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Should I use “No follow” for comments?
I am building backlinks by “commenting” on related websites and getting “comments in return”. Otherwise in the normal course also, if some random reader with a website comment, should I use “**no follow**” or not? Pl. consider the following points also before answering:
1. If I use “no follow”, can the commenter trace it by any tool that I’ve used “no follow”?
2. If I do not use “no follow”, then also there is no surety that the other party will not use “no follow” for my comment on their site.What do the experts suggest?
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1 Reply
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Links in the comments do not work anymore. It was too easy to abuse and spam the heck out of blog post comments to get easy links. Comments, however, if relevant to the content on the page may help improve ranking – may help!
1. Yes, there are several tools – Chrome extensions, that will make it easy to find nofollow links. I have one always active that helps me with that task.
2. Correct, even though it’s a moot point to get links in comments if you are in an agreement with the site owner to comment on each other’s site with links and you put a nofollow on your end, then they can either not follow through and comment or do the same.Also, most comment sections nofollow external links by default – because they aren’t worth it anymore. Not saying your does, but it is fairly common practice.
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If a site is using a mainstream CMS or forum software (like WordPress), all comments will be nofollowed by default.
Google also has a page of documentation about it. Search Google for “Evolving nofollow – new ways to identify the nature of links” (no quotes).
If you want to see if a link has `nofollow`, right-click on it and choose “inspect”.
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Yes
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Fun fact: “nofollow” was developed with commenting in mind. In order to reduce the amount of detrimental links from commenting and other user-generated sources, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and few others agreed on rel=”nofollow”. More recently, “usg” and “sponsored” provide similar options to provide better information. Comments would be considered ugc, and you can combine these such as rel=”nofollow ugc”.
1. Yes. Many backlink tools will also check whether there is a nofollow or not.
2. That is correct. You cannot control what others do on their own websites.Overall, I really wouldn’t worry about it too much. Comment links regardless of their rel status will provide either no value, or very little value.
However, the value of that link might reveal itself when people click on the link and become a reader/user or customer/client. **Links aren’t just for SEO value, they serve a tangible purpose in navigating the web.**
Edit: had the wrong acronym.
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