As usual, excellent and very helpful post, Anna.Regarding …

Comment posted on DoFollow Express: Is Traffic Generation Cafe Getting Off? by SYOBO_Works

As usual, excellent and very helpful post, Anna.

Regarding your questions, I’d say…

* Do you think blog commenting is a tid-for-tad kind of arrangement?

No. I know only too well how much work it may take to produce a valuable comment and the risk that we take as writers in having it rejected. But a blog is private property and the owner is always in the rightful position to discriminate. Having said that, I hasten to add that discrimination must be wise.

Some comments serve the needs of both the host and the author better than others. Those are the ones worth not only publishing but rewarding with some of your hard-earned link juice. Others are worth only whatever traffic they may attract through no follow.

Until there is a method to expedite the processing of one vs. the other, what makes sense is to opt for a common denominator of reward, which is the no follow option for both cases.

I think you’re being extremely gracious to share your juice with everybody, regardless of comment quality. I don’t believe in entitlements, except if there is a preexisting agreement between the parties. And that’s not the case with most blogs that offer open commenting.

* Do you expect a quality link when you comment on other blogs, and specifically on my blog?

If by quality link you mean whether I expect you to permit me to anchor-text from my comment to my site’s page, then yes, provided you’ve evaluated the comment as valuable to your readership. But there’s more to consider in this matter than just posting for the sake of getting some of your juice, just because you’re such a high PR scoring site.

We need to consider the content that is already on your page where I’m leaving my link.

If my site deals with starting your own business, as it surely does, but I’m leaving a comment with said anchor text at a page of yours that has nothing to do with this topic of entrepreneurship — in fact my keywords don’t even show up once on your page -, then who is to say that search engine algorithms will actually consider this link as fitting at your site as I’d hope it to be, since your content and mine are so far apart?

But if I had a site that complemented yours on the topic of traffic generation, then the search engine may consider that a far more worthy criterion for assigning to me more of that link juice for which your site is so well known.

Bottom line: I expect the best quality links only from sites that have to do closely with what my site deals with, and only if my host finds my anchor text non-intrusive and not too self-serving.

* Would you still comment if my blog was completely NoFollow?

Yes, I would, because you have enough traffic volume to enable someone reading my comment to visit mine site as a result, even if I’m not getting any juice from you.

* Why do you comment on my blog to begin with?

I comment on your blog for 2 reasons:

1) You’ve earned my comment
2) I’d feel honored if you’d publish my comment

Both reasons have to do with my admiration for your exceptional skill and perception, so that I’m willing to invest effort in you. You don’t waste my reading time and I gain lots of value from visiting your site.

SYOBO_Works also commented

• Thank you for asking for my name, Anna. It’s Arturo.

  >…it occurred to me that I can certainly make a rule to DoFollow comments after the commentator left say 5 comments on my blog. Of course, this way I encourage more consistent comments (hopefully), but it still doesn’t solve the issue of quality.

  One way to address the issue of quality is to do more consistently as you did in this article. You listed 4 questions for us to answer as the standard for a qualified response. Although you certainly can provide a wide margin within which commentators can bask in their own opinions, you could likewise narrow it down to your given standard.

  Example: “I’d like my readers to benefit from your *specific* views about DoFollow/NoFollow. So please answer these 4 questions and leave 1 summary opinion. I’ll be sure to approve the best answers, and those who contribute will benefit from lots of link juice from me!”

  Basically you set the bar for quality by openly defining in advance what quality is for you and your audience at your site.

  This is how you can level set expectations from the very get-go to generate a little (or a lot!) of competition for your approval and, in short, you end up producing more demand for your scarce link juice asset.

  Then you can adjust the bar depending on how much feedback you receive one way or the other. If you get a lot of competing comments for your approval, you know that you’ve hit a nerve. If people don’t comment or leave mostly insipid remarks, you know you’ve bombed. Fine tune as needed then.

Recent comments by SYOBO_Works

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