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.
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Nick:
Thank you for the great resources and content! I am just getting my blog going and you have been very helpful. I appreciate your expertise!
Sincerely,
Dr. Lenny
Nick this article 8 ways was very useful. I just got my new website up and new blog
http://www.artofcultivation.com/blog/1/ http://www.artofcultivation.com
One of the best ways to find dofollow blogs is to search for blogs with Commentluv enabled. While not all of them also have dofollow, quite a few of them do. Not sure of the fraction, but it must be about one in five or maybe even a quarter of them.
Thanks a lot for providing such a good information i had just started my website and this info is going to be really helpful for me keep up the good work
Thanks a lot. I am myself looking for some information to get my <a>website started. The information that you have provided is very useful.
thanks for the info. I find it difficult to get visitor. uhh
Thanks for the info, I'll start looking for those and commenting, starting right here!
There are some way to find dofollow include keywordsluv. I am using keywords 'this site uses keywordluv'. With this keywords I got a lot of people using keywordluv.
I looked at the first link and when I went there I checked out a few blogs in the shopping category and a couple of them had no follow in the links. they should be removed from the system. Who moderates this? My online shopping site link won't help me from those blogs. Some weren't even blogs they were stores
It's possible that the lists are not updated regularly.
Nick,
Slick tool! you made life easier for a lot of us marketers out there.
Cheers,
Dan
Awesome.
I have just added my ff with nodofollow plugin. And I can see now that you rewarded your commentator with backlinks. Thanks anyway for the information and backlink.
FireFox is really a browser everyone should use.
Hi Nick
Just wanted to get your opinion on backlink building with free traffic system.com. I have used the free traffic system for the past six weeks, and have via submitting articles to them, built over 60 backlinks showing on the member interface… Problem is that none of these backlinks show up anywhere else i.e. backlink checks, although links built elsewhere do show…
I realise that not all backlinks will show up but I would have expected to see a few out of the 60.
Could this be a problem of nofollow?
Have you or your readers have any experience with free traffic systems.
Thanks
Brye
I have never used free traffic system.com but it could be a problem with nofollow. Or maybe the pages that are linking to your site are not indexed.
Hey Nick,
I firmly believe that if someone takes the time and effort to leave a quality comment on my blog that the least I can do is reward them for it. My blog is a "DoFollow Blog" and I also use "CommentLuv". I've been using the two plugins you're talking about for awhile and I think they are great.
Later,
Jeff Sargent
I have also found it to be a good reward.
I strongly believe that all websites should dofollow their comments. I can only remember the days when people actually focused on creating content instead of dofollow/nofollow/pagerank and all that other stuff.
-Adam
The reason they implemented nofollow was to detour people who made lame comments solely for the backlink.
Yup! Nick I agree with you. One has to have some kind of filter to get rid of lame comments. Is this a lame comment? I hope it isn’t. :-0
Cheers! Keep up the good work!
PS I often revisit this website to learn and keep abreast with new ways to build traffic for my website.
Thanks and no it's not lame.
Most lame comments have some boilerplate text like "I found your article interestiung but confusing, not all make sense. visit my prostate enhancement site…"
Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to comment on those types of sites, and this will be my first. Thanks
Thanks George.
Nick,
I found this page on google searching for "how to get indexed by google fast". Google did a good job with it's relevancy on that search, because I landed here and this is exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks!
Greg
Steelersgear.net
I'm a donkey because I didn't land on this page, but I did land on 11 tips on how to get indexed by google super fast, then I clicked over to this page. LOL.
I am back and forth on dofollow or nofollow. I found this post helpful, but I still need to do some homework before I make my mind up. Thanks again for your help.
thanks for the links! Sweet 'fox tool too – I only hope there's someone out there building a similar tool for Chrome
A tool for chrome would be spiffy. Until then I'm sticking with firefox.
Nice idea on nofollow links and the way find new dofollow blogs. Those blogs with dofollow have to face another big problem, that is spam comments.
Yes they do. There are few things you can do like using a simple number captcha.
Thanks for the great info. Nick. I was just wondering why you have some links which turn pink in this particular blog? Most of them are purple anyways. I checked this page’s source code and it did not have , so that’s the good bit.
Is there a plugin to check this same feature in Google Chrome?
Thanks
I think pink & purple coloring is the dofollow plugin for Firefox showing which links are dofollow.
I don't know if there is a plugin like that fir chrome.
Isn't pink colouring telling the search engine not to follow a particular link. which in turn means that posting on blog which turn your links to pink doesn't help improve ranking? And when your link is purpled on a blog, it means that the search engine is allowed to follow it and this helps you move up the page rankings?
Do i understand the concept of nofollow correctly or is there something else to it?
I believe you are correct.
Yeah its true that it is difficult to find blogs and forums that do follow. But there are directories that help you in your search. Uncle Google is also very kind to search it for you. Also the plug-in for firefox helps you to determine whether the site you are viewing is do follow or not.
Thanks so much for this great info! It really helps a lot!
An excellent source…..
thanks for sharing this informative post.
Is there another tool besides the one for firefox above. If you have the newest version of firefox, its not available for download. I've been searching for the answer to this all day. I don't truly understand the nofollow, or why people put it on the blogs. Wordpress also has a plugin called Keyword Luv. It helps so that you actual keyword becomes relevant to your posting.
Bummer. Looks like Firefox is 3.6 and the plugin is only compatible up to 3.5.
I looked around and didn't see any way to download a previous version of Firefox. I guess you'll just have to wait until the plug-in owner updates it for the newest version of Firefox.
Great Post. I think this topic about building back links is one of the most frustrating things to do for new internet marketers.
All anyone has to do is understand that this takes time to do, and not expect too much right from the start, and over time they will start to receive traffic from the search engines by getting some great quality back links to their site.
Good advice. You're not going to generate 10 billion links overnight.
One thing I would add is that you should focus as much on creating awesome content as you do on building back links.
Im using this for getting my website index faster nick thanks alot!
Glad I could help.
Just stumbled across your blog. thanks for this great post, you got a new fan,
I love getting new fans.
Every post I find on this blog is packed full of useful information Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to put it down online for us all. The No Follow problem is one that I seem to run into quite a lot. I spent ages trying to build links before I realised about it! Only to find a little article about it, checking and discovering that it was all for (nearly) nothing, quite a depressing day!! Still, you live and learn! I'm going to try out that Firefox plugin to make my life a bit easier in discovering the websites where my links can be more effective. I think I might also go and remove the No Follow thing from my own blog; might as well give my viewers some benefit after all (even if my website is only PR0 at the moment!!).
I think many of your visitors would appreciate you removing the no follow.
No Follow blogs are not popular for example.
-Problogger
-John Chow
-Copyblogger
are all dofollow
You've cited a few examples of dofollow blogs that are popular but that doesn't mean that nofollow blogs cannot be popular.
Re-reading this for the n-th time. In part because I have had some luck with do-follow links of a few websites. The tick is to find something relevant where you can comment.
Another site which may be useful: http://www.followtopia.com/
Thanks Dave! I'll have to check out that site.
Some of the blogs on the list are no follow blogs. All the links turn pink when you use the firefox plugin.
I don't think the list owners keep it as up to date as they should.
Both the links take to the same page!
Got it fixed. Thanks for telling me.
Sure!
Great tips you have here. I use SeoQuake thought for firefox. It's a plugin as well, it helps you to check if liks are follow or not as well. You should check "line through unfollow links" in options and all links that are not follow will be visible. No need to see the source of the page. Must have plugin for all firefox lovers!
Nick, your blog is an absolute treasure trove of great, actionable information. Thanks so much for the lists of do-follow blogs… and I am slowing working my way through the rest of your great info.
Re Firefox extensions — most of the time I just install them anyway, even if they don't display as being compatible with the latest version, and so far I have not noticed a problem.
Michael
That's good feedback about the Firefox extensions. I didn't know that.
Just to share my tricks I'm using free/paid tools that are available in the net like the fast blog finder who finds dofollow blogs. I also search using the you comment i follow plugins.
Nick,
The "http://www.dofollowblogs.com/ " link does not work. It said, "Problem loading page". Please fix it or find out what went wrong with it.
I clicked on the link and it sent me to: http://www.dofollowblogs.com/
The site came up just fine for me. Maybe the site was down for a few minutes. There's not much I can do about that.
Can you check this. I guess its infected.
http://courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow/
Wow I had no idea. I am going to remove the link for that one. Thank you for telling me!
Sure
hi this is really wonderful information for bloggers. Thanks for sharing
.-= chalikovas's last blog ..Birth of Far infrared active water =-.
Nick,
I always look forward to your articles. They are short, direct and actionable. Thanks for this insight that will allow for more fruitful effort.
Sandra
.-= Sandra Dye's last blog ..What Are You Teaching Your Child About Money =-.
This is a great website. Our business is relatively new and we have spent a great deal of time trying to improve our Google rankings. The information you have shared will be of great use to us.
I haven't read through all your entries yet (will be doing so this afternoon) but wondered if it is worth mentioning in this post that people can check how many incoming links they have to their site by typing "link:" into the Google search bar. That way they can keep track of their progress.
Thanks again.
I have a plugin for Firefox called SEO Tools, it shows no follow links and does some other useful things, I recommend it.
I hate that blogs use nofollow, it just seems silly, why not use a captcha to keep out rogue spam?
.-= Amit's last blog ..Doughnut = nom nom =-.
I certainly prefer it that way. But I also realize that not all blog spam can be blocked by a captcha. Some of the spam is actually human generated.
thanks for helping man!
I was looking for theses anwers and now I have thanks to you
Really thanks for share it with us!
.-= renan@wallpapers for iphone's last blog ..iPhone: World Cup – South Africa =-.
Thanks for the explanation about nofollow links. Been confused about it for some time.
.-= Self Help For Women's last blog ..The Linden Method Review =-.
Hi , this is something always bothering me, Nofollow and dofollow. I never put NF tags in my blog, to say the truth I don't even know how. I recently checked my blogs with searchstatus, shows that there are nofollow links. Then I realized those nofollow links are from wordpress plugin I use. What I want to know is if it says nofollow (i.e. 36 links), do my main blog links become worthless for another blog I am giving links to? It is not even my own blog, itself, is nofollow but other links in my blog like plugin. I am a bit confused here. Can you explain me? Thank you! My blog is Healthy Baby Recipes
Like I said my blog is not nofollow, but there are nofollow links. Thanks! I desperately need the answer here.
Have you downloaded the Dofollow plugin? Nofollow (supposedly) makes links to outside blog worthless in the eyes of Google.
Many themes and blog platforms automatically add nofollow in the comments. You get a nofollow blog by default.
Links you add to your posts are usually do follow, but those in comments are not. If you're using WordPress, look for plugins with the keyword do follow.
Hello, thanks for your kind reply. I didn't expect to get response from you as many bloggers usually don't. I am not sure what dofollow plugin is. I now have a firefox extension plugin called NoDoFollow. It is on in my browser and it highlights blue links(do follow, pink=nofollow) on your blog. It also show that those links people leave in comments are highlighted in blue. What I want to know is if it means you allow dofollow comments ? I am trying to understand it still. Thanks for your time to help me.
Crystal
I sent you an e-mail responding to your question.
Hi, All your posts are great. Thanks. But http://www.dofollowblogs.com/ is not working! it says "fatal error" ?!
Thank you for telling me! It looks like the site has been hijacked.
I made my blog do follow by adding a nofollow plugin.
But there are blogs which claim to be do follow yet are no do follow. Was really time taking to find out which are really do follow. Then I added the Firefox add-on NoDoFollow. Now it is easy.
I've come to the point where I don't waste many brain cells with respect to the follow/no follow dichotomy. No matter what Google says, I've found "no follow" counts for something…relevancy I imagine. A link is a link is a link. Favor do follow links by all means, but if you have a no follow link available without much effort, much view is to take it.
I think that you've got a good point there. The status of the link you're getting is one factor of many. The relevancy of the blog post you're responding to and the quality of your comment are both important factors.
Really, we shouldn't be commenting just for the link juice alone although it is certainly a motivator. The comments are for sharing information and having a communal discussion.
You definitely have a point but I still favor dofollow links.
Thanks for sharing, i'm starting.. is dificult to find follow blogs..
Thanks a ton for showing me to this plug-in! What a super time saver. It is amazing how much time folks spend on useless links. I know I can always get the straight scoop from you Nick. Be well!
Thank you. It really is an awesome plug-in.
Yay, thanks. This page popped up as #1 when I googled how to find blogs which don't nofollow and it's great info. Shall try your list and the plugin.
Thanks. I am glad Google is sending me traffic.
The problem is that the increase in the use of nofollow is affecting the accuracy of Google's pagerank model and subsequently the accuracy of their search rankings. Not which sites are listed, but how they are ranked. I have seen this at work where we should theoretically have the #1 site for a given subject but we are mainly discussed on blogs so most of our backlinks don't count. I don't think it does any great harm (we are #2 and get lots of traffic) but it does show that the page rank model is flawed and not keeping up with technological change as fast as it should.
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True but PageRank is only 1 of many factors that determine where you rank.
Nick,
Great write-up. I've actually noticed through my own SEO work that the no-follow attribute seems to be changing over time, that is, the engines are giving some sort of presence to it even if it is diminished from a regular link.
I also agree with the "better ways to combat spam" topic. It seems that no-follow was used as a kind of silver bullet to help bloggers, but in practice it has diminished the reasons behind communicating to some extent.
Love the CommentLuv suggestion! I wasn't aware of that before this post.
Very true. The no follow attribute seems to be kind of funny and I believe that it is becoming less and less important in search engine optimization. Search engines are finding better ways of figuring out which websites should rank high.
I'm relatively new to blogging and I've only recently discovered the value of sites with "nofollow" links and how difficult it is to find them! So thank you for the information above and your list of DoFollow blogs.
Thank you for the advice. Luckily I found this out before I built thousands of links on nofollow blogs. I hope all SEO's see this. Or do I?
Google should see the links.
Thanks so much Nick, I was researching in building links for my new blog at MiracleofAlaska.com and came across your blog. Great info, you just saved me a lot of unwanted spending and definetly bookmarked your site! Great work!
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Enabling dofollow attracts more comments and may be as you said, more spam for that matter. But still it is really helpful to market your blog. As for the question of spam there are plugins like Akismet in Wordpress to eliminate them.
Hi,
Glad to read this productive post.. Nice to know about the impact of Nofollow.. and Thank you for the huge list of blogs..
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Hey Nick
I've literally been searching for 5 hours for dofollow blogs to comment on and EVERY SINGLE ONE was no follow – I feel like I've just completely wasted the day. So I found your post very helpful, I really did. Thanks Nick
Hey Nick, what happened to the dofollow blog list?? It seems it no longer existed I'm getting a 404 error! please adivse. Thanks!
Hmmm… The links work for me: http://nickstraffictricks.com/3931_huge-list-of-d…
Thanks for the info on the addon for firefox. Very useful. There are of course some automated programmes that are very good for finding blogs with dofollow links. I use one and it works a treat. Just google "blog submitters" for example.
Thanks for the tip!
A lot of the "do follow" blogs that used to be out there have turned themselves over to the "no follow" crowd because there are a lot of people out there trying to spam them to max. I would use a little common courtesy when posting on do follow blogs, just my two cents.
I totally agree. If you are going to leave a comment on a blog at least make it meaningful.
According to google "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" ..And the hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index.
Checking the source code of the page to see if its using a no follow and do follow code could be time consuming. This firefox plugin is very useful indeed.
Jane P.
Author of Licenex Reviews
Thanks Nick interesting read! I just got a nofollow plugin for firefox thanks to your post. That is going to be handy in finding resources that are dofollow very quickly.
I expected to see some info and benefits of using of no follow, but you just talkin about DO-FOLLOW links…
Oh I didn't think about that. Maybe I'll write a post about that.
Hi Nick! Like Scorpi, it would be nicer if you add more information and include the benefits of using it. I'll keep on visiting this page for your updates. I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Good question. Check out this blog post: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/five-situation…
wow, awesome list! i found myself in the beginning writing comments on all the blogs i could only to find out later about nofollow (noob
) .
everyone knows that dofollow is wat you want for seo purposes. but shouldnt you get some nofollow as well? to keep your link building seem natural??
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I don't think it matters too much.
Thank you for all this list, I really appreciate someone doing some work to share, your content is great by the way.
[link removed by Nick]
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Hi Nick, Thanks for sharing this information – I'm a bit of a Noob when it comes to this internet stuff – however I did see your ''Nick's Traffic Tricks'' which I have downloaded and am looking forward to having a good read. Also thanks for the List Of DoFollow Blogs
Ray Hardy
Thank you Ray!
webmasters that DO use nofollow should be spanked in public and beaten with wet noodles.
I strongly disagree. If a person wants to use nofollow on their site then they are free to do so.
Great article. I think the nofollow comments is a big problem. Because most blog owners leave the dofollow off, we get less link juice. But still, I find that also nofollow links pass some juice, but not anything significant. Maybe it is a small temporary push. Even the pr3-pr6 nofollow don't put out any major juice.
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you are amazing ! .. i ll check the list of blogs , thanks man
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Great article, already knew most of it but that pluggin really helped me. Thank you!
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Thanks for the great article, have learn some understanding in no follow and follow links, Thanks
Thanks for the post Nick, most of the forums like dp also have nofollow tag. Do you use Askimet for dealing spam comments.
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> Do you use Askimet for dealing spam comments.
Was this a question? (I don't see a question mark at the end so I am not sure.)
Yes, I use Askimet.
Great stuff for a link building noob like myself,
Firefox addon is very handy.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing this information – I’m a bit of a Noob when it comes to this internet stuff.
Nice article I really understand about no follow and follow links..
I commend this article! You have a very informative post Nick. I'm just new at this but you helped me understand what I ought to understand to make things work for me. The links of different resources are also helpful.
Awesome analysis. A highly acclaimed resource.
Thank you so much for posting the Firefox extension. This will cut so much of the work required to figure out the type of links.
Well, Thanks for the tips. I am trying my maximum to get both nofollow and dofollow links.
SEO is really a difficult thing, I appreciate your cooperation, I've adopted some of your techniques. Thanks for that.
Hello nick first I would like to thank you for this article but what I want to know is what impact does that have on my own blog ?? I mean .. if I use dofollow and then a lot of people let's say 100s of people leave comments with links to there blogs.
will that harm my website ?? .. I think my question is clear.
if I have a lot of links "dofollow links" on my website will that harm my own website ?? .. I don't know .. because at first I was thinking like .. when the google bot finds a dofollow link on your blog it follows it and leaves your blog .. but if it was the case, how would it follow all the hundreds of links that are in there .. so I think "I know it sounds crazy" but I think every time the bot come across a link it makes birth to a new bot and send it to that link !! ..
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Having do follow links on your blog is not going to harm it. Google will still follow all of the links and find all the pages on your blog.
Only about 1 out of every 20 people leave comments so if you are getting hundreds of comments then you likely have thousands of visitors, which is what you want!
The one real downside of using do follow it that you will attract more comment spammers.
lol .. so My question is should I use nofollow ?? I don't care about spam .. I can delete them manually .. I think a blogger should check his comments all the time and it won't take hours to delete some spam comments .. I just want to know if it has an impact on my ranking or something ..
zed recently posted..Learn Slang expressions – in a bind
Sure, why not? Give it a try and see how you like it. I don't think it's going to hurt your blog.
Hi Nick,
I've been doing some tests recently with a beat maker website of mine and I think it helps to have a variety of links, especially with the new panda update. Google looks for do follow and no follow links because it looks more "natural" than a site with only do follow…
Thanks for the great content on your site
Andrew
I don't like nofollow – so I removed it from my blog. I would love if anyone put a great link on my blog.
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Thanks, Nick, true to you name – traffic tricks! Luckily trick trafficking isn't illegal
…
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Thanks for the info. I'm so glad to finally understand the pros and cons of nofollo/dofollow.
Sally Apokedak recently posted..Backlinks
Great article. We're new to SEO and the list you posted will definitely be helpful.
Take care!
thanks for the links! Sweet ‘firefox tool too – great info.
Brilliant – gotta love plugins. Finding the Do Follow blogs manaually is a major pain. Cheers….again!!
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Nick,
I downloaded the recommended plugin for firefox. I am just starting the process of link building. Thanks for letting me put one here.
Hi Nick,
Great post! I’ve been relying on Mozilla’s add-on as well to detect which blogs are do follow or now follow.
By the way, I noticed that in the last few comments, the link to the author’s name is DO FOLLOW and the link picked up by Comment LUV is NO-FOLLOW. Can you teach me how to do this?
I understand that tweaking this is easy on Word Press. The thing is, I merely imported the IntenseDebate comment form on Blogger, so all links are by default do-follow.
Thanks very much.
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Checkout:
http://www.semiologic.com/software/dofollow/
Great articles, Nick! The mozilla addon helps alot. I am starting my new website
[link removed]
I going to camp here to read more great articles! Keep it up!
Thanks for sharing this post…I have been not commenting on post with no follow, but after reading your post it makes sense that it might not be good for search engines but you can get a lots of traffic when people click on it. If you like the post comment it as it increases your commenting power and helps to build a practice of commenting…
Keep coming and let the doubts get cleared…Thanks once again
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thanks again Nick (dont know how many more time i have to say this), your tips are very useful for such newbies like me. Aslo, i would recommend 2 other addons for those who are using Chrome to find out if a blog using nofollow or not, they are: Seoquake and Seo Site Tools. These tools will highlight the nofollow links, so it’s easy to recognize.
I think search status is one of the best tool to check blog is do follow or no follow.This is an excellent add ons of FF.Whenever we find any no follow links it highlight them in red color.
Anyways,I found your blog very helpful and I hope webmasters ll like it.
Thanks a lot!
What proportion of links would you target to be nofollow?
In your experience what results would be different from commenting on nofollow blogs versus commenting on dofollow?
Isn’t it just the ‘link juice’ that gets passed on or not, which would contribute to your Pagerank only? You’d still get traffic in either case wouldn’t you?
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I have no empirical data; I only have gut feelings. I’d say you need a mixture of both.
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