Why I Don’t Follow
Throughout the blogging world there is a growing practice to get rid of the rel=”nofollow” addition that WordPress adds to links in comments. I agree that it’s a great way to give commenters an incentive to write comments (they get their share of PageRank value). However, there is a specific reason I don’t “follow” the crowd: comment spammers.
Askimet (the hosted comment spam filtering service from Automattic, the creators of WordPress) is very good, but it’s not perfect. Almost every day last week there have been some of the newer forms of spam comments slipping through Askimet, and along with them came undesirable links. As long as I keep comment moderation turned off (allowing a good majority of legit comments to get through safely), the nofollow code will prevent the spammers’ sites from getting my precious PageRank.
Note: I only nofollow links in comments and trackbacks. If you are linked to from one of my posts, like the link to Chris’s blog below, then you are in safe territory.
Related link: Thursday Thoughts » Solo Technology
May 25th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Akismet works perfectly, it has blocked 500 spam comments for my blog, of which only around 5 have failed to be recognised! I am part of the “U Comment - I Follow” movement because Akismet does it’s job properly.
I have also recently installed Bad Behavior to my blog which seems to do one hell of a job of blocking comment spammers from even stepping foot inside of my blog, since that time I have had no spam comments (not even anything that Akismet has blocked).
The combination of Akismet and Bad Behavior is recommendable!
May 25th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Perhpas you should have read my Comment Spam: More Than A Minor Annoyance post.
As I said, Askimet is not perfect. Occasionally (more like 4 out of 7 days a week), some new variant gets through. Had I installed a “U Comment - I Follow” plugin, whatever links they had placed on my blog would be open to stealing my precious PageRank.
May 25th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
It’s a tough topic. I’ve almost backed away from “I follow” a couple times, but so far (to me) the pros outweigh the cons.
It definitely consumes a bit more time though.