Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Removing No-Follow In Blogger

Through this post I'm hoping that you will discover the importance of having a two-way communication between you and your readers through comments.

Comments for a Blog is a very important tool but sadly in the Blogger template the tag is set to "No-Follow" by default. What that means is that every comment you leave at that site (which has "No-Follow") will not entitle you to get a link back to your site. So, if you do not alter this soon, there might come a day when no one would bother leaving you a comment at your site.

How would you feel if there was a day where there were no comments on your posts? This is something all bloggers would dread to face. I personally, try to always leave a 'relevant' comment at the sites that I visit. Actually, to be honest, this is also another way to introduce your site to others, but, we totally don't agree to those spam ones though!

Some may ask, what is the definition or how does one categorize a comment as spam? Comments that have no significance to the topic whatsoever and leaving a text URL in your comment asking people to visit your site are the favourites to be considered as spam comments. So, remember folks, always leave good constructive comments and we will reciprocate.

Comments, to me, means that I'm able to get feedback from my readers, without it I would have to rely on just reading e-mails, now that would take the fun out of blogging, wouldn't it? I remember someone saying to me that, a Blog without comments isn't a Blog at all ... I totally agree with this statement. To me, comments can be considered as contents, the more the better. At the end of the day, this would eventually generate you more traffic and less work for you, because the contents are generated by the readers (like in forums).

The secret here is to get your readers to come to your site regularly and read your posts and finally leaving you a relevant comment. This will help you figure out if you're doing things right or maybe there are things that needs fixing. How will you learn all this without comments?

Then there are those who would say that comments are not important as their readers have subscribed to their RSS feed in large numbers. I would think that is also good, but not so good if you're trying to monetize your site, why? Because, if the majority of your readers tend to read your posts through your RSS feed, then only a handful would visit your site and remember, your Ads are at your Blog, not at the RSS feed, right? So, in plain English : You will have a great number of people reading your posts through the RSS feed, but very few coming to your site thus reducing your page views, hence lower Ad income!

So to avoid all these possibilities, do this, remove the "No-Follow" tag from your Blogger template and your readers will love you for that, and very soon a whole load of comments would start to come in.

To be on the safe side, back-up your template first.

Once you're in your account, click on your Dashboard followed by clicking on your Layout link. Once you've done that, click on the Template tab. Now, just below this is "Edit HTML", click that.

This would bring you to a page filled with a lot of words and letters that may look ancient to you. Don't worry, look for a checkbox situated on the top right side which is labeled as Expand Widget Templates, click this box.


Search for the words rel=nofollow (on your keyboard press CTRL and the F key, this would give you a small screen at bottom of your PC, It's like a mini search box. Type rel=nofollow and press enter in that mini search box) The word rel=nofollow will now appear in a highlighted green colour in your screen.

This is for removing the "no-follow" tag for your comments.

Now delete the word, rel=nofollow and Save Your Template!




18 comments:

darlene said...

finally a new posting!!...WHOO HOO!!....lol
where have you been?, missed ya!!...and good idea on todays posting!!

Mariuca said...

Hi Nihal! Great to see you're on board with this one!

Btw, I've just tagged you, come over and check it out :)

http://mariuca.blogspot.com/

babyfiona said...

luckily I changed my layout before ^^. Now only i realised that the blogger actually default the all the template to No follow thing . Nice post!

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure that removing "no-follow" increases traffic or the number of comments. Most blog readers have no idea what nofollow is and authentic commentors don't mind whether it's there or not (at least that's what I like to think). I personally don't check whether a blog follows or not before placing a comment. Though probably many bloggers prefer commenting on blogs that do follow.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Nihal;

"So, in plain English : You will have a great number of people reading your posts through the RSS feed, but very few coming to your site..."

I used to do alot of reading through RSS and then if there was something that I wanted to comment on in the feed, I would just go straight to the page and do my commenting. I don't do much reading via feeds these days as I found I missed the visual appeal of the sites. I guess everyone has their own preference.

jess8t8 said...

Hello Nihal! I just edited my layout. It's a favor we can give to people who posts comments even though if they don't know it. Thanks.

NIHAL said...

First of all, many apologies for the late reply to all your comments, as my Internet line was down for most parts of the week :(

Darlene @ Hi, I really missed visiting your's as well :( Will do this soon, I promise. Hope you're not mad?? By the way friends, Darlene is a wonderful cook when it comes to BBQ :)

Mariuca @ The kindest Queen of blogging! Yup, I feel this is of mutual benefit for both the author as well as the commentor. OMG, you did it again, another tag? What will I do without you???

BabyFiona @ I'm so happy you could join us here. Well, I always believe in sharing and hopefully this would work for you. Thanks :)

Marguerite @ I gotta agree with you, when you say "most blog readers have no idea what 'nofollow' is". But it's about time more people become aware of this, as more comments are created in a particular site it creates more 'links-in' for the site owner, thus giving him more 'weight/strength'. What I hope is that more bloggers out there will do what is right for both parties(in their opinion!) Thanks :)

Anna @ I missed reading your great posts :( Yup you're right, ONLY if it's interesting will they come to your site to comment, SO, another thing to consider folks is "having great contents in your site". Anna has some great ones at her site :)

Jess @ Couldn't agree with you more, my friend. It's good that we return their effort, as the saying goes "What goes around, Comes around" :)

Velu said...

Well you do have a point. Let me check my stiings and set them right.

Cheers,
Velu

jess8t8 said...

I've just come across this interesting post at:http://www.instabloke.com/2007/06/blogger-comments-inline-wordpress.html

NIHAL said...

Hi Jess,

Thanks for pointing that out but don't worry too much, as from my findings, I know there is still a "rel=nofollow" appearing at the page source on Blogger Layouts even if you have deleted the "rel=nofollow" tag in your templates. This would usually happen at the pop-up window section where we normally key-in our comments, this is because that page belongs to Blogger. What we are doing by removing the "nofollow" tag is meant for "our blog", that's totally two separate identities.

So, we should be safe :)

Blog Bloke said...

Hi Nihal. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. It's reassuring to know that I have at least one vote of confidence ;-)

I've written extensively on this topic and the jury is still out on whether or not we can completely remove the "nofollow" attribute from Blogger comments. But it's worth a try.

You can read more about it here: Comments that SUCK!

Keep up the good work.

Cheers!

...BB

NIHAL said...

Velu @ Thanks for your time, am glad this was of help to you and would love to hear from you again, my friend :)

BB @ It's an honor to have you visit, given the fact of your tight schedule. Like they say, "You never try, You never know". Hopefully this would help us all with the Blogger layouts, to a certain extend.

Bobby Revell said...

It is a good thing to implement, though I wish that blogger offered the real Full Do Follow like word press. We don't know what developers will have for blogspot, but I hope it's good. BTW, with my magic new web tool I just submitted this post of yours to 21 web-2.0 bookmarking sites. This article will be displayed in my tag cloud at every site and in my site's side bar of delicious bookmarks. I'm learning this stuff and seeing if it helps anyone. If you're interested in it my new post covers it. Thanks Nihal, and the comment you left the other day means a lot to me. Thank you:)

darlene said...

could never be mad at you, you are the sweetest, we all get busy with our lives, actually, been kinda bad myself..not going to read peoples blogs i enjoy, its just a time thing, we all get that

Esther Garvi said...

Good advice! Thanks!

DubLiMan said...

Comments is the difference between "readers" and "Traffic."

I found your site through a shared link that I have with gurushabad. Would you be interested in a link swap? Please visit my site at: http://mondaymorningpower.blogspot.com. My site is “Dedicated to the Pursuit, Capture, Care & Feeding of a Positive Mental Attitude.” I have zero adds on my site. I feel that what I have to say has universal significance. If you like what you see and agree, then link my site to yours, leave me a comment on my blog that you have done so and I will immediately do the same. I only make this offer to sites that I know my readers would benefit from.

Speedcat Hollydale said...

Hi Nihal! I stopped in to read your page and was of course interested in this one. I am still a little confused on this topic though. I learn something new every day, but am still quite a novice at the blogging thing.
Great to see you :-)

Speedcat H.

NIHAL said...

Hi Guy's,

I'm really sorry for the long silence and all. But, it's friends like you that keeps reminding me the importance of caring and support.

Bobby @ You're definitely the Maestro in the new generation of bloggers and yes, I could not agree with you more on this. Special thanks for adding me into your tag cloud list, I'm honored, my dear friend.

Ishtar @ It's always a great thing when you come by, I thank you for that and am glad you found this helpful.

Monday Morning Power @ You couldn't have said it any better. Thanks for that input.

Speedcat @ Hi buddy, don't worry too much. It may sound like a whole load of work and all but once you get the hang of it then it becomes a breeze. Anyway, we are all friends here and ultimately we share information and I'm sure there's something I could even learn from you... how to play golf maybe?? he he he :))