Get more comments- Allow NoFollow in wordpress
Savvy webmasters want links back to their site or blog. Think about it. If you were building a site and wanted to be part of a community to bring others back to you, would you post comments where you get no credit? hmmm
Some people disable html in their comments… BOOO! Whats with the ego? yes yes. I understand. too many outgoing links, lower PR. but why not get more people to your site participating??? More participating visitors interested in what youre saying.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what others have to say…
“A blog using rel=”nofollow” by default is no blog for me. I definitely hate it to link to such blogs. Many others feel the same and stop linking to those offering trackback links that are worth absolutely nothing. This is bad for a network like the internet, bad for search engines and in the end its bad for everyone because search engines cant rank good things as they normally should be ranked.
On the other hand I needed a possibility to manage spam links with care in order to protect myself against loosing search engine trust rank. So I had to develop something that helps me to do that.”
This comment is from the guy who wrote the plugin, NoFollow case by case
And the movement is growing. More and more webmasters would not waste their time on a blog if they cant get a link back. What would be the point?
How to Fix this Nasty Mess
There are two ugly little pieces of code built into wordpress that adds the nofollow attribute to link tags.
There are 2 ways to go about giving this code the boot on your blog.
- One is with a plugin. There are tons of em. You can use nofollow case by case
- Semiologic has a good one called DoFollow
- and there is entire lists of plugins for happy commenters.
Now for the Hack
There are two steps to this hack. I was snooping in WPs files and I found half of the equation.
In your wp-includes folder (not in content) find the file comment-template.php
search for the word “follow”.
Change this line:
$return = "<a href='$url' rel='external nofollow'>$author</a>";
to this:
$return = "<a href='$url' rel='external'>$author</a>";
…basically just delete nofollow
The 2nd hack I had a little trouble finding so I sought help from Douglas Karr on his Marketing Technology Blog
Next find the file default-filters.php in the wp-includes folder
search again for the word “follow”
comment out the code with tow // before the line:
add_filter('pre_comment_content', 'wp_rel_nofollow', 15);
like this:
//add_filter('pre_comment_content', 'wp_rel_nofollow', 15);
Thats it.
How can you be sure its working?
Part of Firefox’s SEO extension tells Firefox to highlight nofollow links. If you don’t use firefox, or want to know how it works, watch the video on SEObook
Happy Following!



Jan 28 08
Uncategorized


















I think you mean allow dofollow or don’t allow nofollow.
I definitely think this is the right direction to be going. It has clearly showed that blogs still having/using the nofollow tag is still being spammed. Just have some good spam protection and you’re all set.
my fault John, it is referred to as dofollow. Also, I’ve been very impressed with the built in askimet for spam protection. I have no more problems with spam. This is such a simple hack and it’s still working. After a complete redesign, I just retested these directions. Even after a few wordpress updates its still quick and painless.
I am wondering how many of us have still their blog “no follow”? I think this is an essential aspect of our blog and we should have it. I feel a boost in my blog traffic after changing its attribute to do follow.
Stats are really weird when we have a lot of external links and a few PR. I think we always penalize for that. Thanks for sharing the tips to handle excessive external links. I’ll have a look at it in details.
ed, what are you talking about? Does it mean that external links on a page can diminish the PR of that page? I am confused to know that. Will you explain it further? I think allowing do follow links on a page or post means to have a lot of external links or outbound links on that page, am i right? If yes, then having do follow blogs can be a worse thing.
Thanks for your help!
Stats are really weird when we have a lot of external links and a few PR. I think we always penalize for that. Thanks for sharing the tips to handle excessive external links. I’ll have a look at it in details.
Good article, i have read it!
Hi, You have a Great Blog, I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep it up.
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