When you choose to comment on a website/blog (a blog is a website that is continuously being updated with articles, like this one), you have a choice to add a link to your site (rather it be your myspace profile, blog, favorite site, friends website, etc) through a clickable link attached to the name you comment with or in the comment area itself.
Spammers (a spammer in this since, is someone who advertises their website by leaving a comment that has nothing to do with the website/blog they are commenting on) caught on to this and decided to use it to their advantage.
The 'NoFollow'
Therefore, as an attempt to reduce spamming, someone came up with the idea (full of good intentions, but with negative results) of not allowing any links in comments to be crawled by the search engine bots. In other words, if you comment (with a link) then no search engine is going to put your link into the search engine result, even if you have positive intentions to provide value to others. Also known as the 'nofollow'.
How it Works
When you do a search on a search engine, it puts the most popular results first. If you left a comment on a popular website/blog and your comment has a keyword of something that is searched, they will not find you.
When search engine bots crawl (searching for new information to add to the search engine results) your website/blog, the bot knows to skip the comment area through a string of code within the website/blog. This code can be removed and once removed, the bot will add all the comments as well.
The "You comment, I Follow" image is designed to explain (to others who know about this) that you installed a plugin (to rid of this) or removed the 'nofollow' code and in hopes to encourage others to do the same. :)
Depending on your blog platform, there are different ways to remove this from your blog. Generally speaking, you can goto your CSS template (where all the html code is located), hold the Ctrl key and press F, type "nofollow" to find the code, and remove the end code from the comment code.
There are a varity of websites explaining how to remove this code from your blog platform. Here are the popular ones:
How to remove the nofollow from Wordpress
How to remove the nofollow from Blogger
How to remove the nofollow from Typepad
How to remove the nofollow from Movable Type
I hope that helps, you can also do a search for nofollow/ U Comment, I Follow images.
What is "You Comment, I Follow"?: by Nicholas Powiull
May 16, 2008
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I never really understood the No Follow tag anyway because as owner of a site it is quite easy to delete SPAM (as frustrating as it may be.) BTW - very informative links on how to remove the NOFOLLOW tag. I am only beginning to learn about blogging but this is great information!
Hello Joico,
I completely, totally and fully agree 100% with you, but I can also understand if you have a popular site how managing anywhere from 50-500 comments everyday can become quite time consuming. It can take away from the value you are giving people, since your focus is on moderating the tremendous amount of comments.
Thank you for the comment, I am glad this information was informative for you. :)
Have a Consciously Flexing day Joico,
~Nicholas Powiull @ Conscious Flex
It works as long as we understand that is not to spam blog but to get a reciprocal benefit.
Hello Motorcycle,
People tend to spam out of one of two reasons:
1. They do not know that they are doing it (ignorant to the fact).
2. They think it is the most effective way to promote their blog (they feel it is the easiest, quickest, and most productive way in relation to time).
Of course the perception of number two is not true, but people will do desperate things under desperate measures. People usually act out of desperation or inspiration. If they had inspiration, they would definitely act in the most effective manner to their cause.
Thank you for the comment Motorcycle. Have a Consciously Flexing day,
~Nicholas Powiull @ Conscious Flex
Haile I, Greetings Conscious ONE~
InI am Hailemah~TimelessI. InI do the HNN(HAILE NOTEWORTHY NEWS) on WorlofJAh and also on MYSPACE daily (except weekends).
Now, first allow me to give maximum respect to you on the site, the ease of browsing and effective
leading to deisred resluts. InI am very impressed with the content and value of the articles. Like you, InI am a late blossoming writer, after two decades in sales, marketing, Cosmetology Instructing, Real Estate Sales, and mast recently Promotions and Management for Arts & Humanities professionals.
In every arena InI have had the opportunity to meet and retain impressionable relationships with outstanding and loving people from various walks of live.
InI too, have found my passion in writing and am looking forward to increasing my readership, and establishing a Newsletter that I have been developing for a few months now. InI primarily find an audience among the Rastafarian community in the Washington DC area, and now expanding to a more global audience at MYSPACE as well. InI have been producing the HNN(HAILE NOTEWROTHY NEWS)for over 45 days now and InI get a great sense of satisfaction knowing that everday someone is looking forward to clicking on the articles over a cup of coffee.
It's funny but just today, after today's edition, reesponses were so positive that it makes all the previous labour of love worth the effort!
InI don't write any of the political and economic articles yet, simply post from the internet and add pics, and graphics. I have written a few over the time InI have been posting, but have been playing with increasing my writing and eventually having only original articles as my personal NEWS blogs.
I just felt a need to stop and take this moment to compliment and encourage You as we are both driven by our passions and are doing something about living in conscious frequency, while motivating others.
Again give thanks for your courage to take charge of your destiny and for living your passionate DREAMS!(and by making ripples by sharing that energy with others!)
One Perfect LOVE,
Sis Hailemah~TimelessI
Hello Hailemah,
Thank you for your heartfelt words of inspiration, encouragement, and support. You are a very kind/giving person indeed and that takes courage, you will be rewarded for your efforts just keep going and never giving up no matter what. Thank you for taking the time to comment and introducing yourself.
Please come back often, you are always welcome :)