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.

• New! User can delay dofollow some number of days. Default is zero, and that’s what I plan to use. This was added to fulfill a request.
• New! Problem related to a call to a function that did not exist in PHP 4 is fixed. This is provided to fulfill a request.
• New! You can skip the do follow for a particular name. I use this on my name both to save CPU and to minimize the risk that Google might think I am Google bombing to gain rank on the mega-important word .
• Do follow url in “name” after a specified number comments from a particular visitor: Blogger can specify the number “N” in a range.
• Do follow urls left in comments after a specified number of comments by a visitor.
• No follow “names” with too many characters. Number of characters specified by blogger.
• No follow all comments left more than 14 days after a blogger stops blogging entirely. This prevents your blog from becoming a link farm if you get busy, hit by a car or whatnot. (The superstitious know doing this will actually prevent you from being hit by a car.)

I also made a few invisible changes to further reduce the cpu. These are technical things that have to do with when and how the database is called. Note: This program already calls the database less than 1/4 as often as the original Linky Love.

Future Plans

I am looking into a few other issues to see if there are other ways I can optimize the plugin just in case we discover the plugin is cpu or memory intensive at blogs that contain many, many comments in the database and/or are get lots of comments.

I will be developing an comments review interface that simplifies catch and delete old comment spam that may have slipped through in the past. In particular, I what I have nick-named “Daniel” spam. That is spam that sort of looks innocent the first time you see it, but turns out to contain the same phrase over and over.

For more information, visit

Summary

Download. Upload to your plugin directory. Activate. Select your settings. Tell people about it.

Finally, leave me comments and trackbacks. And remember: I use this plugin. So, if you leave several comments, you’ll be dofollowed too!

I’m planning a new release of L’s Linky Love by Friday. The reason for the release is simple: I received a few requests for additional features/ fixes to ’s Linky Love; two were easy so I added them. I also added another feature I thought up myself. I’ve installed my updated version and I’m requesting comments to help me verify all the functions are still working .

Meanwhile, to give you something to comment one here are the features / fixes / hidden improvements in this release:

1. Time Delay:
   In addition to the previous matching, the blogger can now include a time delay. This was requiested by Steve Cronin of More then Scratch the Surface. I’ve set this to 1 day for today; I plan to set it to zero after today because I think the other checks are sufficient for my blog and blogging habits.
2. Bug fix:
   I rewrote the way I find the date of the most recent published blog post because they way I did it causes problems for at least one version of MySQL. The new way uses Wordpress functions, and so should work for anyone who manages to get wordpress to work. The bug was found by Aaron of milienzo.com
3. Name exclusion:
   The new plugin lets you excluse one “name” from being dofollowed. This is my own idea; the explanation follows.
4. CPU saving efforts:
   I did some Googling and discovered I can save a little CPU by modifying the MySQL ‘count(*)’ to ‘count(1).’ So, I changed that. I also reorganized some of the internal logic to make sure the “dofollow” logic granting code is exited as soon as we know the comment won’t be followed. This will save a small amount of CPU. These changes should have no visible effect, but since I made quite a few, I need to get a bunch of comments so I can verify!

A more major release to let us drill down and find old spam is planned after I get the “little” tweaks done.

Now, I think I should explain one of the features, as no one asked for it!

Why exclude one “name” from being dofollowed?

I noticed I lost page rank for my name after installing a dofollow plugin; I dropped from about 14 to who knows where.

My theory is that suddenly flooding my own knitting blog with internal links with the same anchor text set off Google’s google-bomb alert. If my theory is true, this will be a risk with all dofollow plugins.

I actually sort of like not appearing early on searches for my first name only. However, some people may hate losing rank for the name they use for comments at their own blogs.

In any case, I also realized I don’t really want to create even more internal links to my index page in comments. (The internal link issue will not be a problem for bloggers who have consistently logged in when leaving their own comments.

Anyway, to fix this, I coded the “name exclusion” option. I “exclude” my name from being ‘dofollowed’.

Now, please comment! (Especially if you’ve commented before

If I get a number of comments from newer and older visitors, I’ll be able to test the day exclusion fully and make sure I haven’t introduced any bugs while reorganizing the logic. (Comments from people other than me are essential. So are a few new comments so I can test the 1 day delay. )

• What is or is not spam varies from blog niche to blog niche.
• Leaving your SEO term in a blog niche may be unacceptable to the blogger for cultural and business reasons.
• Yes, you can safely link drop if the link is informational and
• Don’t spam Suzy Homemaker.

Cultural Factors Affect the “Spam / Not Spam” Designation of a Comment

I may be wrong, but I think the “battlelines” on the “SEO in name” argument are being fought between two different cultural contingents: the “Suzy Homemaker” blogs and the “SEO” blogs. The first group blogs about topics like knitting, gardening, crochet, sewing, cooking and mommy concerns. The second includes “money, blogging, seo, marketing and IT blogs.”

I realized how important cultural factors were when I read Dane’s comment, mentioned crochet:

One very big reason I switched from Akismet to Spam Karma (I notice you use it too) is that I simply don’t want uptight Jane over at crochet-blog-monthly deciding who can post comments at my blogs.

I crochet, I sew, I knit. I make decent money on a personal knitting blog. So, I am “Crochet Jane”!

It’s probably for that reason that I know this: What is or is not “spam” varies from blog niche to blog niche. In the “money / seo / marketing / blog design” niche, leaving SEO text in the “name” box is “done”. In knitting, that’s “not done”.

This isn’t a matter or ethics, it’s a cultural difference.

Not recognizing the cultural differences can hurt you.

The cultural differences presents a danger to some who are using the dofollow list and misapplying SEO advice about link dropping and anchor text.

If we are honest, we all have noticed that some people are driving the dofollow lists on autopilot. They find a list, start at the top, and click on down. They don’t stay long at any blog. When they discover themselves reading a dull, boring page about knitting (yawn), they feel they should be “rewarded” for their benifecence and leave a nearly meaningless comment containing elenventy-seven links and an SEO name in the ‘name’ box.

You may think I’m guessing some think they deserve “rewards”; I’m not. You can read these “explanations” on some forums and in discussions that spring up in blog comments.

Ok, so the visitor thinks they “deserve” to be “rewarded”. The often high traffic “Suzy Homemaker” blogger who runs the sois dissant ‘boring’ blog disagrees. What happens then?

Suzy Homemaker edits, deletes or reports the comment to Akismet.

Suzy Homemaker and I know some SEO / Money bloggers think they think we should consider bloggers “innocent” until proven guilty and leave it alone.

Actually I do consider the borderline spammers innocent until proven guilty. Guilt or innocence is irrelevant to my decision to edit or report for a very good reason: I like money.

How borderline spam costs me money!

Bizarre, irrelevant comments with “names” like “Las Vegas Real Estate” make my knitting blog look spammy to knitters. It discourages knitters from visiting or commenting. Knitters click on adSense and Kontera ads for knitting items. That makes me money.

I’m simply not going to sacrifice my 700 – 1100 unique visitors a day because some fly-by visitor wants good SEO for the term “SEO expert”. Innocent mistake? Too bad. Any real SEO expert would advise that riddling my knitting blog with terms like “SEO Expert” might confuse my AdSense or Kontera and cause SEO ads to appear. My knitters won’t click on those. I will delete that SEO term.

So, why can’t some bloggers just lighten up?

Those of us on the “Suzy homemaker” side of the divide hear “lighten up” from the “SEO” bloggers all the time. (Why does this always remind me of dates where the guy suggested I was too hung up? )

I’m not going to belabor this: We aren’t going to lighten up because we want to make money.

What about at “Big Bucks Blogger”?

If you leave an “Blog Strokes” in the name box at Big Bucks Blogger, that’s fine with me!

Money/ seo/ blogging about blogging bloggers almost all think SEO terms make fine names. Dane does; Maurice does; Andy Beard does. It’s a cultural norm. Besides, an SEO name like “Blog Strokes” might hurt “The Knitting Fiend”, but it doesn’t hurt the SEO of “Big Bucks Blogger” one bit!

Are you beginning to understeand why these cultural norms exist? It had nothing to do with needing to “lighten up”. Suzy Homemaker cannot permit others to interfere with her ability to monetize her blog.

Can people link drop at dofollow blogs at all?

Of course. I think it’s generally a good idea to drop links and insert SEO terms in the name box provided it’s done judiciously.

Very few bloggers mind links provided the links are conversational and informational. If the blog isn’t in your niche, your SEO term is neither conversational nor informational. It may be disappointing to discover this, but generally speaking, blogs about SEO bore knitters to tears. (Yawn). More generally, if the topic of a blog makes you yawn, your favorite SEO term is probably not informational on that blog.

I can tell Dane “gets” this. He mentions he leaves a comment as part of a conversation: that’s what bloggers want. He also mentions he leaves “Blog Strokes” as the “name” at money blogs, but would not leave “Blog Strokes” in the name box at a non-money blog.

Like Mama Bear’s bed, he found the “just right” solution.

Is it ok to go out of your way to visit dofollow blogs?

As my sister the obstetrician would say: Abso-friggin-lutely!

I notice that both Maurice and Dane found my blog through Andy Beard’s BumpZee’s nofollow community. Visiting interesting blogs that belong to that community increases a bloggers chance of getting a “follow” links which is good for SEO. I’m doing the same thing!

So, what shouldn’t bloggers do?

Don’t grab a glass of sherry, find a “dofollow list”, pick an SEO term you want to highlight today and start marching down the list. Then, don’t “carefully craft” a “relevant” comment that contains the SEO term — leaving 1 comment every 3 minutes

This behavior tends to result in the sort of “Love” comments that Tricia saw on many of her blogs and I saw on my knitting blog. I’m sorry, but “Love” was not an informative name that told my knitting blog visitors what they would find at the end of the link.

Here’s, my message to “Love”: You make get a break from SEO bloggers who tend to be indulgent. But if you leave a comment like that on a “boring” Suzy Homemaker blog, it’s getting reported.

Dane already knew how strict “Crochet Jane” is. Notice he mentioned her severity? Crochet Jane exists. And she’ll gouge you with her size 00 metal crochet hook? Ouch!

So, be respectful when commenting– especially on your first comment.

Finally, the Wrap up

I think unsophisticated bloggers and web site owners are hurting themselves by leaving borderline spam comments. If you leave a borderline spam comment at the wrong blog — especially a high traffic, well monetized “Suzy homemaker” blog — you could find your attempt to jack SEO backfires because the blogger will report you to Akismet.

There is no point in anyone telling the “Suzy homemaker” bloggers to lighten up, or explain the SEO terms are innocent mistakes. We won’t lighten up and permit these irrelevant links on our blogs because doing so costs us money.

Yes, we know you “Love” Suzy Homemaker. But don’t try to force your affections on Suzy Homemaker. She’ll bust you.

What are Borderline Spammy Habits?

We all recognize out and out spam. The comment text contains several links to sites that are irrelevant to the post or blog, and the links contain SEO terms. The “name” is an SEO term. The actual comment text is irrelevant. In truly skanky spam, the links point to porn, pharmaceutical, mortgages or gambling sites.

But every blogger knows, spam is spam even if it points to cooking sites.

We all recognize comments that aren’t at all spammy. These comments provide an honest to goodness name or non-SEO term nickname in the name field which can be associated with the commenter’s blog or site. The links in comment text point to destinations that are specifically relevant to the conversational thread. The visitor did not drop links to their many, multiple blogs and web sites in the comment text.

Finally, the comment text fits the conversational thread.

So what’s borderline spam? Not suprisingly, it’s a comment that contains some valuable content but also shares some of the traits seen in full-blown spam! Non-conversational links in text? SEO names in the name field? We do-followers are seeing an explosion of this!

As a visitor, you might think: “Well, I left valuable commentary. This blog follows. I guess I deserve to refine my SEO by inserting a good SEO term in the name field and adding a desirable anchor text to my link in comments. Also, I want to leave a second singature link in the comment so I can get extra clicks.”

You also think: I’m just being smart and maximizing the return on the three minutes I spent writing this four sentence comment!

Well, you are not being smart; you are hurting yourself!

Leaving Borderline Spammy Comments Hurts You

Here’s how leaving borderline spammy comment hurts you: If you leave borderline spammy comments you will be reported to Akismet by someone.

How many people will report you?

If your comment irritates 1% of bloggers, 1% of bloggers may report your comment to Akismet. If they are kindly inclined, they will simply delete or edit. Either way, you get absolutely no linkjuice.

If your comment irriates 10% of bloggers. Then 10% of bloggers may report you to Akismet. Irritate 50% of bloggers? You know the answer to this!

Clearly, if you irritate a blogger, you will not get your multiple links with great SEO anchor text. At best, you wasted your time.

But things are even worse for you. If you are reported often enough, you will find it difficult to comment on all blogs protected by Akismet. Remember: If “Jane” has very strict standards and reports you, you can have trouble posting at “Joe’s” blog because Akismet will bounce you before he sees the comment.

What Behaviors Should You Avoid?

I can’t list all borderline spammy practices. I advise following this principle: “Avoid being greedy.”

When you visit a dofollow blog, particularly for the first time, leave a relevant comment; then count on getting one link with your name as an anchor. Think of getting dofollows as asking for dessert: the blogger is willing to give you a slice of pie. They don’t want to give you the whole pie! (Especially not if you are a first time visitor!)

So, you are still wondering: But what specifically should I avoid doing? Here’s an incomplete list of things not to do:

1. Don’t leave an SEO term in the “name” box. Leave a “name” or “nickname” : “Andy” is a name. “Tricia” is a name. “Las Vegas Real Estate” and “Learn Spanish” are not names. Some bloggers will let you get away with writing something like “Andy Beard — Niche Marketing” but you might want to wait until the blogger trusts you before doing that. Also, watch and make sure the blogger is letting other people do it!
2. Don’t leave a second signature block at the bottom of the post. You already got a signature in the “name” and “url” field. Readers who want to visit your blog can already click that signature. You may want perfect anchor text but remember: your blogger host can’t afford lots anchor text with your SEO terms on their blog. It confuses their adsense and Kontera contextual ads and decreases their revenue!
3. Don’t insert irrelevant hyperlinks in the comment text. Someone named “love” hyperlinked the word love to a dating site when commenting on my sock pattern. That’s spammy!
4. Don’t expect a dofollow on your first visit. There are plugins that only give dofollows after you have visited several times. (L’s Linky Love is one of them.)
5. Don’t leave multiple comments at several of a bloggers different blogs on the same day. Some bloggers have 9 blogs; if you hit the all on the same day, with the same url, you will be reported by Akismet.

In short: If you want to boost your SEO, visit do-follow blogs. If you have something to say, leave a comment. Come back if you like the blog. Comment some more. Participate with that blogger’s community.

But don’t leave the sorts of comments you would never dream of leaving if a blog were “nofollow”!

What does the plugin actually do?

This is a variety of “dofollow” plugin. It’s main function is to strip “nofollow” tags from links in comments. The purpose is to encourage comments by rewarding commenters with “dofollow” links which boosts their rank in search engine. However, this particular plugin also has features that thwart human’s who are paid to visit blogs and leave insipid comments simply to boost their companies back links.

Here are the features:

1. Encourages good comments: Dofollows are added to the author “name” and links in comment text after a commenter leaves some minimum number of comments. The blogger can set this minimum number to anything between 3 and 10. This encourages regular visitors to comment, but discourages spammers by forcing them to visit your blog many times before they get “dofollows”.
2. Encourages links. Dofollows are added to trackbacks and pingbacks only after the blog author has left some minimum number of comments, trackbacks or pingbacks. This discourages scrapper sites from sending you spammy trackbacks but rewards real bloggers for linking you.
3. Gives peace of mind. Dofollows will not be added to comments left more than 14 days after you published your most recent post. This is a safety feature that prevents your blog from becoming a link farm should you ever be unexpectedly absent from your blog due to illness or any other major life event.
4. Thwarts overly aggressive SEO types. The blogger may refuse “dofollows” to “names” that contain too many characters. This can be used to avoid giving “dofollows” to commenters who claim their name is “cashmere dog sweater”.
5. Gives you more control over dofollow / nofollow options. As is always the case, the blogger can also delete the comment, report the comment to Akismet or delete the name or url. That’s good for truly spammy comments. But with L’s Linky Love, you get another, less drastic, option. You manually prevent “dofollow” but still show the comment url and name by deleting the user email address when editing the comment. This lets you permit borderline visitors continue to comment, but deprive them of “dofollows” until they behave the way you like visitors to behave.

Get L’s Linky Love Plugin.

1. Find the Admin Panel: Visit your Wordpress Admin panel find “Options” click. Click “L_LinkyLove” in the menu sub-bar. The admin panel will open.
    
2. Customize: In the top box, enter the number of comments you want visitors to leave before the “author name” associated with their comment becomes “dofollow” in the top box. In the second box, ener the number of comments you want visitors to leave before the comments they drop in the content become “dofollow”. In the third box, enter the maxmum number of characters in a “name” you are willing to dofollow. Finally, decide if you want me to drop links in your blog.
3. Click Submit. L’s Linky Love is now working!

Now for the big question:

Should you drop me links?

I bet you are trying to decide if you should give me links? Well, the links have several purposes. One is to get me zillions of links and propel me into the top ranks of money making bloggers. The more important reason is to inform valued commenters and spammers you are participating in Dofollow using my plugin rather than other plugins. My plugin makes it more difficult for human comment spammers to spam and it may discourage them from visiting your blog.

Currently, the plugin places a link just after single post; the text says
“Comments protected by L’s Linky Love.” Technically, this text appears outside the area where programs like PPP forbid links. However, to avoid the possibility that PayPerPost will ding you for links, you can limit display these informational links to older posts only be selecting: “Yes, but only on old posts”; older is defined as more than 180 days old. You can also exclude these links entirely.

What do I suggest you do? I think it’s useful to inform visitors about the plugin. So, I would suggest you select “yes” and display my links for a little while. Later, when you have time, create a “comment policy” page where you describe your comment policy; instead of showing my links, link to that. On that page, describe your policy and mention “L’s Linky Love”, posting the url of my plugin page. That will give me one link instead of zillions and also inform spammers and valued visitors of your comment policy.

Summary

Download L’s Linky Love. Use it. Tell people about it.

Finally, leave me comments and trackbacks and let me know how L’s LinkyLove works for you. And remember: I use this plugin. So, if you leave several comments, you’ll be dofollowed too!

This comment plugin is intended to give “dofollow” bloggers better control of the follows they grant.

• Gives “DoFollow” to the author link after a visitor has commented a number of times specified by blogger. I permit the blogger to select a number of times between 3 and 7. (Note: The match criteria is matching email, name and url. )

  In my opinion, the lower limit of 3 is the minimum sensible number to thwart spammers; I plan to use this value. Any choice above 7 isn’t really giving out “dofollow” links.

• Gives “DoFollows” to links in comments after a visitor has commented the number of times specified by the blogger. I permit the blogger to select any number at all, and also never grant “DoFollows” to links in comment text.
• Only gives 1 dofollow to an individual visitor per post. That is: if the visitor makes 20 comments on one post, at most only the first comment qualifies for “dofollow”. The match is tested on visitor email address, url and IP address.
• Stops granting “dofollows” on comments made more than 14 days after the most recent post was published. This will prevent a blog from becoming a link farm if the blogger falls ill and is unable to delete or manage their blog.
• Will not give “dofollows” to any commenter who enters a name with more than 20 characters. This prevents people ‘named’ “Las Vegas Real Estate” or “Cashmere Dog Sweaters” from getting “dofollows.”
• Runs before NoOldSpamLinks. This permits NoOldSpamLinks to overide anythign done by this plugin.

Even with these features, I suspect human comment spammers will still try to get “dofollow” links. However, to do so, they will need to visit over and over and make reasonable thoughtful comments and basically behave like real honest to goodness blog visitors.

I’ll be visiting to checm my blogs to make sure the plugin actually does what I want it to do. If you are visiting, you may see your dofollows turning on or off as I periodically test the controls and check the blog display. Don’t worry; I will eventually stabilize.

I will probably release this on Wednesday. Meanwhile, my blog posts will be sort of boring!

I want to continue to give “dofollow” links to visitors who leave thoughtful comments and participate in conversations at my blog. I don’t want to grant “dofollows” to people who visit, leave truly stupid comments and drop irrelevant links in comments

For this reason, this morning I spent some time rigging up a “proto-plugin” that should to the following:

• Generally, grants “dofollow” to comments after a blog visitor leaves their fourth comment with matching email addresses, urls and author names. Once a visitor qualifies, the dofollows are applied retroactively.
• Exception: If a commenter left a name that is longer than 17 characters, they aren’t getting a dofollow on that name ever.

I’ll explain my reasoning for these choices on Wednesday when I have the first “real” version of this plugin available. (It will have a a user interface that lets individual bloggers tweak some choices. )

Meanwhile, if you are not a spammer and left a few comments earlier don’t worry about having lost your “dofollow”. Once you leave four comments, you comments will “follow”.

Oh… and let me know if you have any suggestions for plugin features. If I am aware of them, they are easy to code and don’t waste loads of CPU, I may include them!

Because this is human entered spam, we dofollow blogs will likely see dozens a week rather than hundreds or thousands. In fact, I think we have all been seeing this spam. So I was wondering how others diagnose the human spam. Naturally, I’ll also tell you how I detect it!

How I identify human spam

When I receive a comment, if I recognize the person commenting or the url of the blog listed in the link, I know it’s not spam. So, the comment and link stays in.

After that, I ask myself a series of questions.

1. Is the “name” given by the commenter an obvious SEO term like “Cashmere Dog Sweater” or “Search Engine Optimization”. If yes, it’s spam. I either strip the link or delete the comment. I might report it as spam. If the “name” is not an SEO term, I go to the next question.
2. Does the link take me to an English language blog with original content and an identifiable author. Not spam: the link stays in.
3. Does the link go to a blog that matches my niche in any language. If yes, it’s not spam: the link stays in.
4. Does the link go directly to a merchant who sell something other than advertising? Got a shopping cart on your site? If yes, it’s spam: I strip the link.
5. Is the site obviously a splog? Spam! Strip link.
6. Is the link to a site in a language I do not understand? If I got to this question and it’s in a language I don’t understand, it’s 95% certain to be spam: I strip the link.

Questions 1-6 generally cover nearly all comments. However, as a tie breaker, and I ask myself two more questions:

“Is the comment specific and meaningful, and well suited to the conversational thread? ” If it is, I know the comment still might be spam, but it’s probably not; the comment and link stay in.

But if the comment is vague, I check the referring IP address for the comment. If it resolves to a country with very low wages, I strip the link. Otherwise, I flip a coin.

Are there any symptoms I’ve missed?

After all, people surfing the web click on ads under certain circumstances which include:

1. The ad is targeted to their interest.
2. They are in an ad-clicking mood.

Read this again: Visitors click ads only if they are in an ad-clicking mood.

So why might this be a problem for you? Well, if you are working hard to monetize your blog, you may be engaging in a number of practices to boost your traffic. I know I am.

So far, that’s ok. But did you know some of the methods to boost traffic will result in low click through rates – - at least in the short run.

Mind you, the methods may result in clicks in the long run– but only if you can convert these visits into what you might call “natural” traffic.

So, what type of traffic isn’t “natural”? It’s first generation traffic that arises as a direct result of some traffic boosting methods. For example, it could be traffic from a “dofollow” list, or traffic from requesting Posties to digg your post on the PPP board.

Why “Dofollow” traffic doesn’t click.

Let me give an example of traffic that won’t generate clicks. To encourage traffic, you might have added your blog to a “DoFollow” list. I have, as you can see from the blog stats for BigBucksBlogger, visit #15 came from someone’s DoFollow list.

Frankly, I’m very happy to get that traffic.
Nevertheless, there is no point in deceiving myself into believing visitor #15 was likely to click on an ad. They probably wouldn’t because:

1. Most dofollow visitors are uninterested in ads associated with my blog niche. Period. At my knitting blog, I’m pretty darn sure practically no one visiting from the dofollow list is fascinated with knitting; these people aren’t clicking ads to buy yarn.
2. The “dofollow” visitors are not in an ad clicking mood.

The second point is actually the more important of the two.

Think about this: When people decide to use their dofollow blog rolls, they are focused on reading posts, thinking up a fairly relevant comment and dropping a link to their blog. Generally speaking, they aren’t going to do anything to distract them from the task at hand which is visiting a bunch of blogs and leaving a bunch of links.

They don’t click links in ads.

There are other sources of traffic that is fairly unlikely to convert to links: People who you asked to visit and click your Digg button. People who clicked signature links at webmaster forums; they are curious but often aren’t all that interested in buying products in your niche. (I ask you, how many at webmaster forums are interested in knitting? I’m sure they didn’t click ads!)

Should you stop trying to attract “Dofollow” traffic?

Still, there is a very good reason to stay on dofollow lists, to visit appropriate forums and to at attract traffic even if it’s non-ad-clicking traffic. The fact is, if you write good content, some of this traffic will eventually result in “natural” traffic.

How? Well, even though I skim when I visit dofollow blogs, I also bookmark the blogs that contain content that interests me.

Later, I return and read more. Believe it or not, I’ve even written whole blog posts as a result of articles I wandered across on the dofollow list. I’m sure other people using the dofollow list do the same.

This means that if you write content that interests some visitors, you will find that eventually a few of the dofollow visitors will come back. Since many of those dofollow visitors are bloggers, they may even be inspired to write a post, link your blog and leave you a trackback.

This will increase your visibility with search engines and eventually bring in “natural” traffic. When that happens, your blog will see ad-click rates rise. This is because there is a certain category of visitors who click on ads at a higher than average rate.

Search Engine Visitors Click Ads

Yes, visitors doing searches tend to click on ads. Not only are they interested in your topic, they are interested right now. After all, if they just Googled for advice on “topic X” , you can be pretty sure they are on a mission to learn more about “topic X”. That means they are fairly likely to click an ad about “topic X”.

Now, you have visitors how are in the mood to click ads and you will start to make money. And what was the secret?