There have been reports that “do follow” is dead.. Tricia of Feverish Thoughts claims that she is sick of “human created comment spam”, Darren Rouse on his famous Problogger.net blog points out that there is a new despicable service available where you can pay people to place comments on blogs for you, Randa Clay says that some people are turning their “no follow” back on again (including Wendy at eMomsathome, who has indeed turned hers back on again) and Lorelle at wordpress also speaks out about human generated comment spam (and mentions that she is happy she has “no follow” tags on her blog.)

Personally I agree with Randa when she concudes that turning the no follow back on again will not dramatically reduce span anyway, and:

I just don’t think it’s enough of a problem to worry over for most bloggers. Moderate comments, zap the questionable ones and if a few get through… oh well.

What I think this furore has brought to light, for me at least, is the question of why we want comments and how comments benefit us.  Is a human spammed comment really that bad?

I’m going out on a limb here and I’m going to say that for the beginning blogger, it’s probably not all that bad as long as the comments aren’t total junk and the spam isn’t obvious.  (If it is obvious, then you just delete it of course!)

When you are just starting out in blogging, it’s exciting when someone comments on your blog, even if that someone is a paid commenter.  It’s a signal to the new blog owner that their blog is now “on the map”..  and a discreet spam comment will at least give your blog some inkling of credibility.  Nobody likes to break the ice on a new post or a new blog where nobody else has commented before. 

Indeed some of the blogging guru’s out there suggest that you break the ice yourself by setting up a dummy user and commenting on your own blog!

If comment spammers can do this for you.. all the better and less work for you to do.  All you need to do is to moderate the really obvious spam.   Of course in the long run, this won’t get you a thriving community (which is what many seek to achive with their blog) but as an interim marketing tactic, allowing (and some would say encouraging) comment spam in the early days may give your blog a boost towards becoming a community.

You can use these early comments to respond.. by responding to all the comments you receive you are showing that you are happy to interact with your readers.  Blogs where comments are not responded too have a difficult time getting off the ground in terms of building community.

As Randa also points out, the overhead of a few spammy comments isn’t worth the trade off for the extra comments we may receive from having “no follow” turned off, until perhaps we have a super-blog where we are having to moderate dozens of comments a day.   In that case, you would do as she has suggested and Link Love plugin should do the trick.  (It turns the “no follow” off for regular commenters.)

Here is another set…  enjoy!

I’ve put together a few free badges for you to use..  enjoy!

Today we have 7 great new blog listings:

Nimble Theory - Startups and technology.

Pony Tail Club - the blog of 14 year old Madison and her horse Moon.  I know my stepdaughter is going to love this, she’s horse crazy!

Medical Spa MD information on retail medical business for plastic surgeons, ermatologists and physicians practicing cosmetic and aesthetic medicine.   The stuff we love.. but won’t admit to. 

Simple Curiosity? - a collection of simple explanations about who Beowulf is and why Grendel is dead, why time slows down when you approach light speed, and why you think you are… or not.  Fascinating tid-bits every day.

mu-sik.com  get music news, music, videos, lyrics, music comments and opinions.

Spoilt Angel, Cosmetics, Fragrances, Skincare, Beauty Spoilt Angel has Cosmetics, Fragrances and Skincare reviews, comment and advice as well as beauty tips and secrets. Yummy!!

Rob Cubbon Rob Cubbon is a Freelance graphic desinger artworker in London.   Very interesting dude and his site is well worth a look for those of us with blogs, websites etc.

If you are thinking of using blog commenting to get your blog out there.. I’ve put together a handy check list to help you on your way..

(1) Firstly, you need to remove the “no follow” tags from your own blog.  If you are running a wordpress blog, check out Semiologics “do follow” plugin.  If you are running on another platform, you can get hints and tips from Andy Beard’s extremely useful page on removing “do follow” from blogger, typepad etc.  Turn on askimet spam filter if you haven’t already.

(2) Next, you need to advertise that you have removed the “no follow” from your blog.  Firstly, put up a “do follow” badge on your blog.  Randa Clay has made some that you can use.

(3) Make a post on your blog announcing to your readers that you have removed “no follow” from your comments.

(4) Get listed on the “do follow blogs directory“, and other blog directories.

(5 - optional) Join the Bumpzee community for “i follow” blogs.

(6) The next thing to do is to start comenting on other people’s blogs.  

You can find blogs in blog directories, on technorati, and by searching for them on google.  Only blogs that have no “no follow” tag will give you any boost with google, so you are better off trying to target these blogs from the start.

“Do follow” blogs can be found on some blogs blogrolls, such as Randa Clay’s, Ponn’s, the bumpzee community, or if you would prefer to target your own niche, check out the “do follow” blogs directory, that you should have already submitted your blog to.

(Secret Tip 1: Google loves to see organic growth in links.  So commenting on a few blogs a day, rather than doing a blitz and commenting on many blogs all in one go, will give you better linky love.  Sign up for the “do follow blogs directory” RSS feed or via email, and have a few blogs sent to you every day.  Make it a part of your daily routine to comment on the blogs you receive every day.)

(Secret Tip 2: If you are commenting on a blog that is in the same niche as yours, which post do you comment on?  There are often many posts that you could easily comment.  Well, it would seem that Google attaches more importance to pages that already have page rank, and the posts that have page rank are more likely going to be the older posts.  So you might decide to comment on the “pillar” or foundational articles/posts on that blog, for better search engine recognition of your comment.   These foundational posts will also pull more organic traffic of their own, so you may benefit from that as well.)

(Secret Tip 3:  If you have written your own foundational article/post, link through to this rather than your homepage, to get the news out there and to get better search engine rankings for that page specifically.)  

Do you have a blog commenting strategy?

One of the most well known methods of getting traffic to your blog and getting the search engines to rate your blog highly is to leave comments on other peoples blogs witha link back to your blog.

I’ve found this effective with some of my other blogs.. if only to get indexed by google really quickly.  The problem for me is that I have a hard time finding blogs that are on my topic.. searches on technorati work OK, but it still takes a while to check each site, as many of them don’t allow comments, which is frustrating.  I guess that is why in part I started this directory.. a place where you can find blogs that are related to your niche very quickly.. and ones that are open to having comments placed on their blogs.

The added benefit for blogs in this “do follow” directory is that they will give you some linky love.. with the “no follow” switched off.

My strategy now is to comment on a blog a day, using the blogs from this directory.  Sometimes I would have to check out 10 blogs on technorati before finding one that I could comment on, which was disheartening!  So I’m wasting a lot less time now.

So.. do you have a strategy for commenting on blogs?  How many blogs a day?  Where do you find the blogs?  Is commenting working for you? 

Just a quick welcome to 3 new blogs listed in out directory:

Ugly Mailbox - a great site with a huge selection of funny mailboxes.  Check it out if you want a laugh.

MMO Explorer - My parents are addicted to Runescape, so I’m going to send them this link!

Nutshell Journal - tips and advice for bloggers.  Probably what I need right now!