REMOVE NOFOLLOW TAG FROM YOUR BLOG BUT DON'T LET SPAMMERS MISUSE THIS

Yesterday I wrote about the nofollow attribute and how it helps to prevent link spamming. The nofollow attribute is by default available in Blogger templates comments section and also in code.

As blogging softwares by default use nofollow tag, many bloggers don't even realize that they are using nofollow tag and if a blogger moderates comments, there is no need for nofollow attribute.

I decided to do some research for removing nofollow attribute from code and comments area and I do found some really good articles about this & I also removed nofollow tag from my blog :). Following is the way by which you can remove nofollow tag from blogger templates comments and main code section:

To remove nofollow tag from blog code:

• Login to Dashboard and click on Layout. Click on edit HTML tab.

• Backup template by clicking on the Download full template link. This will serve as a backup copy for your code.

• Put a check on the Expand Widgets template check box.

• Look for the following code in the template (Use <>

[b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'>
[a name='links'/>[h4>[data:post.backlinksLabel/>[/h4>
[b:if cond='data:post.numBacklinks != 0'>
[dl class='comments-block' id='comments-block'>
[b:loop values='data:post.backlinks' var='backlink'>
[div class='collapsed-backlink backlink-control'>
[dt class='comment-title'>
[span class='backlink-toggle-zippy'> [/span>
[a expr:href='data:backlink.url' rel='nofollow'><[:backlink.title/>[/a]
[b:include data='backlink' name='backlinkDeleteIcon'/>
[/dt>

Remove rel='nofollow' which is colored in the blue in the above given code and save the code. Now Googlebot will follow the backlinks from your posts.

To remove nofollow tag from comments area

You can search for "rel='nofollow'" in the code & remove that or you can look for following code (Use < id="'comments-block'">
[b:loop values='data:post.comments'var='comment'>
[dt class='comment-author'expr:id='"comment-" + data:comment.id'>
[a expr:name='"comment-" +data:comment.id'/>
[b:if cond='data:comment.authorUrl'>
[a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'>[data:comment.author/>
[b:else/>
[data:comment.author/>
[/b:if>
[data:commentPostedByMsg/>
[/dt>

Again remove the rel='nofollow' which is colored in blue in the above given code and save the code. Now Googlebot will follow the backlinks from your comment section.

As what title of this post says "REMOVE NOFOLLOW TAG BUT DON'T LET SPAMMERS MISUSE THIS", Make sure that you moderate comments on posts and remove unwanted spammers from comments and when you give link juice to someone, make sure you are giving it to a good & spam free website.

PREVENT SPAM WITH NOFOLLOW TAG

Before digging into nofollow attribute, let us first understand what exactly nofollow attribute is:

According to Wikipedia "nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index."

In simple words, nofollow attribute is used to tell search engine not to follow a particular link so that target link's ranking doesn't get affected by particular link.

The nofollow attribute is used to reduce linkspamming activities followed by many spammers and this will help in increasing the quality of search engine results. This is an important attribute which is used to reduce link spam.

Example of nofollow attribute:
HTML code: [a href="http://www.google.com" rel="nofollow">Google Search[/a]
(Use <> instead of [] in actual code)

This will result in: Google Search

The resulting link which is still visible to users will not contribute to Google's link popularity, Page rank or Search Engine Ranking.

Nofollow attribute is used to prevent spammers from abusing blogs, forums, guest books and other places where any body can comment. Now Blogging software’s like blogger, wordpress are by default using nofollow tag to stop spamming. Any links or comments posted on these blogs will not pass link authority (You can also remove nofollow tag on blogger & wordpress and I will follow this in my next post.)