You may have noticed we’ve recently changed the layout of comments on the Blog – some of you may now be lucky enough to have a clean, followed link from our blog to your site.
If your URL is Green – congratulations you’ve earned a link from us by taking part in our community, otherwise your URL will be a completely unlinked in a grey colour.
We have written a custom Wordpress Plugin so we can reward those who participate on the site more. In order to obtain a link you will need to have made a minimum of 10 comments (subject to change). Once you’ve reached this threshold your site will also be given an Editorial Review if your site is deemed link worthy, you will get links on all earlier posts. Our decision on whether your site is link worthy is final.
So happy commenting ![]()
Cheers,
Anthony – Follow me on Twitter!
42 Comments
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- 2
Is this at all related to the whole change with how nofollow is dealt with? *If* nofollow now works the way Matt Cutts has hinted, then it’s nice solution to it all. If you released it as a plugin, I’d totally take it.
- 4
My comments seem to be blocked

- 6
So… you guys don’t trust Becky? =)
- 8
Great news that people are not scared to using followed links when they see fit!
- 9
Great idea for a WP plugin, I’ll add my vote for it to get a public release.
- 10
Hi Antony,
Yeah, Pulse is my day job but I am more well know and prefer to be known under the Firely SEO name. Anyhow, not sure why but when ever I comment with Firefly SEO (had to add a space) of include that word, or anything to do with it, it doesn’t get through?
Many thanks,
Allan
- 11
Interesting idea, I did something similar yesterday which means only registered users get to leave a link, part of a wider plan to give links to legitimate users and not give anything (nofollow or otherwise) to people too lazy to register.
- 12
Is this a WP plugin that you may eventually release? Very clever idea though.
- 13
Nice work Antony – looking forward to seeing the plugin released. So are you releasing it soon?
- 14
Besides my personal question, sorry, great work on the plugin. Looks fantastic. This is something I remember you were first talking about some time ago, so was shoe and so was Joost. First to get it done though, thats cool. It will be interesting to see what if any effect it has on your domain trust and or traffic. Do let us all know.
- 15
I can’t remember how many times I’ve commented on this blog, and I’m truthfully only posting on this article to check and see if I get a shiny green link back.
Would be really interested in the plugin if you released it though

- 16
Great idea, as for the plugin, I’d get it released asap, before someone else jumps on your idea.
- 17
I wouldnt be surprised if I was mannually blcked off – I think Dave is still sore at me for the ketchup incident…
- 18
Link Lucia’s Linky Love with some added CSS, but stingy on the anchor text?
- 19
Creating quite a bit of buzz, looks like this one could be quite big. I wonder what Matt’s thought on nofollowing comments will be. I suspect he might have something to say, perhaps not directly, but this is the sort of thing that might well make Google Quality teams job a little bit more difficult.
- 20
Now all you need to add is Ajax Edit Comments so idiots like me who make a typo can fix them before someone else gets to read them.
- 21
smiles @rishil – the ketchup incident?
- 22
Brilliant stuff. Perhaps this is the first sign of the nofollow changes actually helping those bloggers that enter into regular debates and comments with the blogs that the usually read.
Much more sensible than a blanket nofollow.
Having said that, it does encourage spammers to target lots of pages on your blog – but WP shows new comments in such a way that it’s easy to delete those comments.
Nice work.
- 23
@ andy think about it when you comment on my blog it says name not what anchor text would you like to get from me, I want to promote people not keywords,I might had a tagline link later where you could get link equity, but at the moment you are going to have to stick with what you get, and it’s easier for to control i can see spammers trending and resetting is just one click away

- 24
Great solution, bit like SEOmoz links on profile of those active participants.
- 25
@Darrell Freeman
kinda but I hand checker a lot of the sites
- 26
What’s the betting that this (& subsequent) post(s) get more comments than you’ve ever had before?
TTFN
BFG
- 27
I would love to see the plugin for this great idea!
- 28
Very cool idea. Did you write that in, or was it available in a pre-existing plugin ?
- 29
Hobo have an offering.
- 30
Very cool idea. I just recently started following your blog, but I look forward to contributing more in the future.
- 31
Dave, Anthony – this is outstanding. I have long wanted some way to do exactly this – “your name is your name and not the keywords you want to stuff in.” So, when does the plug-in go on sale?
- 32
” So, when does the plug-in go on sale? ”
On Sale? – surely these very altrustic guys will be giving it away in exchange for a “Thank You”…..
TTFN
BFG
- 33
The irony here is that the author of this post doesn’t have a highlighted link for his comments…yet!
Cutts said that the way google handles no follow has changed a long time ago but it went public recently.
Since then all the SEO’s are trying to think of a new way to handle the changes….
I am sure Cutts will come up with something else about it in a few months so as to keep us all busy

- 34
I love the idea. My only problem would be on my own blog I wouldn’t have time to do that. I suppose if you have a really popular blog you can get volunteers.
- 35
I think the hyper-focus on comments based on a few remarks from a Google employee is quiet amazing. I would say that Google already take into account the low value of comment links on blogs – particularly as it is so easy to spam comments – so I’m not going to worry about it

- 36
Hi, I can’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me, please

- 37
Back links has become very important for google page rank. This idea of providing links through comment is very good. Great idea.
- 38
[...] Dave Naylor is also doing something similar [...]
- 39
This blog rocks! I gotta say, that I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read…
- Bill Bartmann
- 40
Nice idea and good I’m following this blog now. I’m now discovering the benefits from this blog aside from the informative and up to date posts. Thank you.
- 41
Thanks for the hint, I was looking for sth. like that for months

- 42
Anthony/Dave –
This seems like a fantastic idea/policy to implement. How are you finding the results? Is it leading to more/better comments? What about the SEO perks?



Will you be releasing the plugin? I imagine it might be quite popular…