Spam, spam, spam, spam. It sucks. And the good folks who created the blog platforms knew it would be a big problem, so they switched off the links in the blog comment section. However, that was before Akismet was available…a wonderful free spam filter for blog comments.
A new movement is underway amongst bloggers who see the value in linking back to those who validate our entire purpose for blogging…by reading and commenting on our blogs. I think this is a great concept. I’ve done that on all my blogs personally for some time. And I think it’s worth encouraging others to do the same.
I appreciate substantive comments…something more than “Great post!”, from some guy named “Buy Cialis Here!!”. Such a comment would NOT get past Akismet, and it would certainly not pass my human approval filter, either (I manually approve all blog comments).
There are always visitors that know more than I do on a subject and are able to fill in more details, or ask great questions. I want to know who those people are, and I would normally follow their URL to find out more about them. But I personally go even further with this concept. If they are adding value to my blog with intelligent comments, I’m happy to link back. So frankly, I’d rather know your real first name and have your link at the end of your post, just like an email signature. Am I missing something? Is there something offensive about this concept? I haven’t found it yet. We are all identified to one degree or another by our online activities anyway.
Anyway, that logo up to the right is one I created today to support the No No-Follow movement. If you have turned your links back on, please consider letting people know by including the logo on your blog, and linking back to the page on my site that features the logo in more sizes, along with a somewhat better explanation of the issues. And there will be some links to blogger communities who are support this concept as well.
You’ll find the various sizes and more thoughts on this subject on this page:
Reject the NoFollow attribute on your blog. Then, grab a logo here!