I have plenty of ideas for new posts, but I’ve been busy with… Hell, I really have no excuses! I just haven’t been as motivated to post to this blog as I have been to do other, higher priority tasks in my life.

I’ve had a lot going on in the last few months, as I’m sure everyone else has. There have been a few changes in my life, but things are still getting better and better.

Some of the things I’m thinking about blogging about are employment (this is big with me now, for a number of reasons), self-improvement (because I’m fighting my way out of another rut), and motivation (which is really integral to improving yourself, but is still a separate issue).

With the recession currently big in the news (which I still try to stay away from!), I’m thinking more and more about ways of generating income on the side, so you can expect some future posts addressing this topic, too.

If you have any ideas for me or would just like to say hello, feel free to leave a comment or contact me via my contact page.

Apparently, a lot of people have just discovered the benefits of using DoFollow on their blogs and have been searching like crazy for blogs to comment on to get links. Andy cautions against doing this, though. He advises that we should focus on leaving relevent comments on blogs with relevent topics to our own blogs. That way the link will be much more meaningful to search engines. This isn’t to say that bloggers shouldn’t leave comments whenever they want, of course, it just means that if the blogger’s purpose is to get good links, then certain guidelines should be followed to get the most benefit.

Another great tip that Andy points to can be found at 1 Stupidly Simple Tip That Will Boost PR And SEO. This tip is to use deep linking in comments rather than just link to the homepage of your blog. I’ve seen this before and wondered about it, but it does make sense. Google and other search engines love deep linking. So, what’s deep linking? It’s when you link to a particular page or post within a site rather than the front page. These links are better because they point to content that is relevent to the topic of the post you’re commenting on, thus carrying higher weight with the search engines and helping to enhance your PageRank even more.

I’ve only touched the surface of this whole idea so far, but I think there’s a lot of benefit to be had by making use of DoFollow on your blog and leaving comments on DoFollow blogs. Check out the posts I’ve linked to above for a more in-depth view and also don’t forget to join Andy’s Bumpzee No Nofollow community once you’ve removed Nofollow from your blog.

If you’ve been blogging or been reading blogs about blogging for a while, I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of nofollow. These are attribute within link tags that tell search engines not to follow or count a link from a blog. Usually nofollow links are found in the comments section on the links that commenters leave for their own blogs or websites. The idea behind YesFollow is that commenters should be rewarded for leaving a useful comment that adds value to the conversation.

I use the DoFollow plugin for WordPress here on FreshBlogger. For this meme, I’m supposed to copy link back to the site which tagged me (see above) and also copy a section of text giving instructions for the next tagee. Lastly, I’m supposed to tag at least one more blog that has YesFollow.

I think it’s more than appropriate for me to tag Cesar from Flee The Cube since he (and Andy Beard) were the ones who turned me on to DoFollow in the first place. Since Andy’s already been tagged and included in the list below, I’m just going to tag Cesar for starters and I’ll update this list if I can think of any others.

Continuing the Meme

***Begin to copy here***

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.
2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.
3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.
4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW us using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the “My Adds” section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you’ve added know, so that they can keep the list going!
5. Leave relevant comments on the blogs listed and get a link back to your site thanks to Do Follow!

My Adds:
Flee The Cube

Original List:
HarpzOn.com
Just Thinkin’

IHelpYouBlog
TechTraction.com
Blogging Help
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad
Midlife Musings

Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
Surviving NJ
BizMark Tech
Two Dog Zoo
TDZ Travel
Body, Mind & Solar

MidLifeMusings
HomeBizBlogger
Confessions of a Housewife
Andy Beard
Randa Clay Design
Solo Technology
Improve your Online Business

IT Infusion
FreshBlogger
Mind Petals
Erik’s Blog
still unimpressive

With all this said, though, there are still way too many spam comments on this blog. I try to review at least the first couple of pages of spam comments each day in order to make sure there aren’t any real comments in there. This is tedious and time-consuming. I’m now thinking I need to do something a little different.

The experts say it’s best to take a layered or multi-pronged approach to fighting comment spam. I’m thinking this is very good advice and I’m ready to make some changes here. The obvious next step is to add some sort of verification to the commenting process. While this is an effective way of fighting spam, I don’t like the idea of making it harder for people to comment. I also absolutely hate captchas. If you’ve never heard that term before, they are the weird text images on login pages and comment forms that are not supposed to be able to be read by a bot.

I think the best solution to this problem is to use something like the Math Comment Spam Protection Plugin. This seems to be about the least annoying way of blocking all but the most sophisticated spambots. Before I install yet another plugin on this blog, I’d really like to get some feedback from you. Can anyone tell me about their experiences using this plugin or one that is similar to it? Do you think this is the best way to fight comment spam?

If you see anything that looks out of place (come on, guys; just since this morning), please let me know as soon as possible. I’ll follow up with a post on my impressions of WordPress 2.1 in a couple of days after I’ve had a chance to kick it around a little.

I installed both in just a few minutes today and I’m well pleased with the look and functionality. I had to tweak the PHP code a little bit for Chris’s sitemap files to make the template work properly with my WordPress theme, but it wasn’t any big deal and it works great now.

The reason I bothered with these additions to my blog at all is twofold: First, having a sitemap at all is a good way for visitors to look over your blog and get a feel for the contents or find something quickly that they might be interested in reading. Secondly, sitemaps are great for SEO. Google loves sitemaps and apparently now, so do Yahoo and MSN. Chris’s sitemap file automatically updates when you post and then pings Google. I’ll have to look into submitting my sitemap now to the other search engines. If you don’t yet have a sitemap on your blog, go check out Adnan’s article and then Chris’s.

With Akismet and other comment spam filtering software, this isn’t much of an issue any more. The nofollow tag just serves to penalize those who take the time to visit and comment on your blog. Cesar’s explanation of this whole process is straightforward and makes great sense. With that said, I’ve gone ahead and installed the dofollow plugin on this blog.

If you leave a comment or already have left a comment on FreshBlogger, you’ll get a real link back to your site that will count in the search engines. I will still be filtering for spam comments and I’ll also still be moderating first comments from visitors. If you’re not familiar with the way this works, WordPress allows me to just moderate comments for a visitor who has never commented before. After I approve your comment, you may comment again using the same name, email, and url without having to be approved.

I think this is a natural way to contribute to the blogging community in general and to share what I can with those who are kind enough to stop by and comment. Thanks to Cesar for taking up this cause. Be sure to check out Cesar’s YesFollow Project.

Apparently, there’s quite a bit of controversy on this topic. It seems that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. If your site is full of links to other sites that aren’t relevant to your own, I’m sure this doesn’t help your rankings. Also, why would you do this? What value does it provide to your visitors?

On the other hand, if you link to sites that have a roughly similar focus to your own, or have content relative to what you feature, then it can only help. I’ve had great success in building connections with other bloggers just by linking to useful information I’ve found on their sites.

With that said, I found Andy Beard’s post, No Follow and Pink Boxes, to be useful. He is specifically talking about the Sociable plugin, which I’m currently using on this blog. This is what produces the little graphics at the bottom of each post that allow readers to click on them and submit the post to digg, reddit, etc, or tag it with delicious tags.

What Andy points out is that each of these little graphics points to a web site that in turn links to a million other sites, most of them being completely irrelevant. In order to prevent these links from leaking your PageRank, he suggests modifying the code for the plugin to use “No Follow” links. This simply means that the links will have a tag that tells spiders and bots from the search engines not to follow them and therefore, not to count them as links.

This tag can be applied to any link on your page and is most often used by default in the comments section of blogs. Before you go and change all of your links, though, be advised that good links are very valuable and are also good form. I’ve modified the sociable plugin in the the way he’s suggested because it makes sense to me, but I don’t plan on using no follow links on a regular basis. All of my links (other than in comments) are live links that you will get full credit for in the search engines if I link to you. As Andy notes in his own blog, this is good policy and the right thing to do.

One other note: If you’re curious about which links on a page are no follow links, get the Search Status Firefox Plugin. You can set it to show the no follow links on a page with little pink boxes around them (Hence, the intriguing title to this post and Andy’s as well. You knew there had to be a reason, right?). It also shows Google PageRank and Alexa Traffic Rank on the status bar at the bottom of your Firefox window. Keep in mind that you have to right click the little @ symbol on the status bar to get to the options menu.