The concept for the specification of the attribute value nofollow was designed by Google’s head of webspam team Matt Cutts and Jason Shellen from Blogger.com in 2005.
Today, the nofollow attribute is widely implemented in the blogosphere. In fact, at google’s suggestion, many blogging platforms now automatically include nofollow in all comment links.
I believe that blind and broad implementation of the nofollow attribute is a sword where a scapal is needed.
Stem founder, Steve Matthews, makes some excellent points about lawyer comment spam in his post, “More Lawyer Comment Spam.”
While I completely agree with Steve that lawyer marketing strategies should absolutely not include comment spam, it occurs to me that the reaction to this problem (specifically, the blanket application of the nofollow attribute) is too indiscriminate.
One of the revolutionizing aspects of web 2.0 is interactivity. In my humble opinion, blog commenting is one of the foundational cornerstones of this interaction.
Now don’t get me wrong, nofollow certainly doesn’t restrict a reader’s ability to comment. But it does serve as a disincentive.
I know that as soon as you read the previous statement, many of you will think to yourselves, “hack”! This guy is trying to argue that blog commenting should be back on the table as an SEO strategy for lawyer marketing.
If you have that impression, I have failed to convey my point.
My message isn’t that lawyers (or anyone else for that matter) should be commenting for SEO benefit. What I am saying, is that blindly or automatically putting nofollows on every comment has a “chilling effect” on commenting.
As Josh Fruchter put it, “it ultimately boils down to whether a comment adds value to the conversation or not. If it does add value, then I don’t have any issue with providing some link love to the person commenting in exchange for their contribution to the conversation.”
I think Josh has it right.
Instead of blanketing all comments with nofollows, bloggers should moderate the comments on their blogs and make decisions on an individual basis about whether to reward the commenter with “link love.”
While this requires a little closer attention to the comments on blogs, comment moderation is a practice in which every responsible blogger should participate in any way.
Instead of making every comment subject to automatic nofollow, blog platforms should give their bloggers an easy way to add nofollows on an individual link-comment basis.
Just like relevant links between websites, relevant and value-adding comments should be rewarded with seo benefit. On the other hand, just like link spam in other arenas, comment-spam should be punished.
But let’s not throw the good links out with the bad.
I am curious what Cutts and Shellen would think about a less blanketed use of nofollow.
Both the blogosphere and search engines should reward value-adding content. Good links in comments are no exception.
Photo by OzinOh
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