ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

INSPIRED BY THE REASONING and examples of Lucas McDonnell (To Follow or Not To Follow) and Loren Baker (13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck), I’ve installed two plugins: DoFollow and ShowTopCommentators. I truly hope to encourage more meaningful discussions on my posts and at the same time reward commentators with links to their sites (and so help them improve their Google PageRank).

How is this possible? Basically, all external links in most blogs have automatic rel="nofollow" attributes. The DoFollow plugin disables these attributes and the Show Top Commentators plugin displays the names (linked to websites if desired) and number of comments that others have made recently on my blog. In other words, as Lucas put it, “…leaving a comment here gets you a followed link back to your own site through the top commentators on the sidebar.”

And since I have a good spam filter and will continue to moderate comments on this blog, I’m not worried about spam comments. Note though that only on-topic comments will be displayed. For off-topic comments, please Contact Me or just “Shout”.

Afternote on 2007-03-15: After reading Andy Beard’s Ultimate List of DoFollow Plugins, I’ve decided to reward commenters (who have posted 3 or more comments) and not just anyone. So, I’ve switched to LinkLove. I hope this won’t be perceived as calculating. I merely think that a dialog on a post (or with a blogger) surely isn’t made up of just one comment.

Afternote on 2007-03-16: “NoFollow” started because of spam. I started using DoFollow because I thought that we’ve got spam under control through spam filters. However, I forgot that there are other more subtle forms of spam — e.g. useless / meaningless one-liners. I’m waiting now to use the plugin that rewards special comments because basically, I’d like to reward Quality more than Quantity. And I believe that this is the principle behind Google’s PageRank too.