Everyone knows that you need links to rank well with the search engines but comments on 95% of blogs are NO FOLLOWed to prevent spam. So we just started removing the no follow attribute for visitors that post just two or more appropriate comments. They have to be on different posts and be relevant or thoughtful. Spam and anything that even looks like spam or isn’t worth keeping will be removed immediately and black listed. But if you take just a couple minutes, this is a great way to earn valuable links to your website!

This does not apply to sites in obvious bad neighborhoods, adult sites, or pharmaceutical related sites or parking pages. Links to any site we really feel is inappropriate will be removed all together and any comments that don’t show any real thought or seem spam like just won’t have the no follow removed. This obviously takes some for us to review and some judgment, but that’s what makes the links valuable and why this is acceptable.

The simplest way to summarize what is and is not appropriate is an analogy I read recently at SEO 2.0 about Commenting Netiquette which used a Barbecue Party example. If it’s wrong to do at a Barbecue, then it’s wrong to do in Comments.

Spam isn’t just automated link filled garbage that doesn’t make any sense. It’s also done many times by people who knowingly or unknowingly just slap up comments without giving them any real thought. And because of the amount of visitors and comments we get and because we are rewarding them, we have to keep the bar up higher than most websites. If we feel that someone’s comments are really bad we won’t just remove them and report them as spammers to Wordpress and Askimet, but we’ll also ban them from our site too. We want to reward the people who add something to the conversation, not the ones that dilute it or detract from it.

The types of things that are NOT allowed from Commenting Netiquette

1. One liners saying something like “thanks, great article‿ because I don’t know from they’re made by robots or not, if they don’t refer to anything specific in the article. I also can’t add to it or do it again if you don’t say what made it great to you.
2. People commenting with a name like “SEO Company‿ or “Real Estate California‿ because I want people to comment not companies or services, especially if the keywords have nothing to do with SEO or other topics of our blog.
3. People who don’t read the article but comment based on the title and it’s keywords because it’s just ridiculous to state “I also like three-way links‿ if I just wrote that I hate them.
4. People using German or other non-English keywords as their “name‿ because it is impolite to exclude the majority of my readers who do not understand.
5. Commenters linking to specific subpages like domain.com/my-new-product if that’s not relevant to the article. Remember the point of the comment isn’t to give you the link but to add something relevant to the conversation.
6. People adding a signature in their comment because you already got a link, you don’t need a signature, that’s greedy.
7. Commenters who disagree with me too much without any logical explanation, because I never err you damn naysayers!

See also our list of What makes a Good Comment plus How and Why we remove the No Follows. In short, we’re doing this to build a valuable resource for you and we want to give a little value back to you. So take a couple minutes and add at least two comments and we’ll share the link love with you too!

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