best,
Darren
Thanks Darren! I will checkout SEOQuake toolbar with Google Chrome.
Thanks for the info, usually I find blogs that try to explain the doFollow and noFollow do a horrible job. This was clear and straight to the point!
Nick, I see that some of the blog sites already changed to nofollow. can i just list it out in the comment column?
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Go for it.
I don’t leave junk comments ever. I do get them on my sites however. If you look at any comments i leave though, they always have to do with the article and are thoughtful. I like the article as a whole…and im glad you have comment luv enabled, i read a few posts on other blogs about the same topic with nofollow comment links, the irony gave me a headache.
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It is important to note that nofollow links have value in that if ALL you have is dofollow then it signals to Google that you are artifically creating links. Also, ALL links, dofollow or nofollow can bring traffic.
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Thanks for promoting the plug in , i just installed it and it is awesome!! This completely takes the guess work out of finding quality sites.
Thanks!
C
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Thank, I will follow these instructions before posting my comments, and thanks again for those adons.
I think today “nofollow” mans matters much less for Search Engines as it did previously.
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I never knew what nofollow was until now, thanks nick!
I use SEOQuake plugin and it strikes through all nofollow links which really makes things quick when dealing with blogs. Thanks for the great info though!
If we talk about the search engine point of view then the no follow links are worthless but it does not meant that they are having no importance they are having value but little as compared to the dofollow links.
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Of course you have mentioned this before in other posts Nick, that having absolutely zero nofollow backlinks to a site could easily seem suspicious to Google. Simply so that newbies don’t mistakenly exclude completely all nofollow links because then they would be doing themselves a major disservice in creating a very unnatural link profile.
This free toolbar is useful, it also highlights the no follows in addition to doing many other things. I’m sure you have already heard of it, but possibly someone reading might find it handy.
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Whoops, it would help if I actually gave the link: http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
Mike @ Passive Profits Online recently posted..InnoCashAds – On Hold
Nick, thanx for the heads up on this…
Thanks for the info Nick..I am posting into nofollow blogs thats y my site is not getting indexed.. Now i realised the importance of nofollow blogs..Thanks for sharing ur info..I will follow ur blog and will keep on posting my doubts..Please solve those..Hoping that u will solve those..
Thanks
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This free toolbar would be usefull if you like to know about dofollow!
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It’s really hard to find blogs that don’t use no follow links. I also don’t see the point in this. On my sites with more traffic I let people put links in comments. Not just to get more traffic, but because if someone puts the work into reading your blog and commenting they deserve a little something something for their site. Why be stingy?
-Tom
A lot of DoFollow blogs attract loads of comment spam so some people switch their blog to NoFollow.
No follow links are also important, because if you only have do follow backlinks to your site, it looks un-natural to google, and can turn some flags on.
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The SEOMoz Toolbar is also very good at highlighting do-follow and no-follow, internal and external links on any given web page. It’s free and you can download it for either Chrome or Firefox at http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar.
I use SEOQuake, but having to browse blogs manually is so time consuming.
test
testaroo
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good stuff thanks for the post nick
Nick,
Do you think Google and the other search engine will ever create some type of filtering for backlink builders that are using dofollow back link to build up their site? I wonder if people will get penalize soon for using blackhat seo. Most of the current strategy are quite obvious to search engine.
Good content will naturally attract lots of back links. The tricky part for Google is determining which content has natural back links and which content has unnatural back links. I don’t know if Google will ever be able to tell the difference between the two.
Thanks Nick, I spend ages writing a massive article for Wikipedia and was really proud of it and it even had a link to my site. Thought it would do my ranking the world of good. Read your article, then check my Wikipedia link – you guessed it “nofollow”. Anyway, still pleased with the article though.
Nice work Peter re the Wiki article. The main thing I think is that you contributed valuable content which hopefully helped people out in some way. So even though the link to you may be no follow it’s likely some people will still click through to your site to read more – that’s the right approach. Good stuff. Martin
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Although I do a lot of commenting on blogs just to contribute it is nice when I see an occasional one that has do follow. Thanks for the list of blogs and the firefox add-on im sure they will come in useful
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Hi Nick
I have the no follow plugin on but although on here it shows the usernames are do follow the content within the text seem to be no follow(showing up as pink) but I thought you said allow do follow in the comments or have I understood how it works?
The link is in the name:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/5637_how-to-build-backlinks/#getting_backlinks_from_blog_commenting
Does that make sense?
Yes I get it, just it’s hard to not sound spammy with some names.
Nice info,
You said that it is almost useless if we put a link in nofollow comments, so is there a chance that it still counts since it is just “almost”?
Actually in a way nofollow links are useful because Google expects that you will have a certain number of them compared to your dofollow links.
Thanks for the info Nick..
Hi
I am very new to SEO so if I am wrong please forgive me.
I think there is no use of getting a Do follow backlink from Page which does not have a page rank.
even if your home page has a page rank if you are posting comments on a page with no page rank does it benefit you page rank?
Anyway I am less concerned about page rank and more concerned about increasing my traffic, and I believe content is the best way to do so.
thanks for this amazing article
Bryan
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Page rank just doesn’t matter too much anymore:
http://nickstraffictricks.com/6620_does-pagerank-matter/
Having no follow links from the sites which has high reputation still provide good signal to search engine for getting authority to your website. Sometimes you also get good quality traffic which actually converts from these no follow sites due to popularity and reputation of those sites.
I’m a bit confused. You mention in the article that you don’t use NoFollow on your site, but you do appear to be using nofollow in these comments. Is it something that all Wordpress themes do automatically? I suppose usernames aren’t nofollow, but all links in comments are…
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The name in your comment should be DoFollow.
Wow, I didn’t know about that Firefox extension.
The one someone recommended in the first comment also looks cool.
Thanks!
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Thank you very much for the info Nick. I know the dofollow and nofollow clear now!!
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It’s so hard in our industry. Personal Finance is such a competitive service in the UK. With Financial Advisors and the big insurance companies all trying for page 1 in the search results.
Nice information, many thanks to the author. I agree with your thought.Thank you for your sharing. Great post! It’s very useful for me.
great info. thanks for the list of nofollow sites too
Hi,
I installed NoDoFollow a couple of weeks ago and i forgot how it worked – until now!
Powered with this new information, i can now begin to obtain links for my pregnancy social groups page.
Thank you
Hi Nick,
I only found out about the Firefox plugin 2 months ago, needless to say I felt like a bit of a doosh, cause all the links I’d previously built were probably no follow.
Live and learn
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