All Blogger templates have the Nofollow attribute built into their comments. This is done to discourage comment spam. However you can, especially if you are a new blogger, encourage people to comment on your blog by removing this attribute. The Nofollow attribute instructs the search spiders not to follow the link thus preventing the spread of "Google Juice"...........
You can encourage people to comment on your blog once they recognize that links in comments are being followed. To discourage spam enable comment moderation in your Settings---->Comments. Also put a prominent text widget in your sidebar proclaiming that links in your comments are followed by the search bots. This will act as a freebait by sharing your link juice with fellow bloggers. MODIFYING THE TEMPLATE
To do this login to dashboard and click on layouts of your blog. Then click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab. First backup your template by clicking on the Download Full Template link. Put a check in the Expand Widgets Template Checkbox at the top of the Edit Template text box. This expands the Blog Posts Widget Code within which is the comments code. Then scroll down till you come to :
<dl id='comments-block'>
<b:loop values='data:post.comments'var='comment'>
<dt class='comment-author'expr:id='"comment-" + data:comment.id'>
<a expr:name='"comment-" +data:comment.id'/>
<b:if cond='data:comment.authorUrl'>
<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'><data:comment.author/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:comment.author/>
</b:if>
<data:commentPostedByMsg/>
</dt>
Delete the words in red in the above code : rel='nofollow' and save the template.TEXT BOX WIDGET IN SIDEBAR
Click on Add Page Element link in sidebar on Page Elements subtab of Template tab. Choose Text widget and add following text in it :
COMMENT POLICY
Comments on this blog are made DOFOLLOW for the Google Spiders.
Comments are moderated.
Spam will not be tolerated.
Save the widget and place it in a prominent position in your sidebar.
Comments
Search Engines
Freebait
Labels Classified.
Remove Nofollow Attribute on Comments.
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76 comments:
Good article. I wrote about the importance of removing the nofollow attribute in order to increase comment activity in my community building blog at:
Link love enable your blog
I tried to find that code that you wrote about in my blogspot blogs and it's not in the html anywhere.
I even copy and pasted the entire code into a notepad document to try and do several keyword search with the note pad "find" function and that didn't work.
I searched manually for the code and that didn't work either.
Is it possible that there are newer blogspot blogs that do not have the "no follow" coding that you mentioned?
I have always thought that unless you instruct a search bot not to follow that they automatically do follow all the links.
Isn't that correct?
Thanks so much for your article. My friend Gayla referred me to you.
Angela,
This code is there only in the new layouts templates and can be accessed by putting check in Expand Widgets Templates box at the top of the Edit Template box. This expands the blog posts widget code.
Search engines can be instructed what to follow and what to not follow using the robots metatag in your template also. See :
How to Submit site to Google
Want to tell everyone that you’ve turned off the nofollow in your comments? Check out my new “ifollow” logos- grab one for your sidebar!
http://randaclay.com/archives/the-i-follow-movement
Oh I'm so glad there's a way to do this with Blogger. I have a Wordpress blog as well, and need to sit and figure out what I'm doing with that one--but thanks so much for the instructions for Blogger. Me thinks I'll be stealing an "ifollow" logo!! Thanks~
Robyn
I've been trying to do this but I can't find that code anywhere in my html and there is no Expand Widgets Templates box anywhere on the page that I can find. :/
Mama Chaos,
You are probably using a classic blogger template. The method above is for the new layouts template.
I have just removed the no-follow tag successfully and I thank you and I love randa's logo so added that too to my blog. thank you so much.
I have removed the no-follow tag. I hope I did it right. Is there any way to tell??
Catherine
Thank you! I've seen this code and have wanted to get rid of the no follow attribute, but never knew what part to delete. How easy that was!:)
Catherine,
Open your blog post (one which has comments with a link in the comment) in a browser and look at the page source.
The code for the link in the comment will not include the "no follow" tag.
It is strange how Blogger works with Trackbacks, I was the first person to link through to this page, and for some reason Blogger picked up someone who is recycling all my content.
It is one thing to provide a solution, but I find it strange that you still use nofollow on this site for comments.
Could you put a note to say that this solution doesn't work with Haloscan.
It would also be good to link through to somewhere with solutions for other platforms. I have my Ultimate List of Dofollow Plugins, but there are other lists if you find one more comprehensive.
We also now have a "no nofollow" community on Bumpzee
Thanks Andy,
Blogger does not have Trackbacks. It has backlinks and since I have configured them in this blog it is picking them up. I am experimenting with dofollow on another blog since Blogger has so much spam. Will keep a look out for the lists.
We could not figure out how to add our post to the list of links here, but here is the address:
http://magicalrosegarden.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-follow-phenomenon.html
We mentioned your post and linked to it within ours!
Magical Rose Garden,
Those are backlinks which automatically appear after Google indexes your linked post.
Cheers!