Most of you probably already know that you can boost your search engine rankings by getting back links to your site, but how many of you are using blog comments to get back links?
You have probably heard that you shouldn't waste your time with blog comments because the search engines don't follow the link because of the no follow tag.
It is true that the search engines usually won't follow links with the no follow tag. But more and more you are finding blog that have disabled the no follow tag in the comments section.
When WordPress is installed it automatically configures your blog to have no follow tag on comment but there are some blog owners that want you to comment so they will use a plugin to remove the no follow tags, either completely or based on the number of comments you leave.
But you should I am going to cover blog comment etiquette before I tell you how to find these blogs that will remove the no follow from your comments.
Your comments MUST BE on topic, if can't come up with a comment on topic don't leave one.
If the post you are commenting on is about WordPress plugins don't leave a comment about sports fishing. This is common sense but you would be surprise at how many comments like this I delete.
You shouldn't put a link in the body of your comment unless it is directly related to the post and is information that won't fit in the comment itself, such as a video.
I recommend that you set your blog up so that if there are links in the body of the comment it will go to the comment moderation. This way you will have to approve the comment before it shows up on your blog. This will keep the spammy comments of your blog.
Now your name or I should say the form field where you enter your name. This should be your name or your moniker. For example I will use Randy The Hermit because more people know me that way than by my normal last name. Your moniker can have keywords in it (only helps if there are not any no follow tags) but it should be related to you or what you do. For example if you teach people how to blog you could use the moniker Blog Boy or Blogging Teacher but your moniker should stay the same no matter what you use for a link.
That pretty much covers the etiquette but I can hear a lot of you out there screaming, "Why should I bother if it is going to have the no follow tag on the back link?"
There are a number of reasons why you should do this:
1.With or without the no follow tag it is still a link to your site. You can get over 1000 links to your site by leaving 5 comments a day for a year. These links will be seen by 1000's of people that might come to your site.
2.If you are posting relevant comments people will remember your name and you will start to build a reputation for yourself, especially if you only used one name.
3.If you post an interesting comment people will click on your link to see what else you have to offer.
4.If you are selling advertising on your site through a service like text link ads they sometimes do their own back link research and ignore the no follow tag. This could result in you receiving more income from your ads.
If comments have the no follow tag activated how do you tell?
You can find a post with comments and look at the source code for the page, scroll through all the code until you find the comments and then look for the no follow tag. Yes, this is awkward but it gets the job done.
The good news is that you don't have to do it that way. If you are using FireFox or Flock as your browser you can get an addon that will highlight all the no follow tags on a page. It is called SEO for FireFox and you can get it from SEOTools.com or you can search SEO for FireFox addon in Google.
This addon will give you a bunch of information that can be used for SEO but the one feature that we are interested in now is the no follow highlighting. What it does is look at all the links on the page your viewing and highlights all the no follow links in red. If the name in the blog comment isn't red then the no follow is shut off on that blog.
People that run WordPress blogs want you to leave comments and they don't want spam comments so a lot of them have started using a plugin that rewards the people that comment frequently, this plugin is called Lucia's Linky Love.
Once Lucia's is installed the blog master can set up the comments so that after a person make so many comments the no follow tag is removed for that person.
Lucia's actually checks both the name and the email address for every comment so if you are posting on the blog you need to use the same name and email address the minimum number of times before the no follow tag is removed
The owner of the site can set the limit from 3 to whatever they feel like but most of the time if they are using the plugin it is set from 3 to 5. This means you will have to leave a relevant comment 3 to 5 times before the no follow tag is removed but when it is removed it is removed from any comments you make from there on.
Now I bet you want to know how this will help you when you are leaving comments. You can actually find posts that are using Lucia's Linky Love but doing a search in Googles Blogsearch. Put your keyword phrase in quotes then a plus sign (+) then in quotes Lucia's Linky and you should find posts on topic that use this plugin. Make the minimum number of comments plus 1 and you now have start creating back links followed by all the search engines.
On the blogs I use this on you will need to post 4 times to get a link back to your site. I read the comments and I delete the spammy ones so the people just trying to get the right number of posts never make it. This encourages more comments and usually adds good information. - 16463
You have probably heard that you shouldn't waste your time with blog comments because the search engines don't follow the link because of the no follow tag.
It is true that the search engines usually won't follow links with the no follow tag. But more and more you are finding blog that have disabled the no follow tag in the comments section.
When WordPress is installed it automatically configures your blog to have no follow tag on comment but there are some blog owners that want you to comment so they will use a plugin to remove the no follow tags, either completely or based on the number of comments you leave.
But you should I am going to cover blog comment etiquette before I tell you how to find these blogs that will remove the no follow from your comments.
Your comments MUST BE on topic, if can't come up with a comment on topic don't leave one.
If the post you are commenting on is about WordPress plugins don't leave a comment about sports fishing. This is common sense but you would be surprise at how many comments like this I delete.
You shouldn't put a link in the body of your comment unless it is directly related to the post and is information that won't fit in the comment itself, such as a video.
I recommend that you set your blog up so that if there are links in the body of the comment it will go to the comment moderation. This way you will have to approve the comment before it shows up on your blog. This will keep the spammy comments of your blog.
Now your name or I should say the form field where you enter your name. This should be your name or your moniker. For example I will use Randy The Hermit because more people know me that way than by my normal last name. Your moniker can have keywords in it (only helps if there are not any no follow tags) but it should be related to you or what you do. For example if you teach people how to blog you could use the moniker Blog Boy or Blogging Teacher but your moniker should stay the same no matter what you use for a link.
That pretty much covers the etiquette but I can hear a lot of you out there screaming, "Why should I bother if it is going to have the no follow tag on the back link?"
There are a number of reasons why you should do this:
1.With or without the no follow tag it is still a link to your site. You can get over 1000 links to your site by leaving 5 comments a day for a year. These links will be seen by 1000's of people that might come to your site.
2.If you are posting relevant comments people will remember your name and you will start to build a reputation for yourself, especially if you only used one name.
3.If you post an interesting comment people will click on your link to see what else you have to offer.
4.If you are selling advertising on your site through a service like text link ads they sometimes do their own back link research and ignore the no follow tag. This could result in you receiving more income from your ads.
If comments have the no follow tag activated how do you tell?
You can find a post with comments and look at the source code for the page, scroll through all the code until you find the comments and then look for the no follow tag. Yes, this is awkward but it gets the job done.
The good news is that you don't have to do it that way. If you are using FireFox or Flock as your browser you can get an addon that will highlight all the no follow tags on a page. It is called SEO for FireFox and you can get it from SEOTools.com or you can search SEO for FireFox addon in Google.
This addon will give you a bunch of information that can be used for SEO but the one feature that we are interested in now is the no follow highlighting. What it does is look at all the links on the page your viewing and highlights all the no follow links in red. If the name in the blog comment isn't red then the no follow is shut off on that blog.
People that run WordPress blogs want you to leave comments and they don't want spam comments so a lot of them have started using a plugin that rewards the people that comment frequently, this plugin is called Lucia's Linky Love.
Once Lucia's is installed the blog master can set up the comments so that after a person make so many comments the no follow tag is removed for that person.
Lucia's actually checks both the name and the email address for every comment so if you are posting on the blog you need to use the same name and email address the minimum number of times before the no follow tag is removed
The owner of the site can set the limit from 3 to whatever they feel like but most of the time if they are using the plugin it is set from 3 to 5. This means you will have to leave a relevant comment 3 to 5 times before the no follow tag is removed but when it is removed it is removed from any comments you make from there on.
Now I bet you want to know how this will help you when you are leaving comments. You can actually find posts that are using Lucia's Linky Love but doing a search in Googles Blogsearch. Put your keyword phrase in quotes then a plus sign (+) then in quotes Lucia's Linky and you should find posts on topic that use this plugin. Make the minimum number of comments plus 1 and you now have start creating back links followed by all the search engines.
On the blogs I use this on you will need to post 4 times to get a link back to your site. I read the comments and I delete the spammy ones so the people just trying to get the right number of posts never make it. This encourages more comments and usually adds good information. - 16463
About the Author:
About The Author: Randy The Hermit Baustert has been working online since 1994 and is the top rated SEO expert according to ExpertRating.com the industry testing services. You can find more free information on SEO and blogging at his newest blog How To Blog Site
