Ok so I think I said I followed comments in the past but a couple of people have commented recently and I noticed they were nofollow. I have installed Lucia’s Linky Love so links will actually be nofollow if you have never posted before. I have set the limit to 3 so it wont take much to switch to dofollow, and I will manually remove the nofollow from links under the 3 link count presuming it is not spammy. Some of the features of Linky Love are:
- Encourages good comments: Dofollows are added to the author “name” and links in comment text after a commenter leaves some minimum number of comments. The blogger can set this minimum number to anything between 3 and 10. This encourages regular visitors to comment, but discourages spammers by forcing them to visit your blog many times before they get “dofollows”.
- Encourages links. Dofollows are added to trackbacks and pingbacks only after the blog author has left some minimum number of comments, trackbacks or pingbacks. This discourages scrapper sites from sending you spammy trackbacks but rewards real bloggers for linking you.
- Gives peace of mind. Dofollows will not be added to comments left more than 14 days after you published your most recent post. This is a safety feature that prevents your blog from becoming a link farm should you ever be unexpectedly absent from your blog due to illness or any other major life event.
- Thwarts overly aggressive SEO types. The blogger may refuse “dofollows” to “names” that contain too many characters. This can be used to avoid giving “dofollows” to commenter’s who claim their name is “cashmere dog sweater”.
- Gives you more control over dofollow / nofollow options. As is always the case, the blogger can also delete the comment, report the comment to Akismet or delete the name or url. That’s good for truly spammy comments. But with Lucia’s Linky Love, you get another, less drastic, option. You manually prevent “dofollow” but still show the comment url and name by deleting the user email address when editing the comment. This lets you permit borderline visitors continue to comment, but deprive them of “dofollows” until they behave the way you like visitors to behave.