When it comes to Do Follow Blogs vs No Do Follow Blogs it can be a tough decision for a new blogger to decide which of the two is better, but the real question is, “What’s better for you?”. I see a lot of bloggers that get hung up on the whole Do Follow and No Do Follow thing, and honestly probably spend a little too much time thinking about it at some stage of their blogging growth.
Yesterday I posted “No Do Follow No RSS Feed Subscription“, after that post went up I received a few emails from some of the new bloggers (newbie bloggers) that have landed here on my blog asking me to explain what Do Follow and No Do Follow were and which one is better. I hope that post did not come across in a way that made it look as if I had no use for No Do Follow blogs, that isn’t the case at all. Leaving 100′s of comments on No Do Follow blogs when I can be leaving 100′s of comments on Do Follow blogs is simply a better move for me and the steps I feel I need to take to continue the growth of Extreme John.com through 2010.
No Do Follow Blogs vs Do Follow Blogs
I really can’t tell any of you which direction is best for you to take your blog when it comes to being a Do Follow blogger vs a No Dofollow Blogger, what I can do is take a few minutes and show you a couple of examples based on what we do with our blogs. Hopefully you will see a few things that help you to make a choice about what type of blogger or blogging CEO you want to be, or what type of blog you want your business blog to be.
What is a Do Follow Blog?
A Do Follow blog or website passes it’s page rank and link juice on to the websites, blogs and blog commenters by removing the “no follow” attribute from those link types. Basically when that nasty filthy little Google search engine spider comes through a Do Follow blog it follows the Do Follow links, hence the sharing link juice and all that good stuff. The easiest way to make your blog Do Follow is by using a Do Follow WordPress plugin.
What is a No Do Follow Blog?
A No Do Follow blog or website will not pass any of the exciting stuff I just talked about above on to your site in the event they link to you (some cases not all) or you comment on that specific blog.
Reasons Extreme John.com is a Do Follow Blog
- If other bloggers and site owners take time to leave RELEVANT comments on my posts I like showing my appreciation by giving them a Do Follow backlink.
- Comments are the life blood of this blog, if I wrote to myself all of the time it would suck.
- Being Do Follow promotes commenting, see 10,000 Blog Comments.
- It builds a community
- It builds a network
Reasons Insane Limos.com is No Do Follow
- Not looking to be flooded with comments from other limousine companies looking to leach Google PR and backlinks.
- Less spam to contend with.
- Insane Limos has two phone lines for direct communication.
We are getting ready to make our MMA Punk blog a Do Follow blog, we recently added the Comment Luv WordPress plugin (which can also be seen in the comments here on EJ), this will offer two backlinks for every comment that a user leaves. Extreme Tan and Smoothies will continue to be a No Do Follow site and blog for many of the same reasons listed under Insane Limos, in addition to the fact that we have a tremendous amount of interaction on our Facebook Fan Page for each business.
I hope this answers some of the questions that new bloggers have when it comes to making the decision between being a Do Follow blog or a No Do Follow blog. If you found this somewhat useful take a second to follow me on twitter @extremejohn or subsribe to my rss feed, those are two very simple ways to stay informed with what I post here, and don’t forget to leave a comment 
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{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: myblog2day
I also just made my blog a dofollow one few weeks ago. I was really care about losing pagerank and link juice by following outgoing link, but no more after seeing most of the dofollow blog has a PR4, John you’re on of them.
I believe that Dofollow has more benefits than nofollow blog, you must give before you take. When it comes to spam, if you monitor it well, it won’t hurt your blog at all.
Regards,
Lee
Twitter: extremejohn
@Lee Ka Hoong@How To Make Money Online, I remember you making the change to Do Follow Lee, that’s great news.
I think Dofollow invites the wrong crowd of people (read spammers) to your blog. I find Keyword Luv to be better suited to reward commenting readers..
.-= Anand Srinivasan@KnewThis´s last blog ..KnewThis Blogger Contest – Earn All That We Earn =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Anand Srinivasan@KnewThis, Keyword Luv is it’s own little thing, and if you think Do Follow brings read spammers, take a look through my blog and check out all of the Keyword spammers thanks to using the Keyword Luv plugin.
Do Follow is much less of a problem for a blogger to manage “read spammers” than it is for managing the Keyword spam, the process is much easier with general spam.
Twitter: BlazingMinds
I opted for a DoFollow on my blog, but, I opted for a version where after a few comments the links are made Do Follow, this is just a way of slowing down the spam a bit and giving those that comment on my blog frequently a bit of well deserved Linky Love
.-= Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Are RSS Subscribers Still Relevant Today? =-.
Twitter: onesuite
@Karen @ BlazingMinds,
How do you do that? Is there a plug in for that?
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..OneSuite Toll-Free Fax Line Starting at 4.4¢ Per Page =-.
Twitter: BlazingMinds
@MichaelR, It’s called “NoFollow Free” so if you do a search in the WordPress plugins it should be the first one that comes up it’s currently at version 1.6.2
.-= Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Are RSS Subscribers Still Relevant Today? =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Karen @ BlazingMinds, I plan on grabbing that plugin here shortly. I noticed you were using it, told Mike from Daily Shot of Coffee about it and he grabbed it from your blog and has been using it for a couple of weeks. I’m next
Twitter: BlazingMinds
@Extreme John,
Shame I don’t get any commission on it 
.-= Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..WordPress Stops Pinging – How To Fix It! =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Karen @ BlazingMinds, don’t even get me started on that.
Twitter: techfreaks
I have faced the problem of spamming as My blog is also Do Follow.
Even though Do-Follow and No Follow doesn’t really affect our own blog because of the new page Rank sculpting algorithm by Google, No Do-Follow does help in keeping unwanted spam comments at bay.
.-= Rohit@SEO Tips´s last blog ..Tech-Freak Stuff gets Google PageRank 2 =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Rohit@SEO Tips, I guess the spam thing isn’t that big of a thing to me, I mean it’s annoying but it’s been annoying to me on the web for probably 10 years. So no biggie there ya know.
HI,
Thanks for this valuable post. After going through your post i also made my blog Do Follow. I was confused with Do Follow and No Do Follow for almost a month asking to different bloggers.
.-= Free Vector Graphics´s last blog ..Hostgator Coupon and Review =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Free Vector Graphics, I just stopped by your blog and added it to my reader. Thank you for stopping by and commenting and it’s great to see your blog is Do Follow.
Twitter: BlazingMinds
@Extreme John, I’ve also added it to my reader as well and I’m going to add it to my DoFollow blog search engine
.-= Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Rage Against The Machine Make It To Number One! =-.
Twitter: jsinkeywest
Some good points but as I was reading the post and Looking at all the links I will have to say you missed many good chances to link to other blogs.
Peace
I not only follow links in my comments but I look at all areas of my site to shoot back the JUICE
Sure we take a chance of waking up one day with a PR 0 but life is all about taking risks.
Anyway hope your getting ready to have a great Christmas
.-= John Sullivan´s last blog ..Is Alcoholics Anonymous a cult ? =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@John Sullivan, there’s no doubt I could have probably given out all kinds of link juice and link luv and everything else to go along with it, but the reality is that between my Sunday Smash, Weekly Link Dump’s, Blog Engage Recap and my Monthly Recap I give out plenty of juice to other bloggers.
This post had a few reasons behind it and giving out link juice wasn’t one of the things on the order form
Merry Christmas brother.
Twitter: onesuite
@Extreme John,
I can attest to that as our Onesuite blog and main domain Onesuite is getting PR boost from this site/blog. Big thanks to you John.
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..OneSuite Toll-Free Fax Line Starting at 4.4¢ Per Page =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@MichaelR, very happy to hear that Michael, thats great news!
Have a VERY Merry Christmas.
Twitter: onesuite
No brainer. Do Follow wins by a mile.
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..OneSuite Toll-Free Fax Line Starting at 4.4¢ Per Page =-.
Twitter: stilettosportsj
eehhh…. still don’t really understand it. Normally I learn a lot from ya, but not this time! Gotta say John, I’m a little disappointed. I’ve been confused about this for awhile (even after having Mike explain it like 10 times) and I was really excited because I thought you were going to really break it down for newbies.
But I came away going um…. huh?
“A Do Follow blog or website passes it’s page rank and link juice on to the websites, blogs and blog commenters by removing the “no follow” attribute from those link types. ”
If you are a newbie, you have no idea what any of that means. I know what PR is but link juice and “no follow” attribute? No clue.
It’s not often I have something negative to say about any of your posts but like I said, very disappointed in this one.
.-= Stiletto Sports Jen´s last blog ..NFL MNF “Is it Monday Yet?” Ads: Top Sports Commercials 2009 #6 =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Stiletto Sports Jen, I’m sorry to hear that you were disappointed Jenn, that old saying always seems to come in to play, “You can’t make all of the people happy all of the time.”
I can see where link juice and no follow attribute would be confusing, confusing to anyone honestly. The post itself was more about explaining the two very different ways of blogging when it comes to Do Follow and No Do Follow.
The bottom line with being Do Follow is that when readers leave a comment on a post they receive backlink credit thanks to the url that is placed in the commenter field. Backlinks = Good. Period.
If your blog is not a Do Follow blog and your goal is to interact and exchange with your readers and subscribers, it might be tough to get that interaction. All though I do think at times that natural interaction is far better than interaction based on how much link luv someone might get, regardless having a Do Follow blog rewards your contributors with a backlink.
Twitter: stilettosportsj
@Extreme John,
thanks!
much better
.-= Stiletto Sports Jen´s last blog ..“Where Will Amazing Happen this year?” NBA Playoff Ads-Top Sports Commercials 2009 #4 =-.
Twitter: ShotOfCoffee
@Stiletto Sports Jen, I’ve explained this dozens of times! However, I just thought of a good way to explain it. If I ever see my Christmas present, I’ll try again to explain it. Maybe.
.-= Mike from Daily Shot Of Coffee´s last blog ..Fresh Brews: Stabbed Man Orders Coffee And Retro Coffee Ads =-.
Twitter: stilettosportsj
@Mike from Daily Shot Of Coffee,
if i were you, i’d be demanding my bday present before getting all eager for the xmas one…..
.-= Stiletto Sports Jen´s last blog ..“Where Will Amazing Happen this year?” NBA Playoff Ads-Top Sports Commercials 2009 #4 =-.
Twitter: ShotOfCoffee
@Stiletto Sports Jen, Thank you for reminding me! Am I ever going to get my birthday present! And don’t you have work that you should be doing?
.-= Mike @DailyShotOfCoffee´s last blog ..Gservo Coffee =-.
Reuters used to be Dofollow, and I manage to get a few backlinks to my blogs.
Too bad they change the system now, and require registration to make comments.
.-= scheng1´s last blog ..Backlinks Backlinks Backlinks =-.
Hey! You stole this idea from me! I am unfollowing you on twitter :high:
.-= Keith´s last blog ..What Browser Are You Using? =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Keith, haha sounds about right.
Hi John,
I like your sensible approach to the subject. Some people are just irrational proponents of whatever side they’ve taken … ie they just can’t understand why EVERY blog isn’t “do follow”.
Personally, I think it’s a wash.
Bloggers who write the type of posts that inspire discussion, will get plenty of comments … whether the links are followed or not.
Bloggers who go “dofollow” primarily as a way to get more comments, will probably have that wish granted. Of course, even with more comments, whether they have more “conversation” will still rely a lot on their own writing.
And of course, as you pointed out, some people may even have sites where getting a lot of comments doesn’t matter and/or not encouraging the “wrong” kind of comments is probably more important that “rewarding” you readers.
lol, I just realized that I have a few online friends who would almost view that sentence above as “blogger blasphemy” … how could anyone Not Want more comments?
.-= Todd@Candle Monkey´s last blog ..Going Flameless with Scented Melts =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Todd@Candle Monkey, your exactly right. I certainly know that I have blogs that the last thing I want in the world is comments on them. It actually exists, and ultimately it needs to be based on whatever your own (or business) goals are.
Twitter: Ileane
Hi John,
I gotta say that my head is spinning right now. I’ve heard the phrases “do follow” and “no do follow” but never took the time to find out all of the details. I’m not sure where a wordpress.com blog like mine stands (since I can’t use the plugins) in terms of “link juice”. It probably doesn’t matter much, but when I find out the details, I write a post for the other “newbies”. I feel so green right now…
But hey, at least I know about CommentLuv (which I just learned 2 weeks ago with my newbie-blogger self). So I’m going to pick “best way to learn college physics” from my post list so I can look smart again.
Thanks for the post, it’s an eyeopener.
@Ileane
.-= ileane´s last blog ..Professor Walter Lewin – Best Way To Learn College Physics =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@ileane, it’s all about the process and following the proper steps, Comment Luv is just another step in a bigger direction and writing about your experiences will help others in the days, weeks and months to come.
Thanks again for the great tips. Will Do.
Super Safari Dave
I used to be somewhat skeptical of changing some of my blogs into do-follow; but they returned more than they gave, if you get what I mean.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Emerson Matson, I know exactly what your thinking.
Good post. I just decided to make my blog a Do Follow blog so that I can submit it to do follow blog directories and get people to do some extra commenting.
.-= Curtis N´s last blog ..How To Pick A Good Domain Name | The Best Place That Offers Domain Registration =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Curtis N, not a bad move at all. Make sure you install a Wordpress plugin to stop spam.
NEW BLOGGERS: You can learn a lot from John:
I am what John calls a prolific commenter or a big mouth. You want readers like me and the other Keith and John Sullivan and all ExtremeJohn’s other regular readers and commenters.
I do not comment or even read every blog I come across. Unless it’s a topic I am really, really passionate (pissed off is passionate,too) about, I only comment on dofollow blogs. If your blog is no-do-follow, I may (possibly) read your post, but chances are that you will not get my input with a comment.
My time is valuable to me and it consumes my time to comment. The worker is worthy of his hire, as I’ve heard it said. The cost of my fifty to one hundred (or more) word relevant comment is a link. A DOFOLLOW link: a nofollow link is a vote of no confidence in whatever site I may be promoting. And it IS as simple as that. Follow means trust, No follow means no trust.
Get a good spam filter and reward your legitimate commenters like Extreme John.com does. Who knows, your Alexa rating may be right behind John’s. You also need to work as hard as John does.
.-= Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Dec 20, Breaking Home Ties, Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Cover from 9/25/1954 =-.
Great article.
I have adopted an approach which I think is more of a medium ground. In trying to discourage spam and pointless self motivation in my comments, all URL are moderated and are nofollow. Then in my actual blog, all links are dofollow.
I think this is a fair and good approach. IF you leave a link in a comment, then it should be for the purpose of adding value to the post and not an effort to gain PR.
I do however see the value of a DoFollow comment section, but that can be abused. When once gets to a lot of comments it can become unmanageable to sift out the spammers and self promoters.
I think that the best place for a DoFollow link is actually in the article where you can show relevance and context. BUt that’s just me.
The other issue is that if you rely on third party comment system you might not have control of NoFollow tags.
I have written a similar post, in the hope that this is not construed as a self promotion I am going to leave a link to it if anyone is interested.
NoFollow or DoFollow, That is the question. @ http://www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/Blog/EntryId/392/NoFollow-or-DoFollow-That-is-the-question.aspx
.-= Robert Bravery´s last blog ..Use a blog contest to drive traffic and boost your blog. =-.
i thought nofollow all the links is that we want to maintain the ratio of inbound link to outbounds link of our page which is actually good for SEO.
even u do follow but your Page rank is quite high… wonderful
nice to be here….
.-= atics´s last blog ..SMS Forward – SMS Auto Reply – Bakrie Telecom launch =-.
@atics,
According to that Google Idiot (that’s his title) Cutts it doesn’t matter if you follow the link or not. You’re still gonna have the PR poof anyway.
His explaination was that if you have 10 links on your site the PR will be split up into 10 chunks passing thru the followed links and the nofollow PR will simply vanish rather than staying.
.-= Dwippy@DoFollow Blog List´s last blog ..No Title for this One =-.
Twitter: FamousBloggers
You have a good points and reasons to transform your blog to Do Follow, I am waiting to get some PR to declare Do Follow on my blog, I just don’t want to give something I really don’t have!
.-= Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s last blog ..Are you ready for Google PageRank Update of 2010? =-.
Hi John!
Thanks for clearing some of that up. I was a no follow blog for a while and recently changed to be a dofollow blog after someone suggested it and it seemed like a good idea. As a blogger I would like to help my readers and commentors and hopefully as a dofollow blog it helps. Though I am still a bit on the fence about it. But I like your comment at the beginning. I think at one point or another a blogger gets hung up on it a little too much.
When I did change to dofollow I didn’t notice anymore spam comments. I didn’t really notice anything.
Wll anyways I am a dofollow right now, but could change in the future.
Thanks for clearing it up though I appreciate it.
the article tell we must go more for the dofollow links. In serach of it if we find nofollow comment on that also.
I also change my blog at oniffo.com/blog from nofollow to dofollow it works for me. As people know the blog today is low page rank does not mean in future it will low page ranked.
That’s great you have a point john. i will set all my blogs from no follow to do follow. hope this could help.
.-= Dave Dauber´s last blog ..MLM Marketing Mindset–New Year’s Resolutions? =-.
Twitter: rajeshkanuri
after reading this post i seriously consider making my blog TechCats as a do follow blog.. Will check the pros and cons of do follow blog ..
.-= Rajesh Kanuri @ TechCats´s last blog ..What is The Best Platform For Blogging? Wordpress Vs Blogspot =-.
nice sharing because i’m new blogger.thank you
.-= Online Business Guide´s last blog ..Make Money With A Home Based Business in 2010 =-.
I hate spammers -so much so that I had to cut off comments completely on my site. But with encouragement I have opened them up again. All comments are monitored through 2 spam filters -so I catch many of them.
Sweet, so glad I found this as I was trying to explain to a friend last night what DF vs NDF meant…I just sent her this link and actually I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to include either this one or the other one you wrote in a blog post I have coming out next week. Since you’ve done such a great job writing it out – may as well give your post the glory instead of writing it from scratch myself.
.-= Michelle @ Your Virtual Assistant´s last blog ..The Quest for Perfection. Can it kill you? =-.
I don’t know why I’ve been confused on do follow and no do follow for so long but I have. Thanks for clearing things up for me.
.-= Ed O.@cheap fax machines´s last blog ..Do Follow Blog, Comment Luv Keyword Luv =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Ed O.@cheap fax machines, my pleasure, happy this post was able to help.
That’s a nice blog
thanks for your information your information might be very helpful for the SEO peoples. with your information anyone can get the good ranking thanks for your information.
Excellent post… now even i will make my blog dofollow
.-= Anunay´s last blog ..Know about Tax Deduction on House Rent Allowance (HRA) =-.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Anunay, sounds great.
Hi, I think you are doing a great Job by helping new guys who are new in SEO industries & interested in link building also, like me as I get a good and valuable information from your posts.
Twitter: extremejohn
@Ziya, that’s great news Ziya, thank you
I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Doesn’t this article make you a hypocrit now? Since you changed your blog to nofollow?
Twitter: extremejohn
No it just makes you unaware of what changes I make to my blog because you don’t read it daily. I use a plugin to reduce some of the spammers it gives out Do Follow juice to real, consistent commentors instead of dishing it out to comment dropping spammers. I wrote a post about it at the time, it has all of the info in it.
Yeah, I find that whether a blog is do follow or no follow, you will still get credit for the back link. It may not be weighed as heavily, but it’s counted as a backlink nonetheless.
nice post for “no follow” and “do follow”, and i am agree with chris, i am regular reader for thisismyurl.com, and they are close “do follow” link, because spaming is so high…
vector graphics´s last [type] ..tulip special material
I read recently that removing nofollow on comment links is actually beneficial for blog owners these days because Google now uses the amount of activity your site generates in order to determine where it ranks in the search engines. So so what if the comments are spam? Google Caffeine sees this as activity on your site and rewards you in the search results, right?
jennifer t1´s last [type] ..Voip- MPLS- Phone- and Internet Service
Twitter: extremejohn
I can see where that makes sense, all though I think keeping your comments really clean is important if that is the case.
Ya, nice.
For those who are considering the do follow blogs, you should know that it is more suitable for building links and increasing traffic. Not do follow on the other hand is a great way to eradicate spam to your blog.
Twitter: extremejohn
Excellent points thank you for sharing.
Twitter: Thespringmount6
I *think* my blog is a do follow blog. I just recently learned about the whole do follow vs no follow. I have been blogging for about a year and just started learning any of the SEO and other link things. I completely agree with the relevant comment thing though. I have no problem approving a comment if it is actually about the post, but those ” This is an interesting post” type comment. It bugs me.
Your site is really teaching me a lot. Thank you.
The Spring Mount 6 Pack´s last [type] ..#Thursdays #bloghops
Twitter: extremejohn
Happy that you’re picking a few things up here and there in regards to Do Follow, etc. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
no-do-follow and do-follw blog both are very different to each other in nature and performence..whenever we want ranking and promoting then we must have blog commenting service enabled blogs list..
it’s a shame that we have to have dofollow and no dofollow blogs, but because of all the spamming it’s needed unless you want to verify all the comments that you recieve, but if you can make your blog a dofollow then all the better for the world of blog
Twitter: extremejohn
I do currently verify all comments myself
John thats the only way to do it… do you get a lot of spam and how easy is it to spot
Twitter: extremejohn
I get a fair amount of it, but Akismet handles most of it for me and the rest I just send to the bin. Iv’e been Do Follow for a long time, it hasn’t broke me yet.
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