Comments on: Google Changed How It Handles Nofollow (And How It Might Affect Blogs)

By: Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:08:12 +0000

With the amount of traffic which Google must be going through it still does not translate to much if page points have gone down for everybody. it simply means that now they work in smaller numbers.

By: j2

j2 — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:59:02 +0000

in fact seems quite unfair and i heard that a couple of month ago (i.e. may 2010) google confirmed this policy, so the debate didn’t go through as it should

By: Cristian

Cristian — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:27:02 +0000

If a comment doesn’t enrich that particular blog post, why even approve it, in the first place?

I mean, a comment that adds value to a blog entry doesn’t deserve the editorial trust translated in a dofollow link?

PageRank isn’t lost in the linking out process. At least not at that degree that your blog faces PR bankruptcy. I see it more like a passed PR.

Thanks for the disqus heads up! Though I’m not sure I’ll use any time soon :).

Cheers,
Cristian

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:54:51 +0000

While some may not be happy with the change, it is essential for Google to implement some changes. As the web sites/blogs change and people find different ways of trying to “beat the system” Google must do what it can to protect it’s search results.

I try not to concern myself too much with PageRank. I usually just let PageRank happen as it will.

By: zerrin egeliler

zerrin egeliler — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:46:34 +0000

I just knew about it and it is quite confusing for me in improving a page rank, but I think I would do more comment writing to other blogs I like often. Thanks Daniel for the clear description regarding this issue. Wait for the next update:-)

By: Ross

Ross — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:32:29 +0000

I think the change is good. It’s a good way to deter bloggers trying to have the penny and the bun.

If a page has a link on it, surely it should be giving some credit to the page it’s going to? If not, it’s clearly a paid for link.

By: hikaye

hikaye — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:48:15 +0000

Yeah, this change really has problem, I think Google PR would be confusing for many of us if this change does work, hope Google does something for it.

By: SEO Company UK

SEO Company UK — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:15:48 +0000

What im telling is if you know its nofollow blog what is the purpose of commenting on that if your only target is to get a backlink? so stop worrying about will noffolow help my ranking and find some dofollow blogs and comment.

and let me know too 🙂

cheers!

By: Hypotheek

Hypotheek — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:01:10 +0000

So this is how it works for google. But what about the other engines. Yahoo seems to take a count for links behind the nofollow tag? There is a serious discount bud anyway they count it for something.

By: doris jeanne

doris jeanne — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:16:14 +0000

Glad for the information; too new to blogging to make a meaningful comment. I will pay attention and act accordingly now that you have made me aware. Thanks!

By: SEO Secret

SEO Secret — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:31:20 +0000

so the point is do follow rel on blog comment is not good ..??

By: Eddie Gear

Eddie Gear — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:03:28 +0000

Hi there Daniel,

Thanks for the heads-up mate.

Cheers,
Eddie Gear

By: Medyum

Medyum — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:29:04 +0000

Yeah, this change really has problem, I think Google PR would be confusing for many of us if this change does work, hope Google does something for it.

By: Blogger

Blogger — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:45:57 +0000

By: Harrison Schmidt

Harrison Schmidt — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:08:38 +0000

I hope they someone makes a really good iframe wordpress plugin to counter this change.

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:05:00 +0000

@disegni, Javascript.

By: disegni per tatuaggio

disegni per tatuaggio — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:49:47 +0000

there are not other alternatives to iframe ?

By: Tommy Kirt

Tommy Kirt — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:17:01 +0000

This all gets very difficult for the majority of people on the web, the overwhelming majority of people who have web pages and blogs really aren’t all that savvy as to how search engines rank sites and how they punish sites. The problem is that Google doesn’t make it easy for these people to understand what is and isn’t right in terms of SEO, and as a result a lot of quality content written by smart folks just isn’t showing up in the SERPs to be found by the ordinary punter, and we’re all the worse off for it. I look forward to the future when search engines can recognise the difference between quality content and linked content, and pass out the SERP rewards accordingly. Until then, I suppose it remains the due diligence of the website owner to stay informed and act accordingly to whatever the latest rules are.

By: SEO For Google

SEO For Google — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:59:06 +0000

I believe this is Google way of pushing everyone to continue in their link building pursuit particularly for those important web pages.

Itrs either you dont rely on Google for business or follow their ‘rule’

By: Harson

Harson — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:00:05 +0000

I also read this kind of information somewhere else. for those who really worship pagerank this might be a big concern. but those who just take care of readers or commenters this might not be a big problem. anyway, may it’s time to change, though.

By: Bill Hartzer

Bill Hartzer — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:15:23 +0000

>>In other words, before Google changed how it handles the nofollow attribute you would have gained 1,000 points of PageRank with that post. With the change, this number is reduced to 118.

I totally don’t buy that. Google is a lot smarter than that, they would know that if there’s a lot of traffic and comments on a blog post all of a sudden then they should be rewarding you for that, not penalizing you for that.

Personally, I think they’re actually changing the value of nofollow links (or links in general) based on the amount of traffic on a page (or how popular the page is at the time).

By: TheMadHat

TheMadHat — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:11:48 +0000

I don’t believe for a second that on 99% of blogging platforms that can’t immediately recognize comments and not count them at all in their algo. Penalizing (which it essentially amounts to) for users engaging in your website is completely against everything they are moving towards.

I for one am not going to give a bunch of behavioral toolbar metrics to some other URL in an iFrame, or attempt to block outbound URL’s with javascript (which they can normally read anyway).

Keep your blog natural looking and focus on engaging your user base and forget whatever FUD google is throwing around now.

By: Andy Beard

Andy Beard — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:13:52 +0000

@Steven Sanders

Switching to Disqus was a hard decision, and not necessarily permanent. I might well fall into the 5% of bloggers long-term if Disqus don’t make significant improvements.
Don’t forget I was one of the primary original supporters of dofollow – the primary reason for switching isn’t for my own benefit, but that of the majority of readers who may do the same.

I am quite capable of mitigating the detrimental effect of 100s of dofollow comments on a blog, or any changes to Google’s handling of nofollow, but I doubt 95% of my readers can (even among the professional SEOs, WP programmers etc)

By: Adam Pieniazek

Adam Pieniazek — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:38:56 +0000

Google should be smart enough to figure out what’s a comment and what’s regular post/link structure. Wouldn’t doubt that they devalue comment links in their algorithms and push that PageRank elsewhere.

Would entirely screw up their ranking system if they didn’t as sites with lost of comments would lose PR and be ranked lower (which would be bad for them, since sites with lots of comments are usually quality sites).

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:06:48 +0000

@Nicholas, no worries, not your fault 🙂 .

Yeah the purpose of the nofollow attribute on blog comments is to both discourage spammers, and protect yourself in the case a spammer posts a link back to his spammy site.

If you don’t use the nofollow and many of your comment links start pointing to spammy sites, Google could penalize you.

By: Nicholas Z. Cardot

Nicholas Z. Cardot — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:51:40 +0000

Sorry Daniel about your loss of page rank then. So what then is the primary benefit of using nofollow if that is now the case? Is it just to discourage comment spam?

By: URL Masking

URL Masking — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:57:07 +0000

I simply don’t get Google. Even their SE algorithms are very much unpredictable. No wonder my PR is swinging back, up and down!

By: Winning Startups

Winning Startups — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:33:26 +0000

So that’s why my PR went down!

By: Vikas

Vikas — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:53:22 +0000

Wtf.. are they retard….

Commenting is the most important part og blogging.. we just can’t stop / disable comments.

Hope they will do something about it… looking forward for update.

Thnx…

By: Sean Davis

Sean Davis — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:40:29 +0000

I learned a lot in this article. I don’t know enough to have a conversation about it yet, but my awareness at level 10 now. My blog isn’t going to be effected yet but I’m going to keep this in mind and watch… just like you guys are.

By: Annie

Annie — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:12:14 +0000

Disqus will help? Hermm

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:44:01 +0000

@Max, yeah if you don’t plan to use iframe or Javascript I agree using dofollow is the way to go, at least the PageRank won’t go wasted.

Even if Google can follow iframe and Javascript links, though, using a solution like Disqus will help because in theory there will be only 1 link in your HTML code. Take a look at the source code of a blog that uses Disqus and you will understand.

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:38:30 +0000

@Rarst, PageRank is only one of the factors being considered to determine search rankings, yes, but it is not a tiny part of it by any means.

On the example I used in the post, you can see that in certain situations this change might lead a certain post to lose 90% of its PageRank value. This could definitely have an impact on your search rankings, and thus on organic traffic.

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:36:42 +0000

@Nicholas, yeah that is right, by posting a comment you are reducing the amount of PageRank that would flow to my internal pages.

What is worse, you are not even gaining that PageRank to your own blog. It is just being “wasted,” or going to a void.

By: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:35:31 +0000

@Missy, yes Disqus is bases on Javascript, so in the HTML code of your page you will just see 1 javascript link, instead of dozens of comment links.

By: GoBusiness101

GoBusiness101 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:07:40 +0000

For those blogs which readers like most, like this type of blog, you don’t need to have the google search. they will type your site directly in the browser.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:27:05 +0000

I remember same source sharing that PR is only tiny part of Google equation. 🙂

Really. Professional SEO people might be obsessed with that but I see no reason bulk of bloggers should care this much about PR.

I am clueless in SEO, never paid much attention to link practices and openly against nofollow. My blog has PR 4 in the end. Good? Bad? I don’t think I really care as long as visitors from Google are coming.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:53:52 +0000

It’s interesting that this happened more than a year ago and no-one had figured it out. On my main blog (sig), I use dofollow to get more comments, so effectively right now, the flow of page rank from my site is no worse off than those that are using nofollow links. I.e. I don’t waste that pr, I pass it to my readers. yet I get 100’s of comments just because people comment to get backlinks. I may look at disqus though.

By: Steven-Sanders

Steven-Sanders — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:51:03 +0000

Pagerank is very important but so many bloggers have been extremely successful without it.

Which only shows that it really doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got the determination to really try to build your blog with creative and amazing content.

Personally, I’ll leave my comments just the way they are. I’ll not make any sacrifices of my commentators out of greed for myself.

By: Max Pool

Max Pool — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:14:53 +0000

Daniel you forgot the biggest alternative of all, just allow your blog to go “dofollow”.

Google also has stated that it can now follow and interpret JS and iFrames even passing PageRank (I have seen this on client sites for some time now).

If you are diligent with cleaning out your spam comments dofollow might increase commenting and increase the link love.

By: Chester

Chester — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:46:08 +0000

It might afftect those with lots of commentors though but I think this is a good move also.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:27:46 +0000

I don’t get a lot of commentors… so it’s working in my favour, I think? 🙂 Interesting article anyway.

By: Daily Good Tips

Daily Good Tips — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:50:28 +0000

Hmm…good information, as a nofollow blogger i still need next information about this. I have pagerank 3 and it is enough to get more tasks from paid to review broker. But, because of google changed its pagerank method, i will often monitor the pagerank changing. Thanks Daniel

By: Nicholas Z. Cardot

Nicholas Z. Cardot — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:38:27 +0000

So am I stealing some of your page rank points just by leaving you a comment here? I suppose that I am. Anyways, thanks for making this concept very clear to me. I had not heard of this change yet. Thanks.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:49:46 +0000

Yeah, this change really has problem, I think Google PR would be confusing for many of us if this change does work, hope Google does something for it.

By: Cananito

Cananito — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:38:42 +0000

It’s going to be pretty lame if they don’t change it so that comments can work the traditional way.

By: Missy

Missy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:38:40 +0000

I take it then that by using Discuss or something similar – blog comments are hosted in javascript?

Very interesting development. I will also do the same as you and hold off on any big changes till further news and insight comes along.

Thx!

P.S. I left my URL out so as to save you some juice. LOL.