January6
by Randy The Hermit Baustert
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?
Those of you that aren’t using blog comments for back link have probably heard some on tell you about no follow tags and how the search engines won’t follow the link from comment on blogs.
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.
WordPress by default adds the no follow tags to the comment section but there are people that will remove the no follow tags from your comments in return for you leaving comments. Believe it or not there is a way you can find these blogs with a search.
Go out and post your comments on these blogs but before you do I want to make sure you aren’t leaving spammy comments so here is some blog comments etiquette.
If you are going to leave a comment on the blog MAKE SURE the comment is relevant to the post.
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.
Don’t put links in the body of your comment. This is very bad etiquette unless the link is to a resource that expands on your comment. This doesn’t mean if you have a site on sports fishing you can put a link to your site in the comment body but if the post is on a new way to string a leader you can put a link to a page (on your site or another) that shows how to do this.
Most of the time when I set up a blog I set the comments in the discussion area so that if you put links in the body of the comment it will send your comment to moderation where I have to review and approve or deny the comment before it is posted. This stops all the spammy links.
Where the comment form asks for your name that should be your name, don’t stuff it with keywords. You can use a pseudonym, I use Randy The Hermit because most people know me by that. Your pseudonym can have keywords in it, if the keywords are related to you or your business only. And it should stay the same on every comment. Besides if the no follow tags are in place the keywords won’t help you in the search engines.
That is brief overview of comment etiquette, basically it is the “Golden Rule” don’t do anything on another person’s blog you wouldn’t want done on yours. But I bet there are still of bunch of you asking why you should bother if the no follow tad is in place?
This question can be given a few answers, such as:
1.It is still a link to your site that people will see and possibly follow. If you leave 5 blog comments per day that is 1,500 links in a year that might catch the eye of the reader and could get you traffic.
2.If your comments are on topic and informative people will remember your name and you will become a known expert in the field. This is part of the reason you want to use the same name.
3.Just like above if your comment is interesting people will click on your link out of curiosity just to see what else you have to say.
4.Some of the ad services and search engines, like Ask (the last time I checked) don’t read the no follow tag. With the ad services this means that you site will look more relevant and it could lead to higher pay outs on your ads.
If comments have the no follow tag activated how do you tell?
One way is to go to the blog and find a post with comments and look at the page source, find the comment and see if it has no follow tag on the link. This is a pain but it works.
A better way is to use an addon for the FireFox or Flock browser (these are the browsers you should be using). This addon is called SEO for FireFox it is provided by SEOTools.com or you can find it by searching for SEO for FireFox addon in Google.
This plugin will provide you with a lot of SEO information but it will also highlight any links that have no follow tags in red. If you find a post with comments if the name for the comment is highlighted in red it has no follow tags. Don’t worry if you get tired of the red highlights you can turn the plugin off with a click at the bottom of your browser.
There are a couple of plugins that blog masters will add to their blogs that automatically removes the no follow tag from the comments and another plugin that will reward the people that comment frequently by removing the no follow tags from that individuals comments. This plugin is Lucia’s Linky Love.
How it works it the owner of the blog can set the plugin so that after so many posts the no follow tag is removed from the comments of that person.
It does require that you use the same name and the same email address for every comment (I believe I mentioned using the same name above).
Most commonly this is set at 3 to 5 posts before the no follow tags are removed but the blog master can set if from 3 to a million if they like.
How do you find blogs that use Lucia’s Linky Love plugin? The easiest way is to use Google’s Blogsearch, put your keywords in quotes and then put a plus sign and then Lucia’s Linky in quotes and do you search. It should look something like this “keyword phrase”+”Lucia’s Linky” you results should sow you posts that are related to your keywords and using Lucia’s Linky Love plugin.
I use this on my blogs and I have it set at three. Because I read the comments and if they are spammy I delete them manual link spammers never get the three links they need. This encourages better comments and more comments.
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
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