The Death of Do-Follow

Over the past few days Blogger has changed it's comment form to exclude links pointing back to the commenter's site. There was no announcement made and once again Google has caused people to scream and flail. Google owns Blogger if you are wondering what the connection is.

The gist of it is only links to other Blogger blogs will be displayed in the comments. If you have a blog elsewhere you can still leave a comment but there won't be an outgoing link to your site.



People using Blogger are understandably irate as this just adds one more reason why others won't bother commenting on Blogger blogs. Conspiracy talk has already begun and cites this as an attempt by Google to undermine all the other Blogging Platforms by removing all outgoing Blogspot links and the PR associated with them.

It should be mentioned that you can still get an indirect link by setting up a Blogger account and listing your other blogs in your profile. When you leave a comment on a Blogger blog the reader would have to follow your link on the comment back to your profile and then access your blog from there.

I want to discuss the ramifications of this but for those interested in a good summation of what has been done see Blogger.com No Longer Allows Links to Non-Blogger Sites in Comments by Windyridge. Read this post and then come back and listen to my take on this - it concerns everyone that is currently using do-follow.

What is Google up to now?

Each time Google acts there is swift condemnation from the blogging world. The general theory is that Google is a monopoly and everything they do is centered around eliminating competition - competing advertisers in relation to the crack down on paid links and now we will hear how they are trying to take down other blogging platforms like wordpress.

If you are one of the people who subscribe to this view then please hear me out.

If Google's prime objective was to control all advertising on the net they could do it overnight. If they wanted to end all the other blog platforms online they could wipe them out in the blink of an eye. How?

Think on this for a bit. Google controls most of the traffic on the net. They are just one search engine among many and yet most people choose to use them when searching for something. Google can list whoever they want for whatever reason they want and if you don't like the results they give you then you are free to use another search engine. You can not call in the District Attorney or the Attorney General and ask that Google be sued for violating anti trust because they didn't index your blog or because they took away your PR. The legal minds would quickly inform you that you can use a competing service if you aren't happy with Google.

The point is that they are NOT a monopoly - there are lots of competing search engines. What they are is successful and all because people CHOOSE to use them and not because people HAVE to use them.

Now for the real shocker - Google could simply decide that only Blogspot blogs will be listed in their index. They could also decide that any site displaying any advertising that they don't own or control will be dropped from their index as well. They haven't done this but they could and there would be nothing wrong with this.

Google's index is no different than you or I publishing a list. Take a popular site like 45n5.com which lists the top 100 "make money online" blogs according to Mark the owner. Now for some reason, in spite of several requests to include me in the listings I have never heard back from the site and haven't been added. Do I have the right to sue because I haven't been added to the Top 100 index? No. It's Mark's index and he can do what he wants with it. (But if he were to add me and hopefully he has a sense of humor, I would be overjoyed to remove the no-follow on my link - hehe maybe blackmail will get me in.)

The point is Google can do everything people are accusing them of if they wanted to do what they are accused of and they could do it instantly without all this playing around. They haven't though and that's because they aren't trying to eliminate advertising competition or other blogging platforms. The only competition they would like to eliminate is other search engines and they are doing this by being the "BEST" search engine.

It is ironic that people have been claiming that Google is no longer "valid" since the latest slap reduced so many high PR sites to ashes. Do they really think this invalidates Google? Google eliminated one of the top avenues that people were using to artificially inflate their PR - people were buying PR from sites openly selling it. Does stopping this practice make them less valid? Would you rather see a site listed on top of the serp's because it was able to buy the most reviews on the net or would you prefer to see the site that has the most authentic PR?

The end result is that Google only takes action in order to make their search results more valid. Getting rid of a portion of the paid links problem increased their validity, it did not diminish it.

Google and the The Do Follow Movement


When I first heard about the Do Follow movement my immediate reaction was that this won't end well for the people using it. Like paid links nobody stopped to think about Google's reaction to it. If you depend on Google for your traffic then you really should think about Google before proceeding down one path or another.

So, how do you think Google feels about Do-Follow?

Let's ask what is the point of Do-Follow?

If you are a blogger then you have convinced yourself that this is a legitimate way of inducing comments from your readers. More people will comment if you offer them a link that passes PR back to the commenter's page.

Do I really need to tell you how Google sees this?

This is simply another way to game the search engine. Before you protest just think of how many sites publish lists of Do-Follow blogs with high PR. What are people being told to do? If you want to increase your page rank then leave comments on all these high PR blogs. Does this allow a blog with poor quality content to inflate it's PR? You bet it does. If you are using Do-Follow then you are still selling PR but instead of money you are doing it in return for readership and comment content.

It doesn't matter if you don't think there is anything wrong with what you're doing. In fact Google doesn't care what your reasons are because you are ultimately allowing others to game the serp's even if your reasons are pure and unselfish.

Like paid links the people who will be penalized will be the ones allowing the links - not the ones receiving the links.

I mentioned a penalty but I am only guessing. It seems to me that Google is sending a clear message in regards to removing links from the Blogger comments. If anything it probably means that comment links will or are now being ignored by Google although I have no proof. It makes sense for them to follow this path though. What possible reason could allowing comment links help Google in ranking sites? Almost none that I can see. They know that all these links were not created by the PR owner and that the owner is passing on PR indiscriminately. Why should they accept the link as valid?

Just a hunch but I think comment links play an important role in Google's algorithm.

Google's latest move is puzzling because they could simply decide to ignore these types of links without anybody even knowing so why the change to Blogger. It seems obvious that the changes were made to stop people from removing the no-follow tag on Blogger comments. All Blogger blogs are automatically no-followed and wouldn't pass PR normally and Google would have no reason to change the linking structure. That they are eliminating links to the outside altogether has to mean it's the only way to stop do-follow links. This sends the message that they don't like do-follow or at least that is how I am reading it.

The thing is that if do-follow is causing them concern why not just ignore the links on comments all together? Why bother sending a message trying to get everyone to eliminate the do-follow links?

I am totally guessing but is it possible that Google uses the amount of comments a blog gets (by counting links) to help rank sites on it's index? It certainly would be a somewhat relevant factor in deciding which sites are seen as an authority. This certainly isn't conclusive but in general the more authoritative sites do tend to get the most comments.

As I said, just a guess but it would explain why Google can't ignore the links and why they want no-follow used. If they have been using this metric in the algorithm then you can see how do-follow would dramatically skewer the rankings.

So why not tell everybody they use comments to aid their rankings? Because then we will all be spamming our own sites with comments.

I might be completely off here but it pays to wonder when Google starts making changes. My hypothesis may be wrong and there could be other reasons for these Blogger changes but I know that Google does not like the Do-Follow movement and you can be sure that they will have a plan to eliminate it. This alone should make you think about being involved in it.

Cheers,

Grizzly