I installed the DoFollow WordPress plugin a little over 3 weeks ago so I thought now would be a good time to have a look at what difference it’s made. Now I’ve not used any kind of scientific experiment or some kind of whizzy program here - a pen and some paper did the job for me - so it might not be 100% but the answer appears to be yes.
On average, before installing the DoFollow plugin, each post was getting 2.52 comments. Since installing the plugin that figure has increased to 3.15 comments. That’s a 25% increase. Now imagine how that could affect your blog. A 25% increase in comments? That would be good, wouldn’t it?
Some interesting stuff came up in compiling the data. Of all of the comments left since going DoFollow, 42% of them have been on older posts (i.e. pre-dating the launch of DoFollow). This suggests to me that people have looked at pages with a higher PR and left a comment to get the Google juice. Clever stuff, people 
Here are the top ten most commented posts (excluding personal pingbacks)
- Creating the ultimate WordPress robots.txt file (19)
- Internet Explorer 7 (15)
- The Rich Jerk - Fact or Fiction? (15)
- Pixelotto (14)
- Death of Digg? (13)
- Is it always possible to make SEO sexy? (12)
- New Look (9)
- Useful Links #6 (9)
- Easyspace (8)
- Google loooove Google long time (8)
- June Is Busting Out All Over (8)
- Use your Alexa Rank to Make Money (8)
Now one of the biggest fears that people have before installing the plugin is that the spam count might increase. Well, apart from a couple of comments, I’ve not noticed any difference. It’s encouraged lurkers to come out of the background and leave comments which can only be a good thing, right?
Another interesting side effect is that I joined the No Nofollow | I Follow | DoFollow community on Bumpzee and have seen some of it’s members leaving comments here. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? These folks have seen the benefit of using DoFollow and go to like minded bloggers and leave comments.
So all in all, it was a change worth making so what’s stopping you?
Tech Tags: NoFollow, DoFollow, WordPress, Links, Blogging
22 responses so far ↓
David Airey :: Creative Design :: // Jun 29, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I think it has had a similar effect on my blog. Most of my readers (well, the ones who aren’t lurking) have removed “nofollow” themselves so it’s the least I could do in return.
Mike // Jun 29, 2007 at 1:36 pm
We need some of the big hitters in the blogging world to embrace DoFollow. Once they come on board and make some noise, hopefully the folks at WordPress, Moveable Type and Blogger will listen and remove the darned NoFollow tag from their software!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a DoFollowed comment
Terinea Weblog // Jul 3, 2007 at 6:49 am
You may then see businesses alot more interested in blogging all of sudden, to improve their google rankings?
Jamie
Mike // Jul 3, 2007 at 11:26 am
Possibly but if it leads to the death of NoFollow then that’s got to be a good thing, right?
Hobo Search Marketing // Jul 11, 2007 at 10:38 pm
We’ve noticed the same - generally an increase in visitor participation, and not much of an increase in spam, when the Dofollow plugin is installed.
In general, a good thing, but we’re continually monitoring this.
Mike // Jul 11, 2007 at 11:36 pm
It’s definitely worth monitoring. Particularly in light of the recent coverage the comment spam service has recently received.
Personally I won’t be switching it off unless it really does start to eat into my time or affects the site.
Thanks for stopping by.
Bape // Sep 28, 2007 at 1:54 am
Its ironic that many bloggers talk about this but then they actually use no follow.
Mike // Oct 1, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I haven’t seen too many cases of that, Bape. Care to elaborate?
OceanFinance // Oct 15, 2007 at 2:05 pm
“We need some of the big hitters in the blogging world to embrace DoFollow. Once they come on board and make some noise, hopefully the folks at WordPress, Moveable Type and Blogger will listen and remove the darned NoFollow tag from their software!”
Mike i definetly agree with that.
Mike // Oct 16, 2007 at 10:52 am
URL removed from your comment. Please read the comment policy regarding acceptable user names.
Thanks.
Dan O'Neil // Jan 8, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Well I implemented Lucia’s LinkyLove plugin and you can specify a number of comments before the dofollow kicks in - a nice trade off between the two I think. As for spam - well, you get it anyway… akismet has so far caught all the spam I’ve had.
Mike // Jan 9, 2008 at 1:15 am
Yeah I’ve looked at LinkyLove in the past. It’s working out well for you?
89 // Feb 14, 2008 at 10:59 am
It’s very rare that those bloggers commentors have anything decent worth reading anyway. I can just imagine if I had that on my website, especially what with being a despair member.
Kushagra // Mar 22, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Thanks for info dude but it also increases a lot of spam comments
Mike // Mar 23, 2008 at 10:58 am
Yup. That it does which is why I’ll probably install LinkyLove over the next couple of days
Simon Barker // Jun 2, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I used to use dofollow on my site, until Google started penalising the paid text links last autumn - I thought at the time, that dofollow comments may be the next target - thankfully that hasn’t happened.
I’m now re-considering enabling dofollow - thanks for the stats you’ve collected, interesting to see the increased comments you’ve received - I’m looking to increase the comments and community aspect to my site too.
Mike // Jun 3, 2008 at 10:10 am
I may well look back over the stats again at some point. This post is nearly a year old now and I’ve seen a marked increase in the number of spam style comments being left in an attempt to get some link juice.
UKJim // Aug 27, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I use Akismet to combat the bulk of spam.
http://akismet.com/
I also like the Wordpress Tweaks plugin to set the Nofollow and Dofollow on comments, posts, archives, etc.
http://wordpress.jdwebdev.com/plugins/tweaks/
But LinkLove looks interesting too (I might switch to that, not sure whether Tweaks and LinkyLove can live together!?)….
http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/lucias-linky-love-a-dofollow-plugin-to-foil-human-comment-spammers/
Mike // Aug 28, 2008 at 8:45 am
I’ve not really got on with Akismet, to be honest. My personal weapon of choice is Spam Karma although now that the author is no longer updating it, I may need to reconsider. I just find SK is much easier to work with than Akismet…
Alex Top // Oct 5, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I belife in “dofollow model”. People stop been selfish!
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