With the recent PageRank update, many bloggers panicked and started taking some radical measures like making their blogs nofollow and plugging any possible “PageRank leaks” - meaning getting rid of many links OUT to other blogs/resources.
As you may or may not have noticed, everything stayed pretty much the same here, at Traffic Generation Cafe - I am still and planning to remain a DOFOLLOW blog.
“But Ana! Your PageRank is still a big fat ZERO - don’t you need to do something about it?”
Well, I already am and have been, so allow me to let you in on a secret that is not secret at all; just a source of all kinds of questions and, yes, complaints.
One of those complaints caused quite a havoc and a great deal of intelligent opinions from you; read all about it in this post:
In that post, I also mentioned that I use a plugin called SEO Super Comments on my blog.
However, the questions keep pouring it, so I decided to put them all to rest and write this hopefully conclusive post on the subject.
What Are SEO Super Comments?
This plugin was designed by Vladimir Prelovac of Prelovac.com and here’s why (excerpt is taken from his post about SEO Super Comments - I highly recommend you read the entire post - lots of good points there):
For each user comment we will create a new dynamic page on the blog, holding the actual comment information. This page will not actually exist in WordPress database, but we will create it dynamically using a WordPress plugin.
What we instantly get in this way is big jump in site’s index visible to search engines. This is possible because blog comments are crawl-able, index-able and most importantly rank-able content. Also meaning you will start to get search engine traffic for the context of the comment.
The old author link in the comments will now lead to the newly generated page. Author’s URL will still be displayed (and we can dofollow it now as it will be only one external link on the page).
The concept relies around optimizing the target page using title and H1 tag using the context of the comment. So basically we will take the excerpt of the comment and use it to create the page title and H1 tag and in the body we will old the content of the comment (plus some more goodies, read on).
Since now all comments normally drain page rank even when nofollowed (bad for your site) the whole idea of using them to generate links back to your site instead and get free indexable content along the way, looks just much more appealing.
As you noticed, I underlined the most important parts.
How This Plugin Helps Me to Remain a DoFollow Blog
I think between Vladimir’s post and the “DoFollow Express: Is Traffic Generation Cafe Getting Off?” post I mention above, that should be pretty clear.
You, my loyal reader and commentator, will still get a DoFollow link from my site for each keyword/URL you choose to use; it just won’t be a gazillion of them, but one high quality link.
DoFollow Benefits for You
“Ana, this all sounds like a bunch of sugar-coated stuff. How do we, the commentators, really benefit from this? Aren’t you just pulling the plug on any link building from your blog?”
Would I do that to you? Of course not.
So instead of getting a bunch of more or less useless, though DoFollow blog links from comments, you will get a couple of quality ones.
Let me elaborate.
Take a page on an authority blog like TGC (I am sure you do know by now that PageRank and “AuthorityRank” or whatever you want to call it, are 2 different things, and Traffic Generation Cafe definitely has the latter one and most likely has the former one in Google books, but not in the green toolbar).
On average, I will link out to a couple of outside resources per post. Then I have some outgoing links on every page of my blog, like affiliate links, etc.
On top of that, take comments. On average I will get say 50 comments per post.
If you do the math, I get quite a few outgoing links for every post I write (and most blogs are no different; actually, worse - they don’t know how to “plug” all the right holes on their blogs).
Each link leaks some of the authority from the page. So actually, the more comments I get, the less valuable your link becomes.
Follow me so far?
Now, let’s take a look at what SEO Super Comments does for you and me.
It plugs those leaks.
It creates a new page for every commentator and aggregates your comments on that page. Then you get a DoFollow link from there back to your blog.
It gets even better.
Now your link is not just another link from comments. It becomes a DoFollow in-content blog link, which is far more valuable than a comment link.
(I know I am talking a lot about link value here and some of you might not have the slightest ideas what that means. It’s a post of its own, but for now check out Donace’s post on the subject of How to Find the Best Links).
Note to Donace: Don, buddy, I am giving you so many links in this post, you’d better start thinking of how you are going to make it up to me 
.
How to Make Your DoFollow Links Even Zestier
A couple of weeks ago I revealed a cool little secret that not too many are using - and I bet you are still not using it either, even after reading about it.
Here’s the link to that post:
In that post, I showed you how to build up authority for different social media profiles, Squidoo pages, etc and turn them into high quality links going back to your blog.
Well, there’s one more thing I didn’t tell you in that post… You know me though: with my big mouth, nothing is left behind.
Imagine you start building links to pages like your guest posts, or posts where someone mentioned you and gave you a link, or…. your SEO Super Comments pages you get on my blog.
Think about it for a second. Yes, you are helping THEM (and sometimes, THEY are your competitors) to build links to their posts, but you know who in the end benefits from it?
YOU.
YOU build up their page authority and possibly PageRank and in turn get a high-quality link back to your blog, instead of just another PR0 or N/A link.
Get my point?
So start building links to your SEO Super Comment Pages and build that authority you need to create a high-quality link back to your blog. Plus, that page might rank for your name and take one of the 10 spots on the first page of Google for your name/brand - the more, the merrier, right?
This is a good time for you to check out this post on the subject of taking over Google and building trust with your customers/prospects in one quick swoop:
DoFollow SEO Super Comments Problem
No, it’s not all roses around here.
When I first started using the plugin, it was brought to my attention by Kim and Donace that the plugin had a huge flaw - it wasn’t actually indexing the created pages like it was supposed to.
It took me a while to find the answer to this one, but it was do or die.
The pluging provides a perfect DoFollow blog comment solution, in my opinion of course, but it’s no good to me if the pages are not being indexed - it just means that none of you, my commentators, get ANY links back from my blog.
Turned out the problem was not with the plugin, rather with WordPress.
Fair warning: this might get too technical for some of you, so you can easily skip this explanation. I do know that Kim and Donace would appreciate this as well as many other more technically-inclined readers.
The solution was found back at Vladimir Prelovac’s blog in this post.
Here’s a quick excerpt:
Since WordPress 2.9 (I believe) rel canonical meta tag was introduced and added automatically for all dynamic pages.
So if you have any non-standard WordPress pages (created through a plugin or in other dynamic means) it may be possible that it they also contain rel canonical tag added by WordPress, which would prevent the particular pages from being indexed.
So, the solution: there are two things you need to do.
1. If you are using Thesis theme like I do, make sure your canonical URLs box is unchecked (found under Thesis Site Options).
2. Add the following code to your theme functions.php:
remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘rel_canonical’);
KeywordLuv & SEO Super Comments
I wrote a post about How KeywordLuv Can Get You on the First Page of Google the other day and Alex Whalley noticed something in his comment that warrants a response in this post.
To sum up, his point was why use KeywordLuv on my blog if I redirect those links to an internal page anyway and the links coming from those internal pages do not use KeywordLuv.
Like this:
So you see, Dennis here doesn’t get any KeywordLuv love - both his name and his keyword becomes a link.
So I’ve got 2 options:
1. Keep things the way the are - at least my comment section doesn’t look spammy and discourages spammers to comment with just their keywords and no names because they think they can.
2. Remove the plugin and simply delete the comments that try to take advantage of my DoFollow blog link policy and plaster their keywords all over the comments.
What to do?
DoFollow Marketing Takeaway
At first this was meant to be a quick post explaining how I fixed my SEO Super Comments issue, and I now ended up spending a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon writing a DoFollow post of epic proportions.
But I do hope this article will help anyone who suffered from the recent PageRank downgrade and / or is thinking whether DoFollow is worth it.
As far as I am concerned, yes, most definitely.
However, your blog - your rules.
And now I am off for a walk with my family…
Oh, by the way, I would really appreciate you mentioning this post in your future blog posts - giving me some link love (with the word “DoFollow” included in anchor text ) along the way and yes, helping other lost bloggers out there learn more about the issue.
Ask and you shall receive - so I am asking.
Image credit: http://www.techchee.com/
Warmly,
PS Just wanted to mention this for no good reason other that the fact that I have one of the best Dofollow blog Finder Tool - right here, at TGC!
I am a wife to a great husband of 13 years (here ya go, now I have to make changes to this sentence once a year), a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
I think that having dofollow for the comments it will be more benefice for every one. Also to not be penalized by google I think that a closer moderation is needed. What also I like to do is to have a top dofollow commenter widget to reword my top commentators.
Bit Doze@ SEO Tips´s last blog ..How to Find the Best Keywords for Your Amazon Niche Store – Part 1
Hey Ana,
Thank you so much for shedding some light on this subject. Great to see you have removed Keyword Luv as it’s not really applicable here.
I have just linked to this post today
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis Nong @ Attraction Marketing´s last blog ..Affiliate Marketing – How Can You Make Money and Build a Thriving Business
If you are using Yoast WordPress SEO then there is no way to remove canonical URL
I am using this plugin and I can’t leave it
Nasif@technology blog Bangladesh´s last blog ..5 Great Free Music Streaming Sites
And my non-standard WordPress pages are indexed by Google so I think removing rel canonical rel tag is not necessary
Nasif@technology blog Bangladesh´s last blog ..5 Great Free Music Streaming Sites
I am still and planning to remain a DOFOLLOW blog - Good on you! My Philosophy Blog is dofollow and I intend to keep it that way.
Then I read the rest of the post. If you are going to link to another internal page, before users get to visit the persons actually site, why bother? I dislike the idea of that plugin, but that is my opinion and you are most welcome to disagree
Christopher Roberts´s last blog ..Its all down to perception
Thanks, Christopher - I think I just might disagree.
When you run as busy of a blog as I do, then you might change your outlook on DoFollow altogether.
Ana´s last blog ..Blog Comment Traffic Research- Signed- Sealed- and Delivered
All these articles have given me a whole ‘nother idea. Good for all parties yet possibly little more work for readers…I’ll implement soon.
Dennis Edell@ Direct SalesMark´s last blog ..Installing a New Blog Theme Don’t Forget to Re-Install ALL JavaScript Code!
Hi Ana. Been following on the SEO Super Comments pugin and although I can see the benefits of it, I have one question to ask, if I may. Say for some reason I decide to uninstall the plugin, what do you think will happen with all those indexed pages? Will uninstalling it hurt my website in the long run? Thanks
DiTesco´s last blog ..Making Money Online Selling Exclusive Content- MediaPass
Not only our blogs, but what happens to everyone’s comments?
Dennis Edell@ Direct SalesMark´s last blog ..Installing a New Blog Theme Don’t Forget to Re-Install ALL JavaScript Code!
The comments will not be affected in any way; the links will just reconnect to the name/keyword.
In theory, the indexed comment pages will disappear of course, which will basically make your site smaller. You will lose any rankings for those pages, if you had any.
But it won’t affect your site in any major way - my best educated guess.
Ana´s last blog ..Ana Hoffman vs Nick Cardot Twitter Faceoff- Quality Trumps Quantity
Yeah, it’s one of the valuable info about follow links or no follow links. It helps me a lot, thanks a lot for sharing your ideas on here, Ana.
Kavya Hari´s last blog ..IPage
Hi Ana, I am DoFollow for life! lol, I am working on a list of DoFollow blogs on FB page, I am going to add you : )
Looks like your page is brand new, Karla - all the best with it!
Ana - It seems likely that you came through Thursday’s Google “Farmer Update” changes to their algorithm with flying colors because you have really good link diversity. Some of the links to TGC may have been devalued, but you have developed so many links to your site from so many diverse sources that no single change to the Google algorithm is likely to impact TGC too significantly.
Randy@InternetMarketingRemarks´s last blog ..An Unexpected Result From the Google Farmer Update
I’ve been too busy writing posts for this blog - never ending job, so I missed the update.
Off to your blog to educate myself.
Thanks, Randy!
You’re too busy indeed, Ana. I don’t see you around anymore
Mavis Nong @ Attraction Marketing´s last blog ..Affiliate Marketing – How Can You Make Money and Build a Thriving Business
Very informative post but removing rel=”canonical” tag from your post will make severe internal duplicate content issues and your ranking may drop. please don’t remove rel=”canonical” tag.
Hi, Nick - I am just going to copy and paste a part of my guest post on duplicate content issues, which goes to the heart of your statement:
“Here’s a quote by Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst from Google:
A lot of people think that if they have duplicate content that they’ll be penalized. In most cases, Google does not penalize sites for accidental duplication. Many, many, many sites have duplicate content.
Google may penalize sites for deliberate or manipulative duplication. For example: auto generated content, link networks or similar tactics designed to be manipulative.”
Susan further explained when webmasters should not worry about duplicate content:
• Common, minimal duplication.
• When you think the benefit outweighs potential ranking concerns. Consider your cost of fixing the duplicate content situation vs. the benefit you would receive.
• Remember: duplication is common and search engines can handle it.
How exactly does Google handle it?
While pulling up the search results, Google will basically collapse the duplicates leaving only the most relevant, in their opinion of course, page in the SERPs for that specific query. As I explained before, the way Google determines the most relevant result is based upon a myriad of factors and the only thing you can do for your part is to always link back to your original post.”
Great post and a very interesting plugin.
I tend to agree with Alex, mostly because it’s misleading. If you use KeywordLuv, people have an expectation about what that means. Since it’s been modified and does NOT do what it’s written to do, I think it would be better if its not there.
Alison Moore Smith@Lifestyle Design´s last blog ..Help to Sleep
Thanks for your feedback, Alison.
Ana´s last blog ..Appetite For Traffic The Secret Is in the Source
Hi Ana,
Wow, what an interesting post. Technically speaking this stuff is way over my head but once I do start to understand it then I can also share these tips with my readers as well.
Thank you so much for this post Ana and for once again, teaching me something new. I know this will benefit me from this day forward and I’ll be more than happy to spread the word about your post as well. You definitely deserve all the credit.
Best to you,
Adrienne
Adrienne´s last blog ..How to Create Your Unique URL for Your Facebook Fan Page
You are very welcome, Adrienne; thanks for coming by!
Ana´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Tip- How to Search Google Incognito
Awesome stuff, Ana!
Is any of your followers able to help me move to Wordpress without loosing link structure and page rank?
I’d like to be able to have this freedom with design and plugins as you do here. Also I wanna experiment with dofollow comments.
Thanks!
Constantin @ Mountain Bike Shirts´s last blog ..Funny Running T-shirt - Rastaman Running - Free Vector Design
Lisa at TheFriendlyBlogger.com just did it - she’s not a techie, but a bright one; she might be able to give you some pointers, Constantin.
Ana´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Tip- How to Search Google Incognito
Thanks for the reply, Ana! I’ll get in touch with Lisa.
Constantin @ Mountain Bike Shirts´s last blog ..I Never Win AnythingUntil Today!
Very cool post (thanks for all the links :p I am proud of those 2 posts !). I dod figure out it was down to the canonical links and did try a function.php fix. Ended up crashing my site :S
So I filed it away for my theme update, was hoping you found a different fix :p
In regards to the plugin I do think its a great one; It has one small flaw though imo, the dynamic pages, as they show X number of comments not all of them and the ‘url’ changes for each comment.
In my ‘perfect’ scenario CommenterA gets his/her own page, unique to him or her created based on their email add (which needs verification manual or automated via email link first time round) and keyword combination, to create a unique url such as ‘site.tld/John|Keyword’. Then every new comment by them is added to the top of the respective page akin to SSC.
That way we get super targeted page (that interlinks with ‘Johns’ other comments) that minus actual url structure is fairly powerful SEO wise and therefore (as shown by the link in your post to mine) is a VERY powerful base for a link.
The downside of this approach is the number of pages created for commenter would be huge. A remedy would be have no link for a ‘flyby’ commenter and for a regular (10+comments etc) THEN they get a page made for them. This should reduce the number of pages by a percentage.
The other downside is that these pages are fairly ‘thin’ content wise (akin to content farm?); and while the pages are a ‘seo’ benefit for the commenter the traffic they bring to their ‘created’ pages would untargeted almost as the comments made by the commenter on different posts will be of different topics.
To combat this; the page could be ‘padded’ by having Gravtar image on this page (akin to forum profile page) and other ‘metrics’ like total comments made or some JS trickery that expands to the full conversation around that comment. (JS so not to ‘dilute’ the power of the page).
As you can see i’ve given it some thought and have been planning to perhaps get it commissioned, though my SEO knowledge is not whole and the technical expertise needed to do this is no where near up to scratch.
Please chime in if you see holes in my SEO theory or otherwise
Don@Internet Marketing Tools´s last blog ..Plug your link leaks!
“some thought?”
I see smoke coming out of your head, Don, and mine as well just thinking about it.
Sounds complicated, but hey, in our day and age…
I think Prelovac could’ve done a better job at it had he made it a paid plugin. I think I would pay for it, considering the benefits. Alas….
Ana´s last blog ..List Building- When I Want Your Opinion- I’ll Ask for It… Asking Now
haha no smoke; I get random tangent thoughts like these a lot …my undoing and my greatest asset!
My late 2 / 3rd quarter goal is get a plugin made to sell, this maybe the one.
Don@Internet Marketing Tools´s last blog ..Plug your link leaks!
Today has been a do follow, no follow, back link and PR day for my blog reading and commenting. I read Alex’s guest post here, and then I read his blog and read why he lost PR and commented on both the articles - his guest post here and his own blog.
I likened PR to Base Metabolic Rate when I commented on his blog and opined that finally PR may make sense after all.
Now after reading your article on SEO Super comment plugin and more do follow links etc, I decided to do some research on my own and my findings have left me amazed and more CONFUSED. Let me elaborate:
1. You blog has 4085 back links - as per the back link checker I used and yet it is PR 0. Alex’s site has 4385 back links as per the same checker and till just a month back it had PR 2 as per him. So 4085 back links = PR 0 and just another 300 back links = PR 2?
2. I have some other sites as well - my business and a few other blogs. The business site has only 54 back links and has PR 1 and one of the blogs has 84 Back Links and is PR 2!! I am not complaining but find it amazing. What is even more amazing is the fact that majority of the back links are from my own sites!! So maybe the niche or the site type is also a big factor - what I mean is that maybe with very few back links also a site could have higher PR if there are not too many sites in that category?
3. I did a google search on the keyword “traffic generation” and found TGC on 8th spot. It has a PR 0. On the 9th spot is sourceforge.net/projects/traffic/. And its PR is 4!! So does it also mean that you could have lower PR and yet show higher is SERP? In that case what is the fight about PR.? Back Links? etc.
4. There are innumerable sites with very high PRs but abysmal alexa ranks - that is low traffic.
I am in India and it is midnight. I think I am going to sleep over my dilemma about these issues and decide tomorrow what is more important for me - higher PR or traffic. I suspect I know the answer, but as I said, let me sleep over it!
Sanjeev Sharma@Random Raves & Rants of Sanjeev´s last blog ..India Vs China – What Price Democracy
Here are some pointers, Sanjeev:
1. It’s not about backlinks. Alex’s blog is older than mine; that’s why he has RP and I don’t.
2. You are absolutely right about what kind of niche you are in. The more competitive the niche, the more you have to work to rank. Of course, you understand that just quantity of links is not what determines your ranking.
3. PR has been downgraded significantly as a ranking factor. That’s why you’ll see PR2 ranking higher than PR4.
4. High PR won’t bring you sales - traffic will! Focus on that and forget all about PR.
Good night!
Ana´s last blog ..How Two Days Without Internet Made Me Stumble Upon a Great Idea
Thx so much, Ana. You have a way of making disparate parts make sense. I appreciate the way you present the problem, give a solution and then explain the why of the solution. Enjoy your walk. Aloha. Janet
Janet Callaway´s last blog ..How to Fish Your Way to More Contacts & Clients by Janet Callaway The Natural Networker
Ana:
Well thought out solution, as usual. I may have to look into this. No, I think I will do it.
Been a rough few days trying to figure out the best route to take with my blog!
Lisa
Lisa@start a blog´s last blog ..Top 5 Reasons I Will Unfollow You
I am still working on mine… route that is…
I need to work around the clock to get anything done around here!
Ana´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Tip- How to Search Google Incognito
For good PR of site links from blog commenting is might and main. By doing so you can raise the PR of your site from zero to four.
Ana,
Thank you, this totally makes sense. I can attest to getting noticed for my comments on your site even though the links went to an internal page.
When I first noticed that the links were not going directly to my blog I started to monitor what was happening. Every time I comment I get a Google alert regarding that comment the same day I commented.
Sheila Atwood@landing pages best practices´s last blog ..How About a Chocolate Donut A Danish- Maybe
In my theory, you are getting even more noticed that way, since readers can see even more of what you had to say and check out your blog.
The more comments you make, the more links will point to your “custom” page on my blog, the more authority it will have.
Ana´s last blog ..List Building- When I Want Your Opinion- I’ll Ask for It… Asking Now
I cannot say that I “do follow” all the technical reasons behind your solution, but the general idea sounds good. So, I’ll be sure to stick around, Ana!
Steve@how to go green´s last blog ..How To Cut Gasoline Consumption and Carbon Emissions
A shot of humor this morning was just what I needed, Steve.
Thanks for sticking around!
PS When you use comment love, please stick to only one keyword; it looks a bit spammy otherwise.
Ana´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Tip- How to Search Google Incognito
Well…the least I can say is ‘your strategy is awesome’. Giving away a big link is better than small links without effect. You’ve again proven it to me the reason why I should keep reading your blog. Your post are simply awesome!
Keep it rolling! I’m all ears.
Tim
Well, thank you, Tim.
I tried to find a solution to remaining Dofollow and I think this is it.
Ana