I have written many times that I love the growing community here at Samanathon.com - without my loyal readers, I would be here talking to myself! 
Seriously, it’s because of you all that my little hobby has grown into a real love!! There are many benefits to interacting on Samanathon.com, and now there is one more: I have removed the NOFOLLOW tag for all outgoing links!
I’d like to thank David of Pure Blogging.com for the idea!
What Does That Mean?
It means that if you comment - even once - you get a linkback from me! Comments twice? Two linkbacks! If you comment enough to get on the Top Commentators list, you get the linkbacks from all of those comments and one for each page the plugin is running on- which is every page of this site!!
What Is The NOFOLLOW Tag Anyway?!
The NOFOLLOW tag was created by Google to fight comment spam, it was a great idea but there are so many plugins that fight spam today (like Akismet) that I don’t really think it’s necessary anymore - and there aren’t many spiders that use this tag anyway: if a Yahoo or MSN bot crawls your site, they actually ignore the tag! Oh My!! 
How Can I Remove It From My Site?!
I chose to use a WordPress Plugin to remove the link. That way, if I change my site’s theme, I don’t have to remember to remove the tag from the template! Here is a list for a few popular blogging platforms, just remember that I’ve only tested the WordPress plugin!
EDIT: The WordPress version listed below removes the tag on your entire site! Next time a bot crawls and old post, the commentators will get link love - so make sure you deep link to yourself!
- Disable NOFOLLOW On WordPress
- Disable NOFOLLOW On Movable Type
- Disable NOFOLLOW On Typepad
- Disable NOFOLLOW On Blogger
Sources
The Google Blog’s Article on The NOFOLLOW Tag
Robots TXT.org’s Guide To The Robots META Tag
very cool idea.. I’m guessing I’ll have to implement this on my blog very soon
Let me know when I do and i will put you on the list. I have to do it for 3 blogs so I need people to add.
Either way. If you look at Samans list here you can get a linkback from all of those blogs on it by leaving a comment…lol
That’s the spirit… share a little love with the community!
I always spread the love as much as I can!!
With a few more comments, you’ll be on my Top Commentator’s list by Wednesday - and if you do, you’ll be featured in my Speedy Links article!
I’ve already said this but I’ll say it again… that is a great idea. I’ll have to work in a few more comments before Wednesday.
Well I guess I can add you to the list dofollow list.
Welcome to the Revolution.
http://www.jimimorrisonshead.com/2007/04/16/i-follow-do-you/
Nice, Thanks!!
An excellent way to increase comments on any blog. Now I feel rewarded for my useless input.
Samanathon,
congratulations. In my opinion the nofollow tag will discredit the whole search engine industry. Maybe there’s a role for an engine that ignores the tag.
I think it was a good idea - at first, but the community has created it’s own tools to handle this problem for us!
This should be an interesting experiement. Is this long term or just to test out?
This is a long term change! Comment here and get love!
this has been on my list for a while to do, maybe I should take a moment and do it now!
Do it, let me know and I’ll edit the post!
Seems I will have to wait till tonight at home. My proxy seems to think the download site is porn!
That’s cool. Here’s a link-back for me then =0
Well I think they should make it an option for all blogging websites (blogware? lol) to turn the NOFOLLOW element in the A tag off. I really don’t see a point why not. If it was just spam, the comment would be deleted before it is crawled. Otherwise if there’s too much spam, people would use the comment moderation.
2nd thing: I love the Technorati link train. If not for it, I wouldn’t have found this topic
I’ll definitely remove the NOFOLLOW from my blog, although it’s more of a personal blog and only friends comment anyway.
Thanks for the idea! (And the automatic link-bank
)
No worries! Since you’ve removed the tag, I’ll add you to the I Follow List!
As for your comment: “If it was just spam, the comment would be deleted before it is crawled” - that’s not entirely true for WordPress users: We have a plugin that ships with WordPress that is very good at catching spam - I’d say that 99.9999% of spam is caught - it’s not deleted, but held in moderation for review, but it’s not deleted automatically.
Just FYI!
Yup…Askimit is probably the best invention for blogs ever. I’ve actually never had one get through.
Yeah akismets cool, does a very good job…. had not realised you were doing the follow thing until I read a post on jonlee.ca… seems very popular….
uummmmmmm……..I don’t follow???!!!!
JACKASS!
JP, are ever going to write an article for me?!?!
Looks like the NoFollow movement is really growing. Kudos for removing it on your blog, Saman.. hope it gets you more commenters and readers
Thanks bud! There used to be a lot more commentators but I know that everyone is super busy right now…
They’ll be back! MUHAHAHAH!!!
Good on you Saman.
A great move in true blogging spirit. Yes I am going to take advantage of it this time however now you got me coming back for more
Cheers
dk
Saman, great idea. The competition’s gonna be tough for top commentators now!
At the least, I hope it encourages more commenting in general!
Wow, best news I’ve heard this week! Thanks for the info, this will change the blog community
I follow!
Thats pretty cool idea, you rock…
excellent idea - well done for taking the lead
I am really surprised at the reaction to this!
Genuis!!!
Saman,
I make it a practice to pay a visit to all the blogs I fave…I’m here cos you faved my blog
,
Now I have this Technorati Fave experiment by Gary and Maki to thank for discovering your blog….huh?
To be frank I like what I see, especially your humor, so keep it up!
Darrin
Thats so cool of you to say! I’m glad you like the site!!
Oh yeah, forgot to tell you…my blog uses DO FOLLOW plugin from Semiologic
http://www.semiologic.com/software/dofollow/
We’ve just removed it too….
I’ve been using DoFollow for sometime now and participated in all of the hype surrounding it by leaving comments on posts like this. I think it does build more of a community as encourages comments which is what we all like to see right?
Absolutely, If it wasn’t for our communities, we wouldn’t have anyone to talk to!
I’m using this on my blog too. I also have the top commentators plugin to show a list a top commentators on the front page with links ( with follow )
Nice site you have here Saman, I love the Street Fighter guys
I stumbled across this site when I googled “firefox nofollow plugin” and just wanted to add my two cents — I applaud you for going ‘dofollow’ and, if i may presume, expect it will do nothing but increase the quantity and quality of commenting. I’ve had ‘dofollow’ on my blog since I started, but being a relative noobie I don’t expect much in the way of comments. In any event, I just wanted to thank you for going do follow and hopefully more people follow suit!
Thanks for the compliments bud! I’m glad to hear that you removed the tag as well - it will only help increase comments, especially if you promote that you are using it!
I have to say its a good thing. Without the nofollow tag a better picture of blogs are built up, and it will begin to show how active the community is. Plus it encourages people to post if they no a link is going to lead to their site that a bot will follow.
Nice one.. I have removed mine also and I think It attracted more comments on my blog…Keep up the good work
Thanks buddy! I hope to see you around here more!
I removed the rel = ‘nofollow’ code…
I’m thinking of putting a copy of that cute little widget with a u comment I follow logo…
Chris
That kind of info is really valuable. I´ll change my template right now to follow comments.
Thanks a lot and feel free to visit me any day to have some fun.
Entretenimiento Online
How about hacking No Follow Tags..
Any Idea.. Thanks
If you mean hacking the NOFOLLOW on a site other then your own, you really can’t without actually hacking that site….
I just downloaded the plugin and installed it. It was so easy! I use Spam Karma to catch all the junk and spam so I think “no follow” is no longer needed. I always hated penalizing legit commentors because of the creeps who spam.
Thanks!
Now I need to find that u comment I follow logo - on to google.
Yeah! My site also encourage other to do the same, Do Follow Movement.
For those who use blogsome, I created a step-by-step to remove nofollow tag on blogsome
Is there any HTML tag to over write “nofollow” tag ..any hack….?
Thanks
Sorry Wong, there is no hack to over write nofollow…but as far as i know, neither yahoo nor msn pay any attention to the tag, so there is that i guess. great site you have here saman, fun mix of tech and humor
Your’s right, only Google pays attention to NOFOLLOW (they did create it after all!).
Thanks for the kind words!
Excellent! Good to hear that more and more people are joining the DoFollow movement! I myself have it in effect on my Christian blog and I love it!
Steve
I think I’ll try this some time!
Good article, I’ve remove no follow attribute on my blog too
I found this messing around on google… I applaud you for wanting to share the love. Too many people are stingy these days. Best of luck, I intend to post as much as possible.
Thanks!!!
Thanks!
I wonder, what were you looking for when you found this page?