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26

Jan

Do you dofollow your pingbacks?

Posted by stuart as

I’ve noticed something interesting a happening little more frequently lately, and I’d like to ask you, the punters for your thoughts…

The thing I’ve been noticing is that when other bloggers link to a post of mine, they are no-following the link.

Now when you link to a post of mine, you basically get two, and in some cases, three do-followed links back to your blog:

  1. From the original pingback/trackback section under the post you’re linking to,
  2. From the recent comments list in the sidebar of the blog, and…
  3. If you comment often enough, in the “People who Rock!” (most active commenters) section in the sidebar.

I can understand people’s reticence to dofollow links in this age of Google getting a little over-zealously slap-happy with bloggers who sell text links and paid content, but let’s have a look at the reason that the nofollow attribute was first introduced.

The nofollow attribute to a href tag is meant to tell the search engines that the owner of the page upon which the nofollow tags appear cannot vouch for the quality of the content being linked to.

That original purpose, noble as it may have been, is now being held like the sword of damocles above the head of bloggers who now fear any outgoing dofollow links may be penalized.

Taking the above point about being able to vouch for the quality of the content beyond your nofollowed link, the linker needs to ask themselves whether they should be linking to the content in the first place. If you don’t trust that the quality of my content is good, why are you linking to me at all?

Take a look at number 5 in this list from searchenginejournal of 13 reasons nofollow sucks:

5. Linking to someone with a NoFollow attribute is a sign of not trusting them. It’s like reaching to shake someone’s hand, but stopping to put on a pair of latex gloves.

In my opinion, it’s also a little like going to one of those sweets boxes you see on the reception desks of large companies, usually selling bags of sweets for some charity or another, and instead of paying $2 for your bag of lollies, paying one dollar and taking the candy anyway.

You’re getting full value from your link from me, why are you being so stingy at passing that link love back?

So here’s the question:

What do you think is a fair policy for nofollowed pingbacks? Should I nofollow the outgoing link back from my blog? Delete the pingback alltogether? Just leave it and get on with writing content so maybe some one eventually links to me with a dofollowed link?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this….over to you!

8 comments so far

Louisiana says January 28th, 2008 at 11:05 am

I would just delete the pingback with the nofollow. Seriously, it seems a little crappy to me for them to ping you, but nofollow at the same time. Maybe a little warning email would be in order too.

But that’s just me. :O)

It’s so sad that google has led all of us to this!!!!

:O(

stuart says January 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Thanks Louisiana,

I’m caught between being thankful for any kind of link, especially from a blog which gets more traffic than mine, and being pissy because they’re not prepared to share the link love, especially when in the case I’m thinking about, they got their post idea from mine as well.

City says January 28th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Stuart, I unfortunately face similar situations. When other websites contact me to exchange links, I often will oblige, as long as the website is related. I post a regular dofollow link to them and they often do the same for me (atleast initially). However over time, I have caught many websites adding the nofollow to my link, and thinking that I won’t notice. I immediately remove their link, and send them a nasty email. However I can’t help but feel link a fool for exchanging links in the first place with them. I almost think that exchanging links is not worth it, and that most people are out to take advantage of others.

TigerTom says January 28th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Google, PageRank and nofollow have driven webmasters cracked. If you like the site, link to it, otherwise don’t, in any way.

Google has sucked most commercial webmasters into its Matrix; time to wake up. Think about how to make money outside of it, and making money inside it will follow easily.

More:
http://www.ttblog.co.uk/is-google-perverting-the-internet/

Jan-Willem Bobbink says January 28th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

No I am not dofollowing my pingbacks otherwise all scraper sites get PR…more reasons are not needed for me :-p

Simlock verwijderen says February 3rd, 2008 at 1:06 am

I am following all. I think about the opinion of: everyone wants to do linkbuilding, so why I don’t let them do it. If the comments and pingbacks are relevant I will follow it otherwise I delete them when I have some thim left over.

Search Marketing Blog says February 8th, 2008 at 4:42 am

Being in both worlds - SEO and blogging - I find this issue quite frustrating as well. I typically use some of these guidelines - I try to allow for dofollow comments but I feel my posts are being spammed I definitely take action to moderate my comments.

If I find a post/trackback linking back to me with a nofollow I always try to return the favor. If, as you mentioned they drop a nofollow on the link I try to contact them and politely ask them to reconsider. If they do not I always make sure to tag their comments with nofollows.

Google’s ‘laws’ regarding nofollow and its misunderstanding of it has made webmasters go nofollow crazy! Its a scratch my back i’ll scratch yours type of game.

Jane @ Kidzarama says May 8th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

I think adding ‘nofollow’ to a link is rude.

I mean, if you’re sending your readers to another site you must think it adds value to their experience, right?

So it’s only polite to thank them on behalf of your readers and yourself.

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