When DoFollow Blogs Can Hurt You

Being bloggers we all like good comments. A good comment adds to the conversation, provides useful information and relevant links. The commenter doesn't drop many links to his/her multiple blogs or websites in the comment text.

And we all hate spam. The owners of "DoFollow" blogs observe an explosion of borderline spam comments and moderate like crazy!

You may think you did everything right. You typed your SEO terms into the "Name" field and wrote a comment. And since the blog is "DoFollow" why not add one more link in the signature to get more backlinks and clicks?

You think this is smart. However, you hurt yourself.

Don’t think the blogger is stupid when you leave a comment. If the blogger considers your comment as spam, you just wasted your time and you will not get backlinks with your keywords as the anchor text. At best, the blogger will simply delete or edit your comment. At worse, they will report you to Akismet. In either case you won't get any link juice.

The thing to remember is that if you are reported often, you will have troubles with commenting on all blogs protected by Akismet or Spam Karma (most known anti-spam plugins for WordPress). Akismet or Spam Karma will reject you before the blogger sees your comment.

How does the plugin recognize spam comments? It analyzes the following things:

• Time between the page loading and comment submission. If the comment is posted immediately after the page is loaded, the plugin thinks this is an automated submission. It's supposed that people will take time to read the post before submitting a comment.
• Occurrence of the "stop" words in the comment text and URLs (comments containing "blacklisted" words like "porno", "viagra", etc. are automatically marked as spam)
• Quantity of URLs in the comment text. More URLs, more risks to be flagged as spam.
• The size of URLs in the comment text is compared against the text size. If the whole URLs size is bigger than the size of the text, the comment will be marked as spam.
• "Spammy" IPs are filtered (if your comments are reported as spam many times, your IP will be blacklisted).
• The plugin looks at how old the post is and how much time passed since the latest comment on the post.

In addition, some blogs can have plugins that give a "DoFollow" link after you leave several comments on the blog. So, you should not count to get a "DoFollow" link on your first visit.

Things to Avoid When Leaving a Comment

I would suggest that you remember this rule – "Don't be greedy". When you comment on a "DoFollow" blog for the first time, post a well thought comment with one link and your name as an anchor text. It's like asking for a slice of pie. The blogger won't begrudge you a slice but they won't give you a whole pie!

Well, below is a list of common things you should avoid when leaving a comment on a "DoFollow" blog:

• Many irrelevant links in the comment text. Your comment will look spammy if you insert a lot of URLs that are not related to the post or to the comment text.
• Too short answer. Some bloggers may treat your short comment like "Thank you, great post", "Thank you, I agree", or something like this as spam even if you have the proper "Name" and don’t abuse the links. Of course, you can thank the post author for a great article if you liked it. But also, think about adding some information to this, maybe share your own experience, or add some more useful resources to make your comment more valuable.
• Duplicate signature at the bottom of the comment. As you already have your signature in the "Name" and "Url" fields, there is no need to repeat it in the comment text. The readers who will want to visit your website can click on your name.
• Large number of similar comments per day (if a search engine bot finds, for example, 100 comments with the same anchor text and comment text per day, it looks a bit unnatural and your links will be devalued).

There is one more important thing to think about: SEO term in the "Name" field. Some bloggers may allow the use of the keywords in the "Name" field, others may not. Before submitting a comment, take a look at other comments (if the post has any) to find out if the keywords are allowed in the "Name". If other people submitted the comments under their names or nicknames, you should do the same. Some bloggers can let you write something like "Julia — Directory Submission". But again, look and make sure other commenters did it.

With all that said, I would highly recommend that you avoid using automated comment submission tools. Yes, you are able to submit dozens or even hundreds of comments every day using an automated tool but will those links do any good for you? I bet no. You have no control over your comments. The program just fills in the form with your name, URL, email address and writes some text it thinks appropriate. The search engines are (or will be) smart enough to recognize automated submissions and devalue your links. A hundred of comments with the same URL and anchor text per day is the first "red flag" for the search engine saying that the comments were made automatically. In addition, the submission rules differ from blog to blog. What is OK for one blog may be considered as spam on another blog. You risk to be added to the "blacklist" and won't be able to post comments anywhere. They will end up in the Akismet or Spam Karma spam folders.

In short, if you want to improve your search engine position, visit "DoFollow" blogs. Read the post, scan other comments to know what is allowed in the comments and only after that leave your well thought comment on the post. Quality over quantity – that is the rule to follow when building links from blog commenting.

Remember that there is no "easy button" to push. You can't just set the things and sit patiently waiting they will work without you putting ANY effort! You will get outstanding results only if you are willing to take time to make them happen.

Please, share your thoughts in comments below.