I’m getting way too many spammy comments from visitors who are clearly only interested in a dofollow backlink. Many of them look like they’ve been human generated but they’re not adding value, so I’ve decided to disable the Do Follow plugin on this blog. I no longer recommend this plugin as it attracts too many link seekers who aren’t really interested in engaging with you as a blogger.
From now on if you want a dofollow backlink, you’ll have to play by CommentLuv Premium’s rules and share the article before leaving your comment.
20 Comments
Osho Garg · January 18, 2013 at 1:33 am
I also face same type of problem. i think if a site is old than spam comment will increase tremendously. That’s why I enabled Akismet plugin
Graham · November 3, 2012 at 11:52 am
Exactly!
Swapnil · October 30, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Surely, you can remove your dofollow plugin from your blog but, allow dofollow links to those who give legitimate comments on the blog related to the post, and encourage only the legim ones to comment on the blog so that they can feel connected with your blog and it helps to enhance relationships between both of you.
Commentluv plugin is also a good plugin that encourages commenting on a blog but its upto you, as to whom should you provide with followed backlink and whom you should avoid giving a backlink or not approving a comment. This is one solution I can give you if you are interested to spread link juice but still afraid of keeping Dofollow plugin on your blog.
Graham · November 3, 2012 at 10:53 am
Yes, I already use CommentLuv. I suspect it’s one reason I get so many spammy comments though!
Joseph Adediji · October 29, 2012 at 6:50 am
Hi Graham, I just turned my own blog to dofollow recently and I have not been getting much of spam comments, I believe you can control spammers with commentluv and FV Antispam plugins.
If you are getting human generated spam comments, use commentluv to set a word limit or a time limit people must use on your blog before they can drop a comment. I think this will piss off human spammers a bit.
Graham · November 3, 2012 at 10:54 am
Most of the spam is from real humans, but the comments don’t add any value; they just consume my time moderating them.
Nadeem Khan · October 24, 2012 at 12:09 am
Good decision mate!
Nowadays it is impossible not to attract the attention of link seekers on a do-follow blog =(
CommentLuv is no doubt the only feasible option if you wish to make your blog a do-follow one safely !
Venture · September 21, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Actually I also afraid of spammers. Today I open my forum(recently make) and I am shocked my forum has 800 members and 1000+ posts but when I open google analytic. Only 10 visitors in whole week. After that I decided to check members profiles and they are posts links in thread and almost all are non related to topics as like in Seo some people make threads of Health or beauti etc…
So I am also ready to do this.
Chris · July 30, 2012 at 6:01 am
Hi Graham, Let us know how your traffic goes. I think too many people are reading so called “expert advice” on posting on do follow blogs. Surely they must realise that if Google only sees a huge list of do follow links with very few no follow links it must be suspicious. A press release by Google might have some effect on the people who chase the so called do follow links and waste bloggers time. Good luck with your other blog and don’t get too annoyed with it all.
Grace Sevilly · June 8, 2012 at 8:11 am
Separating real commenters from spammers is really difficult, but I am afraid you’ll have to live with that consequence. Using Commentluv Premium is a great idea though, and it will really help you because your content is being +1 and shared too.
Gayle E. · June 1, 2012 at 6:18 am
I think this is probably best if you are getting that many spammy comments like you said. It’s rough because like you said, even the human-generated ones aren’t always quality comments. The bots are definitely annoying, in my experience that is 🙂 Keep up the good work on the content, I’m a fan even though this is my first actual comment 🙂
Anton Koekemoer · May 23, 2012 at 10:03 pm
I do know the feeling – And a lot of people made their comment to be no Follow only, especially after Google’s Penguin Algorithm update. And still – I get spam, at least it’s a lot less after making comments no follow on some of the websites I work on.
Neil · May 18, 2012 at 8:39 pm
I agree with Paul and Alex. I am not too nuts about being forced to share your post or wait for 22 seconds either. If your content is good, people will naturally share it.
riathomas · May 13, 2012 at 3:06 pm
well, Graham, perhaps you took it too seriously. But dont you notice that, it is the way that attracts many visitors who never knew about your blog before to you. And in the effort of getting a backlink, they have to read thoroughly your post to have a relevant comment? Your bounce rate may decrease as well, because there’s a big chance they will read other posts to have more link. But anyway, it’
sajith · April 23, 2012 at 8:06 pm
I never used that plugin. But I also receiving a hundreds of spam comments per day. I is horrible to edit one by one manually. But blogger blogs do not get any spam comments. Do you know why? I think their spam filtering capability is high. Do you know any plugin to filter spam comments?
Graham · June 4, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Blogger blog don’t offer a backlink to the commenters’ site, so there’s no point spamming blogger. Cheers, Graham
Paul osano · April 3, 2012 at 5:40 am
Hello, graham. i personally advocate for do follow back links… i have personally visited your site more than once not just because of the opportunity to get a quality back link but also the chance to be edified by the great content on your blog. i really hope you reconsider…
Alex · March 26, 2012 at 1:33 pm
well, Graham, perhaps you took it too seriously. But dont you notice that, it is the way that attracts many visitors who never knew about your blog before to you. And in the effort of getting a backlink, they have to read thoroughly your post to have a relevant comment? Your bounce rate may decrease as well, because there’s a big chance they will read other posts to have more link. But anyway, it’s your choice and we respect it, each person have a different point of view.
Graham · March 26, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Well, we’ll see what happens. I’ve been wasting a lot of my time dealing with mind-numbing comments and I’m focussing on another blog for the time being anyway. Visitors now have to share the articles to get a dofollow backlink, so this change may actually increase my traffic. I’ll let y’all know.
Anton Koekemoer · May 24, 2012 at 10:51 pm
Graham,
I do agree – It can go both ways. Monitor your analytics and you should see the effect your new strategy is having a matter of Days. Maybe share the results with us in the form of another post. Looking forward to it.