What is Pam’s evidence that the dofollow movement is a blogroll circle jerk? Or that the dofollow blogs will have trouble with spam? Eyerolls.

Still many bloggers read Shoemoney; many might ask: Are dofollow blogs poor quality? Brandnew? Full of spammy comments?

If so, why is the dofollow movement gaining popularity? And, more importantly, why do I run across so many good dofollow blogs?!

Obviously, just as there are poor “dofollow” blogs; there are also loads of poor “nofollow” blogs. There are brand new dofollow blogs; there are tons of brand new “nofollow” blogs. What of it?

But the insinuation that dofollow disproportionately attracts spam is just flat out, wrong.

The reality is Dofollow often raises the level of comments.

How does dofollow raise the level of comments?

First, dofollow encourages visitors to comment. Since many visitors subscribe to comments, they often return and conversation ensues. As a blogger, I like this! As a blog visitor, I find these dynamics conversations attractive. They improve the quality of the blog– and ultimately improve the bloggers own content.

Contrary to Pam’s eyerolls, we dofollow bloggers figured out how to deal with spammy pointless comments months ago. This is done both through vigilance, and by appropriate choice of dofollow plugin. (I wrote L’s Linky Love to help me filter human comment spam.)

In fact, we can learn a lot about the effect of “dofollow” on comments by comparing the first three comments at Pam’s post slamming dofollow blogs and Andy Beard’s response post.

Evidence that ‘Dofollow Blogs’ have better comments than ‘Nofollow Blogs’:

First 3 comments on a “nofollow” blog vs. a “dofollow” blog.

Pamcake’s Post Nofollow	Andy’s Post Dofollow
Comment by HustleStrategy 2007-10-27 09:31:17 Pam going to be at pubcon partying like a rock star?	Meg wrote: One of my biggest disappointments at the moment is that my “subscribe to comments” plugin is not playing nicely with the others, or my theme, so I’ve had to deactivate it. I really appreciate the ability to “subscribe” (except when I made the mistake of subscribing to Liz’s birthday bash, went to bed and found 328 emails when I woke up)! Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 2:58 pm
Comment by David Wilkinson 2007-10-27 09:45:10 ROFL!	James – DigitalKeyToInfo wrote: I think Liz is a model for us all to follow. I just hope I can develop a community like hers. More than unrelated links, it is the unrelated comments I see. It just tells me they did not take the time to read-they are not someone that will be part of the community. It is like the MyBlogLog comments that say nice blog, but never visited it, just the community page. Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 4:36 pm
Comment by SonicReducer 2007-10-27 10:09:12 I think the value of the contest just increased by a large margin.	Maki wrote: Liz has a real charm to her and is a top-notch conversationalist. The comments on her blog reflect her commitment to her readers and a two way dialog. It’ll be interesting to compare her model with Perez Hilton or entertainment sites in general. 600 comments is sweet but tiny compared to a single one word blog post by Perez which received 7217 comments. They are left by real people who don’t want anything from his site (traffic/links). Are they still junk? Maybe. Celebrity blogs are a riot.. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a celeb blogger actually leave a comment as a response to their readers. Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 5:37 pm

Need I say more?

Lesson for Pamcakes

Andy’s post responding to Pam’s slam of the dofollow movement was named: BlogRoll Circle Jerk? – If You Encourage Junk Comments That Is What You Get

Maybe Pam should stop and think for a minute. She may realize that “dofollow” isn’t what encourages junk comments. What does? Well, substitute eyerolls for thoughtful commentary on a popular blog you’ll get worse than junk comments. You’ll get comment smegma.

We regret to inform you that your BlogRush Account Is Currently INACTIVE. Your blog(s) did not pass our Quality Review criteria. You will find instructions below for making your account active again. You will notice that the widget no longer loads on your pages — please remove the BlogRush code from your blog for now.

Having discovered “The Tampon Blog” through BlogRush, I was curious to see if it got banned.

Behold! “The Tampon Blog” appears to meet the Blogrush Quality guidelines. Here’s a screen shot of The Blogrush Widget which still displays and functions!

What type of blogs got banned? Blogs like Tamar Weinberg’s blog (for not displaying the widget), SEO Pedia, John Cow, Steve Olson, Ramblings of an Affiliate Marketer, Ryan Parker.net, Geology Joe, Dawn and Jimmy, Just a Girl in Short Shorts Talkin’ and SEO Cog who had previously tried, but failed, to quit Blogrush.

Hmmm…..

1. to drive tons of targetted traffic to my knitting blog and
2. help me introduce my readers to quality blogs in my niche.

Now, I’m a bit surprised by what Blogrush considers a “hobby”. Take a look what that widget that displayed today! Does Free Playtex Gentle Glide mean what I think it means? !

Why yes, it does!

John, tampons are not a hobby. Neither are “Free COTTONELLE FRESH® Flushable Moist Wipes Walmart Sample”; that was the topic of the most recent blog post.

But, I bet that’s just a fluke, right? So, I clicked Jergen’s Product Samples.

If I scroll down, I find links to obtain free samples of various hand lotions. Yes, this is a “blog” that is nothing but affiliate links to get free samples.

Other Entries

The other three listed blogs were about a) scrapbooking, b) magic tricks c) some sort of creative writing. These are hobbies and probably interest someone, but probably not knitters.

Frankly John, the “Tampon Blog” and the “HandLotion” blog are businesses that should be paying for advertising through some program like PPP, ReviewMe, PayU2Blog, TLA or what not. They are not “interesting” content any blogger hopes to find through Blogrush.

I know you plan to improve things. In the meanwhile, my answer to Josh, who asks How is BlogRush Going For You? is, “not so great!”

The Blogrush widget has been removed from my knitting blog. I don’t even want that in my footer; not even if I can use Steve’s plugin to handle slow loading widgets. I may, however, test out BlogRush Click Maximizer here at Big Bucks Blogger. ( Hat tip to RT Cunningham for finding this. )

As for my knitting blog: I’m perfectly willing to give Blogrush another chance after your programmers actually add the new, more relevant categories and remove the splogs and remove “The Tampon Blog” from the Blogrush hobbies category.

Let me know when you’ve got this working.

Helio of Goteborg’s History wrote asking me how to get more links for his Swedish history page. I’ll admit I’m not an expert, but my last name sounds scandinavian, so I’m motivated to give a nice Swede the few tips I know. The first tips applies to non-English language bloggers, but read generally, the other five apply to everyone.

Here goes:

1. Provide content in English. Blogging in Swedish limits your readership and linkage; English is much more widely spoken and understood.

   A number of translation plugins exist for Wordpress. I haven’t tried them; maybe I should. You definitely should!

   Polyglot is a Wordpress plugin can help you provide content in a variety of languages, but you need to supply the content in both languages. Unfortunately, writing copy in both English and Swedish is work. Try robo-translation using Word Translation Plugin; it’s free. If free doesn’t work, you can pay for Angsumans’ Översättare Plugg Pro 4.0 Befriaren also known as “Angsuman’s Translator Plugin Pro 4.0 Released”.

2. Link or comment to niche blogs: True niche bloggers love getting links and they link back to interesting niche content. The challenge is to think of “niche” just broadly enough and to avoid becoming an obnoxious spammer.

   Helio, let’s take your blog as an example: you write about “The history of ‘X’ in Sweden”. So, you can link to a) history blogs, b) Swedish culture blogs and most importantly c) niche blogs about ‘X’.

   Your best bet is to find niche ‘X’ bloggers who seem interested in Sweden. These exist!

   Need proof? Do you see Lucy, the adorably cute cat to the left? Well, Wendy Johnson is attached to the hands holding Lucy. Wendy not only knits a lot; she sometimes knits Scandinavian styles.

   What good does this do you link-wise? There is a strong possibility Wendy might be interested in articles about the history of Scandinavian knitting. (Or she may not.)

   How might you, Helio, get a link from a blogger like Wendy? There is no sure way, but you could try this: post an interesting article about the history of Swedish knitting mentioning the Bohus Tradition; mention modern day knitters who still knit these things. Link Wendy’s Bohus sweater. (BTW: It’s a great sweater; she’s a famous American knitter and knitting book author. Your readers will probably be interested in the link!)

   If your article is interests Wendy, she might link back. (BTW: be sure to use WP-Cache if she does. Click to read why.)

   Now, don’t focus on Wendy; she’s an example. And let’s face it; she doesn’t want to be spammed.

   I want you to generalize the advice I gave you. Do you plan a post about The History of Luttefisk? Find A list (or B or C list) food bloggers who might be interested in Luttefisk. (Or better yet, blog about something edible.) Swedish Furniture? Find bloggers who discuss Swedish furniture or interior design.

   What can bloggers other than Helio do: Think about their niche broadly. Try to link to people in their tight niche, then try to find creative ways to link to people who overlap their niche.

3. Out link a lot. When first starting out, linking one person per post probably won’t do the trick. Make your goal to link to at least five bloggers who might be interested in your post.

   I’m bad. Finding five people is work. Looking at the links I’ve dropped so far, no one is likely to link back!

4. Identify your “link-niche”. How? Ask other people who visit your blog. You, Helio, may think your niche is History. It is, but are historians going to link you a lot?

   I think your “link-niche” is also Sweden! Swedish Americans; are dotty for Sweden. Find them; they will probably link more than historians. Or not– still, it’s worth aiming for links from both niches.

   I have no idea how you can attract historian bloggers. But, with a name like mine, I know loads of people who are dotty about Swedish culture.

   If you want to find niche bloggers are interested in Swedish culture, try Googling. Add Swedish term to the “niche” you are connecting too. When you eventually blog about the history of Swedish food, try “food scandinavian”. It won’t hurt to try “luttefisk blogger”, or “crafts Swedish”. To find Swedish groups, Google “Swedish Days” of “Swedish Museum”. (Heck, try Andersenville, Chicago.)

   This will take time, but if you find a blogger who is posting regularly, and mentions anything Swedish, finding a reasonable, non-spammy excuse to link them would be helpful.

   Your goal is to get these bloggers to notice your post. Their response is in their hands!

5. Always verify you pinged or tracked-back. If you mess up a link, linking won’t leave a trackback or pingback. If the blogger’s blog doesn’t post trackbacks, you won’t leave a trackback. If the blogger’s blog doesn’t let Wordpress autodiscover the trackback, you might not leave a trackback.

   You really need that trackback. So, after you hit publish, always go back to “edit” your post. Scroll down and check whether or not a trackback was sent. If it was not, check your link is correct. If the link is correct, visit the page and search for “trackback”, find the url, add it to the trackback box at Wordpress. Save your post again.

   After that, trackbacks are in the hands of the blogger you pinged or tracked back.

6. Use StumbleUpon. This is for traffic– but you need traffic to get links. Besides, I suspect StumbleUpon friends are often bloggers: they are more likely to drop a link than non-stumblers.

   So, join StumbleUpon. Install the toolbar. Make a decent profile. Apply a few of my tips.

   Spend one or two hours a week stumbling content in your niches. Find friends in your niche, defined broadly: History is a niche. Sweden is another niche. Afterwards, find the correct niches for your individual posts. If necessary, self stumble– but it’s best to be patient and wait for someone else to stumble because you’ll get more traffic, get more friends and fans.

   Heck, write a good post about the history Bohus knitting, let me know and I’ll Stumble the English language version and tag it “knitting”.

Summary of How to Get Links

So, the short advice is: provide content in English, link to bloggers, link to a lot of bloggers, develop a method of identifying bloggers who are interested in your niche (who you can later link and who will link you), make sure you they know you linked them, use StumbleUpon to make friends with… uhmm… interested bloggers!

Dear New StumbleUpon Friend:
You “discovered” my post. Thanks!

Now, I want to read and Stumble your blog posts. But I need to find your blog first, and you don’t make it easy for me to find your blog. Please plaster your blog url in as many places as possible in your Stumble profile so I can find you even if it’s 6 am and I’m brain dead.

How to make it easy for anyone to find your blog on your Stumble Profile.

1. Visit your Stumble Upon Home page. Select the “Home” tab, then scan the top bar and click “Preferences”. Your preference page will appear.
2. Fill out your personal information. Ok, you did that already. Who forgets that?
3. Don’t forget to click your “public profile.” I circled the link in the image below. Click that link; it’s the most useful bit.
4. Add your blogs’ urls to “Introduce Yourself”. Find these two boxes:
   Add content that describes yourself and — this is important– include the links to your blogs both in the “introduce yourself” box and the “your blog” box.
5. Click “View your plog as others see It” on the right column. You’ll now see that your blog url’s are on your “favorites” page (which everyone sees). The links are also on the “About” page.

Now, even a hurried, brain dead blogger who likes to visit blogs of people who “discovered” her posts can find your blog. (And she likes to Stumble. So, you’ll get traffic. )

Still, I’ve got the widget up during the early periods because I’m curious about how Blogrush is panning out. I’ve decided that I’m going to click at least one link on the widget every day for a period of time. That way I can learn whether the blogs are generally targeted, good, bad, indifferent, sploggish or what – not.

So, naturally, if I see something odd or interesting, I’m writing about it. And today, I saw something “flavors” didn’t fix.

Likely through the magic of redirect, I learned about an “exciting” new ebook I can buy for $6.97. Buying it will also earn me the right to sell unlimited quantities for $6.97, earning 100% commission.

I guess Blogrush Spam was inevitable. Sigh. . .

OMG! Talk about giving me a reason to vote thumbsdown!

It was a bit odd, because, though I wrote a post on how to use Stumble Upon to get traffic, I didn’t actually expect to get over 1700 visits to that specific post over the course of the next two days. That’s quite a lot for this blog, which, while growing, still has a relatively small readership.

Did the StumbleUpon readers stay?

As you can see below, the visitors lingered a bit, averaging 1.71 pages, and having a bounce rate of 41%. That’s pretty good for visitors who have never heard of me or my blog. Oh, and guess what else? If you look at chart above, you’ll see that some of the Stumblers who visited Friday’s post went on to Stumble other older posts including Block Spammers From Your Trackbacks.

How does StumbleUpon compare to other traffic sources?

If you examine the figure to the right, you’ll see for sheer volume of traffic, StumbleUpon rocks. Once the initial Stumble began, and other people found and stumbled the post, my traffic zoomed.

In my case, the time spent on site and number of pages view beats Google search engine traffic.

However, I should point out two traffic sources that have longer times on site and lower bounce rates than Stumble: Sitemeter referals and Bumbzee referrals. Sitemeter referrals are visitors who I liked: Clearly, they want to read the post. Bumpzee referrals are very targeted, and I encourage you to join a community there.

(I also got some traffic from a long-winded comment I left at TechCrunch. At least some of people were clearly curious, and stayed for four minutes on average. That said, many just bounced out.)

Will using my five tips work for you?

It will, but probably not instantly.

My intention, (and my advice to others) was, and still is to apply the five steps regularly for a period of time.

Why did it happen immediately for me? Well, the truth is, it wasn’t immediate. I’d used two of the tips before posting my advice. It turned out that my audience already had two or three readers who do Stumble, and I got Stumbled — and by Sunday, that article had 17 Stumbles. Many from people I had never, ever heard of, but many from faces I recognize. (I’m reading everyone’s blogs blogs now– and many are great. I may soon write a post on reflecting on thought provoking things they said).

So was the Stumble Success really due to the tips?

Well… who knows? But I’ll make the case that it was!

Tip #4 was to thank people who have Stumbled you. When I checked who discovered the post, I found it was discovered by “Autorave”, aka Maki of DoshDosh. (I’m under the impression that Maki first became aware of my blog through Technorati, and have explained why I think this. )

Tip #1 was to Stumble people who link you. My reason wasn’t to get them to stumble you (at least not immediately). My reasoning was that some of the people Stumble sends to their blog will visit yours! (Which works!)

But, it turned out that Slevi, happened to like L’s Linky Love, the plugin, had mentioned it in an article about Top 15 wordpress plugins.

Well, it turned out Slevi also liked my article on getting Stumble traffic! I don’t know if he had “remembered” my blog because of my previous Stumble– but it couldn’t have hurt.

Some of the stumbles were from people I linked!
Mind you, I didn’t suggest you should link people hoping for a Stumble. But it stands to reason that if I come up with the idea to Stumble people who link me, they might do the same. So, this is sort of the correllary of tip 1.

What about the other three tips? Well, I don’t have data to show that stumbling people’s post after they stumble mine helps my stumble success. I also can’t prove stumbling my friends and commenter’s posts helps, and I can’t prove linking people who stumble me helps.

I probably never will be able to prove these things because the data will be indirect. But, what do I know? Josh Spaulding of Make Money Blog, Stumbled me, and also said he plans to remember to click the thumbs up button when he reads a good post anywhere.

Since he visits my blog, his decision to be active rather than inactive with Stumble will tend to help me and all blogs he visits.

Will I follow my own advice?

You bet! (Unless it works so well it becomes impossible.)

I did take the time to visit the 17 people who stumbled my Friday post (as of Sunday), looked a their blogs long enough to find a post I thought excellent and either stumbled one of their posts, or stumbled a post they had previously stumbled or discovered. I also made them friends and thanked them, when I could. (Some had setting adjusted to prevent that.)

Heck, in some cases, I even left comments at their blog. For example, I enjoyed Tinu’s article Social Media Traffic – Is It About Titans Reciprocating? Or Vote Whoring? Or… and left a comment. But, oddly enough, I forgot to stumble it Sunday. (But I just did. )

I plan to link some of the Stumblers, not only because they stumbled me, but because I find many of their posts interesting and thought provoking. With luck, when I link them, my posts will interest them. Since they know where the Stumble button is, I may get a Stumble.

All with no spamming!

Will I be stumbling my friends and commenters posts? You bet! I’ve been reading their posts– and enjoying them. But until now I didn’t Stumble. In future, I will be liberal with that Stumble button!

Does it sound like I’m claiming to be give-give-giving?

Well… sort of. Except you know what? I find I share common interests with people who Stumbled me. So, the reality is I and finding interesting blogs!

I’ll be linking and stumbling things I like. What could be better?

Naturally, I’ve been reading a large number of “to do” tips and I’ve hit on five I’m going to try over the next month. I’ve selected these because they are easy, and not too time consuming.

I encourage you to try them too.

All require you to join StumbleUpon and to make things easy, you should install the StumbleUpon toolbar which you can download at StumbleUpon’s main page — look in the right sidebar. After you install, you will see an bar whose left edge looks like this:

Ok, so now what am I going to do? Here’s my list, I encourage you to give it a try too:

1. Stumble people who link you! Do this by regularly visiting your dashboard, visiting their blog, and then clicking the “thumbs up” icon in the Stumble toolbar. If you are the first to Stumble, you will have a brief form to fill out. It’s quick– just do it.

   Why do this? When you Stumble someone else, they get traffic. If they linked you, some of those visitors will click the link to your post. (I tried this: it worked.)

2. Link and befriend bloggers who Stumble your posts! Why? Because bloggers tend to read posts that appear in their trackbacks. You can’t make them like your post or Stumble you. But remember, these are people who do Stumble what they like. So, it’s worth a shot!

   (If you want to read more about gaining visibility with the “right” Stumblers, read My StumbleUpon Friend.

3. Stumble your friend’s and commenter’s blog & Stumble posts you link. Do watch for your friends’ best posts– because other Stumblers will trust you more and your Stumble profile will improve more if you give a thumbs up to good posts.

   Why do this? Well, your friends and commentors visit your blog, right? Showing them the power of Stumble will make them want to join and get Stumbling too.
   When they do, encourage them to install the toolbar. Make them your “Stumble” friend. (You tell me your profile in comments, I’ll befriend you. )

   Give them your Stumble profile link. Hopefully, they will make you their StumbleUpon friend and will Stumble your best posts (especially when you link them.) Then, you will both increase your reputations with Stumble and get more traffic. (To read more about how Stumble rates stumblers, visit Stumble Upon Mathematics.

4. Thank people who stumble you. This tip comes from Liz of Successful Bloggers. How? Find the white conversation balloon in the Stumble toolbar; (it’s on the right in the image I show.) Click that– you’ll see who stumbled you. Next, find the “meet so-and-so” link. Click to open their profile.

   Now, look at the right sidebar. See the “Send a message?” Click that. Then send a message and thank them!

   Why? People who stumble tend to stumble a lot. Thanking them is gracious. It also may make them remember to visit your blog again and Stumble you again.

5. After someone Stumbles you, go stumble a post they stumbled! How? Once again, visit the Stumbler’s profile and look at the right sidebar. See “Stumble his favorites?” Click that.

   Read a few posts– use the “stumble” icon on the far left of your Stumble toolbar to scan past the ones you don’t like. Within 5 posts, you’ll probably find one you like. So, give it a thumbs up! You are done.

   Why do this? Because a person’s stumble profile is strengthened when they posts they Stumble are given thumbs up by others — including you. So, if people who like your posts develop good reputations, you get more traffic when they stumble you.

Those are the tips!

How about adding friends and fans?

Of course I’m going to add friends and fans etc. But right now, I don’t know everyone’s Stumble profile name. So, I’m going to concentrate on doing things that will make others discover my profile and want to become my fan.

To do that, I need to Stumble others, attract the attention of people who already Stumble, then cross my fingers and hope they like my posts.)

Will I be reading more tips? Absolutely. This is just a start– but it’s easy. With luck, I’ll accumilate stumbles, friends and fans as I learn how to better use StumbleUpon. (And you will too.) Maybe we’ll both soon find ourselves reciting An Ode to StumbleUpon.

I just checked Twitter page and I now have 5 followers — and when you consider that I am entirely incompetent when it comes to Twitter, that’s not too shabby. With luck, more people who like Twitter will enjoy my posts and stop by. (I also need to devote some time to visiting my Twitter followers. After all, if they are following my blog, it’s likely they blog on topics that interest me!)

Can you create link juice at Twitter?

Unfortunately, you can’t. As Andy Beard noted, Twitter Links are nofollow. That holds for the self-promotional ones you create by pinging from your blog, and also editorial links to other blogs that might interest people. So, if you like someone else’s blog, it’s fine to mention them in a Tweet, but link them at your blog too.

Then is it worth the time to ping?

Yes! Traffic is traffic. Traffic from followers is a really good type of traffic. Twitter gives them a way to follow you.

Mind you, if pinging Twitter took any time, it might not be worth the effort. But the fact is, once you install “Twitter Updater” plugin on your Wordpress blog, it pings Twitter automatically when you publish.

I now need to find a plugin that lets me show my tweets here at my blog. I need it to help publicise the fact that I can be followed at Twitter, but the one from Twitter often loaded slowly. Also, since Twitter nofollows my links, I feel that, in fairness, I need to nofollow my links to their site.

I now think of using Twitter the way I use feeds. Some people want track posts on Twitter instead of RSS; so make it easy! (Oh, and by the way, in fairness, I should tell you I got the idea of pinging Twitter by observing Jason Calacanis, who has been pinging Twitter for a whilenow. He seems to be a master of publicity; when you see him using something, you can guess it works! )