Comment Spam - Does ‘nofollow’ stop it?

February 16, 2008

I’m sitting here at the Command Console of a super duper brand new web site pumping out post after post - which Google appears not to care for.

The main article has been live for about 5-6 days and my Google Web Master Tools console is telling me that “No pages from your site are currently included in Google’s index” Well, to be honest that doesn’t suit my purposes very well.

April Fools Day 2008 looms, and if spam-spam.con is not in the top 20 for the spam keyword, then even if others don’t laugh at me, I’ll have to (on moral grounds) laugh at myself.

Which brings me to the issue of Comment Spam. I’ve done a tiny bit of it, but it doesn’t really make me feel great.

You’ve seen the comments that read something like: “Hey [webmaster], thats the funniest thing I’ve read on the web all day LOL, absolutely LOL” - with the mandatory link to hopeful blogging site.

Anywho, as a new webmaster, I’ve been concerned that some how I need to get some links. Google told me so. It’s the number one piece of advice on Webmaster Guidelines.

So I began to think to myself. If I need links, I need to get links and (yawn) I could go out and do a whole lot of comments spam.

And I would but it’s all nofollowed. Well, it would help if I could offer something to make others comment. But I don’t really get anything from comments except a whole lot of community and plenty of comment spam.

‘Dear Jolly, your last post had me LOL so ‘out loud’ and with so much laughter, that I ruptured a diaphragm and died. LOL. See you tomorrow. LOL’

So for a few minutes I installed the Dofollow plugin from Semiologic. I works beautifully. No more nofollow - welcome to a dofollow world. But unfortunately, comments are cheap. But in my not-yet-on-Google state links are valuable.

Next I came across the Dofollow Trackbacks plugin from Turk Hit Box. I think this is what I’m after. I’d love to be able to reward those who chose to link to my site with a link in return. And my quick reading of the page seems to indicate that it will keep me honest. No turning off the plugin and going back to the dark ages of nofollow for those who have taken me at my word.

So feel free to link to my site, and in particular The main spam spam article. You automatically get a link back in return. Feel free to comment as well. I’m all for it - I just won’t be giving a link to your site on the strength of it.

Thanks for your support and have a stonker!

Jolly Shonker.

Posted in General Spam |