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Well, I tried. I really liked using the DoFollow plugin and giving my Commenters links back to their site without the “nofollow” attribute. However, as I feared, there are those who try and take advantage of this by spamming my comments.
I spent another 45 minutes last night sifting through my comments and removing spam comments. Many of these were people who commented with a legitimate comment the first time, then after they were accepted, followed those up with spam comments with links going to spam sites.
So, as of this morning, I’m turning the DoFollow plugin.
For my regular commenters, don’t fear, I’m looking into ways to reward commenters. Right now I’m looking at the Top Commenter plugin. Another idea I’m thinking about is having a top commenter weekly roundup where I post stories from the websites of the previous weeks top commenters.
One thing that has always bothered me about the DoFollow movement and all the list that are out there was the amount of blogs on the list that either had never removed the “nofollow” attribute or the ones who unplugged the DoFollow plugin after getting on the list but did not notify the list keeper to have their site removed. That’s a little underhanded in my book.
I apologize for my regular commenters, but I’ll find a way to make it better!
8 responses so far ↓
1 Donovan // Jul 26, 2007 at 9:50 am
I totally understand your decision to remove Do-Follow. I would remove it too if I had to spend 45 minutes filtering comments from spam.
Are you using Akismet on your blog?
I think it will be interesting to see if the volume of your comments fall-off or remain steady. You have a good site with very helpful information, so I bet this won’t affect your comments much.
2 Don // Jul 26, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Hi Donovan,
Yeah, I use akismet. I could’t operate this blog without it! I get about 50 to 60 spam comments a day that akisment catches.
In the past, I moderated comments. That became a chore. So I switched my preferences on shown comments to “Comment author must have a previously approved comment.”
Then, once they posted a legitimate comment, I would not have to moderate their following comments and as soon as they posted their comment, it would show up on my blog.
So there were people posting a legitimate comment just to get approved. Once approved there were coming back a few days later and posting comments on articles I’d written months ago with links to spam sites.
3 Donovan // Jul 27, 2007 at 7:29 am
Those spammers are a tricky bunch.
I’m sure you already know this, but Akismet has a setting to automatically discard spam comments on posts older than 30 days. I guess this doesn’t do much good if the comment were related to the content and the link was spam.
This gives me an idea. Do you mind if I e-mail you separately to discuss it?
4 Don // Jul 27, 2007 at 7:59 am
I don’t mind at all. I think you already have my email, if not just shoot me a message through my contact page.
Don
5 Are Do-Follow Bloggers Dishonest? // Feb 5, 2008 at 11:02 am
[…] used the do-follow plugin briefly on this site, found that I didn’t like it and have since used the Top Commentator plugin to reward my regular commenters with a PR4 […]
6 Are We Do-Follow Frauds? » Reader Appreciation Project // Feb 21, 2008 at 7:11 pm
[…] with Do-Follow that Don brings up is how spammers have taken over his comments. As a result, he dropped out of the Do-Follow movement and opted instead to reward his top […]
7 San Diego Local // Mar 8, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Have you seen a reduction in comments as a consequence of removing the do-follow?
8 John Sullivan // Aug 4, 2008 at 8:41 am
Sorry to hear that.I will always be do follow no matter what,but that does sound terrible,see even tho your nofollow I left you a comment and stumble.Nice blog-best wishes to you;)
Thanks
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