SEO Tycoon

**ForrestCroce** · 11-05-2007, 01:12 AM

I realize this could go in the blogging forum, but I'm asking about gaining new visitors, so this seems more appropriate. I'm also curious how much time people spend moderating their comments, what the s/n ratio is like, and whether people make a first comment to get past moderation and then begin to spam?

I've noticed that a lot of people suggest commenting on blogs as a way to gain new visitors to a site. And naturally there are lists of blogs that have ditched nofollow on their comments, all over the web. Killing the nofollow is link bait in and of itself. I know that's going beyond encouraging spam, more like begging for lots of it.

I'm not trying to monetize my site, at least not directly. I'm trying to 'brand' myself, get people to associate me with clever, unique, and breathtaking photography. The lion's share of traffic from saying no to nofollow would be from diy seo types. I've been looking mainly at the hospitality industry; bed and breakfasts need photos of their hotels and the hikes in the vicinity. Do I have much chance at selling photos to the seo industry? Design seems more likely...? I'm seeing a lot of reasons this might not be a great idea, and a few why it might benefit me. The extra traffic it's sure to bring will be link builders, but good photos are appreciated by most people. The question is will this cost me links I would have earned down the line, if someone is afraid to link to my blog because it would make their comment links two way?

There must be a lot more I don't know about, to consider. Any suggestions or advice in general? I know Adam lets his comments be followed. How does that work out for you? Will a rush of off-topic traffic and people leaving intelligent comments ( to get past the filter ) sending links out from my pages help move me closer to where I want to ultimately be?

And for anyone who hasn't been to my blog latest, this is the site I'm asking about: blog.forrestcroce.com/category/genre/travel/mountains/

**fastreplies** · 11-05-2007, 01:58 AM

I think wide variety of topics will bring more attention and wider spectrum of visitors to your blog and I don’t think this is bad thing because the final result will bring you the recognition you're seeking.

Least you can do is to try, to see what's going to happen

fastreplies

**seomaestro** · 11-05-2007, 07:35 AM

Google wont consider nofollow tag links. So dont waste time to get such type of links

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2007, 01:17 PM

Apparently SEOMaestro needs to maestro the skill of reading.

I had experimented with this idea (I-Follow) when I ran a Blogger account. I still think in principal it's a good idea. But you're going to wind up with a lot more people like the one who wrote response #3 in this post trying to get links out of your blog. That doesn't add anything of value.

**ADAM Web Design** · 08:11 PM

Here's the thing, Forrest: you touched on the major aspect of "nofollow" (i.e. only the SEO types care about it). I don't think you're going to get comments and visits from people who could turn into customers simply by removing nofollow from the comments, because the only people who would even notice something like that are web designers/SEOs who would probably hit up the stock photography sites anyway.

Your site is the type of site that is more geared to word of mouth marketing than conventional SEO, anyway. Your pictures are beautiful, and the skill is evident, which renders it more marketable via organic social bookmarking and things of that nature. <removed comment that has nothing to do with this discussion>

As far as my comments being followed, I really haven't noticed an impact one way or the other. But in your particular case, I don't think removing "nofollow" will make a positive difference and may serve as a detriment.

**vangogh** · 11-05-2007, 08:10 PM

Forrest I don't think you'll see a major difference in the amount of spam you get. Most comment spam is done to get people to click on it and not for any seo benefits of the link. Comment spammers generally haven't visited your site. If they did then I wouldn't get comment spam to contact forms that obviously never display the intended comment.

I disagree that only web designers/SEOs will know about nofollow. I think it should be anyone who is interested in seo. You're not a web designer or an SEO, but you certainly know what a nofollow is.

Removing the nofollow probably will encourage some to link to you or comment because of the link back. Will it be a lot? I couldn't say. I wouldn't worry about the link exchange that happens. It won't discourage people from linking to you and two pages that link to each other aren't automatically bad pages that will lose ranking.

**ForrestCroce** · 11-05-2007, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

I disagree that only web designers/SEOs will know about nofollow. I think it should be anyone who is interested in seo. You're not a web designer or an SEO, but you certainly know what a nofollow is.

Aren't I? You're right that I'm not a web designer by any stretch of the imagination ... but sometimes I feel like a half-hearted seo. Without going off on link building exercises, I've done all the on page optimization I know how to. I'm trying to find more traffic... But then I don't do this for anyone else, and I don't even do as much of it as most people for myself. That's probably what you're saying ... I'm not an seo by trade?

I've seen a lot of things like D-List, a page listing out a couple hundred blogs that have removed nofollow from comments. That wouldn't be a quality link, but I expect it would be a high traffic one. My boss wouldn't know what that list means, but I'm guessing most of the blogs there are linked to from dozens of forums ... again low quality links, but more traffic sources.

Of course there's traffic vs quality traffic, and I follow a couple of metrics to try and gauge that. But since my goal is name recognition instead of sales, data gathering, or any other type of conversion ... this is probably too optimistic, but I'm hoping at least some of the people who don't care what my site is about will still be impressed. I'm not sure how reasonable that is?

Adam has a really good point about most people who know enough about the web to understand why finding 'sef' links you can create yourself is supposed to be a good thing ... most of these people probably will be used to going to stock houses when they need an image.

**vangogh** · 11-06-2007, 07:11 PM

I think you're kind of proving my point. You're not someone who would define himself as an SEO or Web Designer, yet you know enough to know that a comment on a dofollow blog means a link back to you.

I'm not saying everyone should automatically run out and start commenting wherever they see dofollow, but my point is that some will so if you did join the dofollow movement it's possible your comments and trackbacks would increase. Again I have no idea how much.

I agree with Adam that you shouldn't necessarily go dofollow looking for seo benefit. I doubt you'll see a lot. I think most people will ignore dofollow and not have any clue about it. But I think some will.

I wouldn't expect that people looking for images on a website would be your prime customers. At the same time SEOs and Web Designers do like images and may still want a framed piece. I have artwork hanging on my walls that I didn't buy to add to a blog post.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-08-2007, 01:54 PM

Well, I had forgot that I originally intended to do this, tried in Blogger and got it half right, but this thread reminded me, so I got some help and made mine an I Follow blog.

I'll let you know if or how that changes my traffic and commenets and everything.

**mcooce** · 11-09-2007, 06:50 AM

As we know, To some websites, it's hard to make many quality content.
So many websites choose to collecting content of other sites largely.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-09-2007, 02:08 PM

What does that mean, mcooce?

**vangogh** · 11-09-2007, 11:58 PM

Liu I agree that quality content is hard to create. That's one of the reasons it's desirable to create it. You can still collect content from other sites and end up with something unique and of quality too.

Mashups are one example. A site like Techmeme would be another. They each present someone else's content in a way that makes the content better for some people.

**ForrestCroce** · 11-11-2007, 10:58 PM

Wikipedia gets a lot of bad press lately, but they've managed to do the same thing fairly well. A lot of webmasters complain about being outranked by wiki articles, but that's because a lot of them are pretty good. And interestingly, a lot of them are written by hundreds of people.

**sachin0310** · 11-12-2007, 01:20 AM

Google dont follow these type of links but Yahoo do follow these kinds of links

**ForrestCroce** · 11-12-2007, 02:17 AM

Well, for the record, I haven't tried this. Yet? I'm not sure, I'm watching John's blog, but he doesn't seem to be getting any more comments than his posts from a month ago. While I wait to make up my mind, I've still been posting ... more posts are probably going to have as much effect on my long-term traffic than whether or not I ditch nofollow in the comments. I posted this guy earlier this evening:

In digging around the wp code to see how I would remove nofollow, though, I added target="_blank" to comment links.