Is It Pointless To Leave Comments on a NoFollow Blog? NoFollow vs. DoFollow

Just as I intended to stamp "success" all over "Backlinks Week: Building a successful, link building strategy for your blog", suddenly it dawned on us that we might be portraying 'NoFollow' blogs in a bad light.

At Source Blogger, we want to be confident in the SEO advice that we pass on to you. Let's take a closer look at 'NoFollow" and "DoFollow,' shall we? 

'NoFollow vs. DoFollow'

Let's analyze this. 

• Can you say, for certain, that Google does not provide any link juice from 'NoFollow" blogs? 

• Does a ratio exist of 'DoFollow" and 'NoFollow' links that we have placed, in calculating our site authority with Google?  

Because of these lingering questions, should you abandon a link building strategy that does not include 'NoFollow' sites?

SEO: True or False? 

True or False?:  1) Webmasters abandon traffic-building strategies for the sake of link building.

True or False?:  2) Webmasters often ignore the value of 'NoFollow' sites, even if the other site has great relevance.

True or False?:  3) Webmasters are very egotistical and greedy. The idea of granting you an inbound link is too much to bear. They choose 'NoFollow.'

*(Answers Below)

The following are essential elements of your link building strategy as prescribed by Source Blogger:

1) Until you hear differently, maintain your primary focus on 'DoFollow' blogs as a holistic approach to link building.

2) When creating a personal directory of sites to comment and link build, include a portion of 'NoFollow' as well. (I'll explain below.)

3) Place comments with the keywords your site intends to rank well with on search engines.(Let me make a note to clarify this in another article.)

4) Do not feel pressured to comment  based on the availability of a new post. You want to feel comfortable that your comment has a strong correlation to the post's theme. You may have assured yourself a good link, but anticipate for your reputation and credibility to be impacted.

**Readers constantly analyze input from commentators they recognize on the same blogs and forums they frequent as well. 

How To Evaluate a Site

How can you determine whether a site is a good fit for your link building strategy?

1) Relevance - Is this blog in your niche/category? Are you targeting the same traffic demographic? Are both vying for the same keywords? If so, and a 'NoFollow" site, it is in your best interest to include this site.

2) Quality - Is the blog author effective in conveying the subject matter? Do you consider the blog author either very knowledgeable,or perhaps, somewhat of an expert in his field? Are there long strings of comments among many posts? (This displays the nature of the blog's readers and subscribers - as well as their tendency to repeat these activities on your blog.)

3) Subscribers - Probably the truest testament of a blog's success. Most blogs will display their  subscriber stats. Be suspicious of blogs who replace their subscriber stats for Twitter, Blog Catalog, or MyBlogLog widgets. The Google Friend Connect widget is O.K. though.

3) Google PageRank - The value of your link increased when placed on a site with higher PageRank. You did know that, didn't you? Uncertain of how to determine this? See Below: 

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Source Blogger!

4) Alexa Page Rank - Your comment(s) will naturally receive more attention on sites with higher traffic exposure. You should be using the Alexa Toolbar. Install the Toolbar here. The toolbar will display a site's traffic rank. Some sites may already have an Alexa widget displaying their Alexa Rank. Look for Source Blogger's Alexa widget on the sidebar and click it in order to view the type of traffic data that Alexa records.

Answers to True/False: 

1) True! 2) True! Unfortunately, it appears both our true. 3) Well...you decide!

For some of you, you are truly missing out on an exciting opportunity to attract an assortment of potentially high-quality readers to your blog due to your use of "spammy comments with awkwardly placed keywords." Blog commenting is so much more than link building.

Whether spoken or written, there is a natural flow to communication. Although Source Blogger is proud to be a 'DoFollow' blog, we are well aware when you are directing your comments to Source Blogger and it's readers, or not. So will other blogs.

Did you know that your comment can be removed a day or two after you have placed it? You were unaware. Why? Because in your fevered, hurried pace to link drop, you decided not to receive email updates on future comments. If you were alerted to an additional comment on a post you linked on, wouldn't it be to your advantage to confirm your comment/link still existed? Wouldn't it be to your benefit to see if the the following commentator replied to you?

 

**Many blog readers have a propensity to reply to comments left by readers than the blog author. 

With your goal being to convert quality visitors from other sites and blogs, a strategy such as this can only be successful with the careful inclusion of sites and blogs containing the 'NoFollow' attribute as well.  

This concludes "Backlinks Week" on Source Blogger although we are certain that there will be many more discussions on link building and leaving comments. An article on comment strategies is already in the works. If you don't want to miss that, or any new content on Source Blogger, you should consider subscribing to Source Blogger.

So what do YOU think about using dofollow blogs as a link building method? Do you do it and how well does it work for you?