Links From Blog Comments - Case Study
November 5, 2007
I've decided to create another case study, this time demonstrating whether or not writing comments on blogs that do not use the NOFOLLOW attribute will help search engine rankings from the links that are received.
To facilitate this, I've created a brand new AdSense site based around a niche theme. It has 11 unique articles on it (nothing from free article sites).
I've also written a script which did some massive data mining through Google to find about 600 blogs in a variety of subjects that do not use the NOFOLLOW attribute. (In case you don't know what that is, the NOFOLLOW attribute prevents search engines from counting the link in their rankings.)
I've already had about 16 comments posted to these blogs. These are NOT spam comments. These are quality comments related to whatever post the comment is placed on.
It will take a couple of weeks for all 600 comments to be completed. Once they are, I will post an update letting you know how many comments were kept by the blog owners (some blog owners will not approve comments that use keywords as the comment author name for optimization purposes).
I've already seen some results from just the 16 comments made so far. Here's my search engine crawler stats from the day after posting the first set of comments:
Notice that all 3 engines hit the site, and Google crawled the entire site, the next day after posting the comments.
Two days after posting the comments, the home page of the site is appearing in Google's index.
So far, so good. Google is apparently following and counting the links. I'll post an update in about two weeks.
FYI, I decided to create this case study after releasing a video that shows you how to find WordPress blogs that don't use nofollow.
Please post your comments and questions below.
Comments
141 Responses to “Links From Blog Comments - Case Study”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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The results from this would be very popular to all internet marketers. Many people says blogs do help and some say they used to but not anymore.
I look forward to seeing your results!
I can tell you from experience that it helps - and although you are ruling out the blogs that have nofollow on the comments - that more affects PR than anything else. If google finds a link to something that is flagged as "nofollow" - they have been known to still follow it and see what it was. It just means that they are not counting the vote for PR reasons.
A simple way to find blogs to leave comments on is to just use stumbleupon and bump into the blogs you like.
Jonathan, as someone who bought "How To Find PageRank-Passing Wordpress Blogs" from you I admit I'm curious to see your results. I wish your script had been part of the package!
The list you provided was nice, but without some sort of classification for the blog it is indeed tedious to sort through them all to find ones appropriate to your niche. Any plans to release your script?
Is it advantageous for us to have our comments accessible by Google's webcrawlers, too? I recently added a no crawl code for my feed and comments because Google kept showing errors for them. But if this isn't a good idea for my site, I need to change that. And it will help my visitors who want to leave comments, too. What do you think?
BTW, I'm extremely impressed with the quality of your work. I like your $1 ideas and especially LOVE Instant Article Wizard. I'm beginning to think this software will do my dishes for me and vacuum the floors if I ask the right questions! *grin* Seriously, the applications for creating content are almost limitless. You're a genius!
Deb
P.S. - Very personal question: Are you really as young as your photo? Just an old woman's curiosity.
Matt:
nofollow also prevents Google from counting the link when calculating how well your site should rank. It does not just affect PageRank (although it certainly affects that, too).
Paul:
I won't be releasing the script, no. And I'm not posting to similar-themed blogs, but just to all kinds of blogs in general.
Deb:
I've never tried that, Deb, so I'm not sure if having the comments crawlable is good for the blog as well as the poster. I'm a bit older than my photo, though I look the same. =) I need to get a new photo done.
Jonathan,
I'm looking forward to seeing the progress of your experiment with blog posts. I'm using your technique myself to track down blogs in my own niches that don't use the nofollow tag. We'll see what kind of results I get.
You mentioned in your post that you're uncertain how many of your comments will be deleted by blog owners who don't allow keywords as the comment author name. An easy way to test this is to look at one of the blog's previous posts. If it has comments with keywords as the author name, then you know the blog owner allows it.
It takes an extra minute of research, but it saves the time of posting a thoughtful response only to have it deleted.
Good luck in your testing!
Hi Jonathan,
I have practically purchased every product you have came out with, and loved them all. I like to follow your case studies and have put them to work for myself and make a nice few dollars from each of my niche websites. What i would like to do is build more links to them, and i would like to know how to go about finding blogs that dont have the no follow in them. You mentioned you have a script that does this, is it possible for your LOYAL customers/subscribers to have a copy of it?
Thanks as always Jonathan,
regards
Louis Neill
Hi Jonathan,
I think it'll be a very interesting case study. Thanks for sharing the data.
Neil.
Louis:
I'm not releasing the script, no. For one thing, it's rather complex and requires a dedicated server. For another, if too many people have it, it would be abused and most of the blogs would probably stop accepting comments with keyword links. So in order to preserve the value of these blogs, I'm not releasing the scripts.
Was wondering if you are only using Word Press blogs, or blogs in general - your previous 1 dollar offer only describes how to uncover nofollow wordpress blogs…
LexSxcripta
Hey Jon whats the script you wrote? Are you selling the script?
Sounds good, I have heard in many instance where Google actually do follow no follow tag, just that they do not distribute page ranks and discount those links a little bit (but still counts). Thats why I'm now posting my comments here now with a link to my site.
Already answered my question….Not selling the script huh….
I guess your blog wont be on that list huh? Since you use no follow.
I have also heard adding pages all of the time to your website makes you easier to find talk about all kinds of topics one of them might interest someone enough to read that page if not another one .
Of course it works, what is this? SEO kindergarden classes?
And nofollow blogs work just as well. Nofollow is a load of bollucks.
And while you are it you might as well just become a comment spammer. What a waste of your time with all this fooey "relevance"
John:
"Of course it works." Perhaps that's true, but that doesn't mean it's worth the time. It's a very time-intensive labor to post non-spammy, relevant comments.
And what a foolish thing for you to say, "you might as well just become a comment spammer." And why, might I ask, should I do that? That would 1) prevent any of the comments from ever getting posted, which defeats the purpose, and 2) in no way add to the quality or value of the blog I'm posting a quality comment to, thus removing the reciprocal advantage.
James:
I know! I upgraded my version of Semiologic Pro and it turned nofollow back on! I unchecked the box but it refuses to change.
Aha! I figured it out. nofollow is now turned off on the blog. The dofollow plugin got deactivated.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for sharing the idea.Your so gifted to create something new.
Ruel
What do you think about blog that already have lots of spam comments? Is it better for me to avoid it? Will it effect my SERP if i post my comments there?
Wait. Wait. Wait. I'm still back at the part where you were leaving comments with a keyword where your name should be. I had never heard of that.
I know links from keyword link-text are best, but it would never have occurred to me to use a keyword instead of my name. Seems like that would almost always get the comment deleted as spam.
I'd like to know more about that keyword-as-name thing. Where can I find out more?
BTW, I love the Dollar Ideas, too. Keep 'em coming!
I find it interesting to see the results for things like this, for some of us that still have full time jobs seeing someone who has the time to do this type of thing is very useful and is very convenient.
I noticed John you have no follows on your blog.
I can understand the reasons why you don't want to sell the script. It will definitely cause havoc in the blogosphere.
I am sure after you sold the "How To Find PageRank-Passing Wordpress Blogs" with sites that don't have the nofollow tag, those blog owners will be puzzled why they have such high no. of comments suddenly if they aren't Internet Marketers.
Minyak:
I would stay away from blogs that have lots of obviously-spam comments.
Kathleen:
It's a common practice to use keywords as your name in blog comments. A good percentage of bloggers let them through, since they recognize that in return for your valuable comment they are paying you back with a valuable link. Some will delete them outright, but not all.
Wisconsin:
I removed the no follows from this blog. It was an issue with my last upgrade. Your link does not have a nofollow now.
Aha! You figured it out (how to turn off nofollow).
Care to share?
I'm glad someone is taking the time to test this as I've been wondering as to the effectiveness of blog non-spam comment links. Thanks to Jon Leger for making the time to do this. It will help us all in the end.
Carl:
I activated the dofollow plugin which came with the Semiologic upgrade. Search Google for "dofollow plugin".
Hi Jon
My personal SEO experience on this show that it does work. But it will be interesting to see your study results to scientifically verify this. I would also like to add that I believe there is an SEO advantage to use the Nofollow tag for your blog archive.
Woops! didn't leave my link in my name.
Jonathan Leger knowledge is powerful, Jonathan knowlege have been effective and enjoyable, its the kind of solutions marketers want for business.
Keep up the great brainstorming.
Are you familiar with commenthut. it searches for blogs like you say. i'm not even putting up an affiliate link so this comment is taken seriously.
In all the discussion, let's not forget that if we place QUALITY comments (as Jon urges us to do) then we will be HELPING the blog site owner, not just ourselves — by creating a more interesting and inviting environment for all to enjoy. In other words, the benefit goes both ways.
If you get hassled by a blog owner because your comments are 'self serving' then it can be useful to politely remind them of that fact…
I tend to agreed that it is fairly obvious that leaving comments works - especially the ones that end up in the sidebar. The problem, I suspect, is that very few of us have the time or inclination to actually do it properly, and will tend to revert to spam-like generic comments. But I guess even those would be welcomed by many bloggers.
I'm sure your research will be very interesting and helpful. I assume you will be releasing new products based on your research, and I look forward to seeing what they are.
A simple trackback explanation
In today's email I was notified that Jonathan Leger was conducting an interesting case study on the effectiveness of blog comments. It's an area I have also tested and am keen on following other's results.
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Magazine:
I've used commenthut, but it doesn't look for blogs that don't have nofollow — it just looks for blogs that allow comments. So it was of limited usefulness to me.
Hey Jonathan,
Just a word of encouragement here. Even though others may tell you this is obvious information, there are some IMers out there who have no idea what PR, nofollow, or comment spam even are.
As programmers, we learn that you have to make things simple if you want to be understood by everyone in your audience.
That all being said, I do have to ask, though, whether this was the most logical way to do this. Why offer a method for finding blogs that don't have "nofollow" if we're not even sure it's going to help? Seems to me like the case study should have been done before selling the idea.
But, anyway, great information and I look foward to seeing the hard facts that can prove this theory works.
Thanks!
Tim:
1) Because, like others here, I know it works, but it's better to be able to show solid data from a new site using only these kinds of links to generate traffic and SEO results.
2) Because I didn't think to do a case study until after the one dollar ideas was created.
Hi Jon. I invested $1 in your video in the first place and found good PR blogs in same niche. Spent some time though and finished up adding two comments. Expensive time wise, so will be interested in your results.
Bruce
Hi Jonathan,
Using comments to drive traffic both from visitors following your link when they read your comment and from links, just makes sense. More importantly, if you provide excellent commentary on a blog regarding somebody's post you help them as well. It truly is a win/win situation.
And to your point…these comments have to be on target and not spammy. If somebody writes me.."great blog keep up the work", I will never approve this comment. But if somebody writes about my specific post and adds their perspective I will approve the comment every time.
So it has to work for everybody involved. The better the quality the more likely you'll generate the links.
Thanks
Greg
I for one will definitely be looking forward to the results…as I'm a big blog commenter myself. I definitely don't do it for spam purposes, but I do use the tool to try and connect with other bloggers. A good, informative comment will definitely catch the eye of the blogger, and you might possibly score a new friend and/or JV partner as a result.
I'll keep my eye on this, Jon. Keep up the good work!
That's a great idea. Do you have the posting also automated or is it just to find the blogs and then you actually goto them and post it.
I know there are some programs out there to find related blogs but not sure if it's worth and will be watching your progres
Edwin
Hey Jon,
You know right after I bought the $1 tip on how to find WordPress blogs to post on, I started asking about with some programmers who could write me a script, that is a very powerful SEO tool there, turns out you already have one hehehe… still waiting on the programmers to get back and tell me how much =D
that would be great to have.. and yes I agree that could be abused, however I am sure most if not all of these blogs are run by people who know what they are doing, so I think simply posting is not enough but actually getting their explicit approval and consent since they are giving you a good SEO boost by allowing the link..
what if there was an online blog community where people could set up a blog on a site that had dofollow as default for members or subscribers of this community and they can put links to their other sites or something
great info Jon, and great products… looking forward to more of your discoveries and news..
Roy
Edwin:
I do NOT automate posting to blogs, and STRONGLY advise that you NEVER do that. That's spamming. I only suggest that a real human visit each individual blog and post a relevant, quality comment.
it works I have been doing it for the last month. no-follow do-follow both bring the bots and traffic to the site.
Jon,
I also purchased your video last week and started writing a script. It doesn't really mine data though as yours does. It's more of a wordpress search engine that lets you add keywords then tells you how many links have nofollow attributes in them. I've found that some blogs might have the no follow attribute in some links (like a link to print the post) but do not have the attribute in the comment section. I'm not sure how to account for that in a script.
I'll be watching this case study closely.
Jonathan,
You've recently come out with great case studies and continue releasing good ideas (love the $1 reports). Keep those ideas coming…
There are sort of similar tools/scripts such as Jon's, but they are considered black hat as they mass post automatically to many blogs. All Jon's script does is find blogs with nofollow and he has to write the post himself.
So I think it's a good idea not to release this script to the public to use, as in no time at all it will almost certainly be used for the purpose mentioned above.
I got a copy of your idea for this along with the upsale and started using that list this weekend. I was immediately hit by Google and now, 2 days later, I jumped 15 pages for the keyword I went after! This really works and I'm anxious to see the results of your casestudy here!
Hi Jonathan,
I really like the way you go ahead and conduct the test rather than just writing about something.
Would be watching this space.
Pankaj
Jonathan,
I'll be following your case study. My new blog StrangeWellness on Alternative Healing needs lots of help.
Regards,
JIm
If you're posting comments to get backlinks, don't forget that humans will see the comments too, so you should definitely well make your post a quality one. The number of comments on here are a good indication of how people react. If you see an interesting one you tend to have a look at that person's site. I've seen a couple of interesting sites already.
And it's still true that good quality content is king on the internet so if you're providing that then visitors will come. The more methods you use for getting your quality content out there the better. This is just one method out of many, but a it's a very, very good one.
People have been bum marketing with articles for a long time now and the ones who've enjoyed most success seem to be those who put out quality content. Posting comments on blogs isn't much different, apart from the length of the post usually.
Oh, one other thing: you should make sure the link you provide to your site actually works. You're wasting your time otherwise. At least one link on this comments page goes nowhere.
And for anyone who thinks they don't have have time to do something like this I'd just ask this: When will you have time to build your business?
Rubbish. Sending automated comments is not spamming. Sending unsolicited emails is.
John:
I guarantee you 99.99% of bloggers completely disagree with you. Automated comments are SPAM.
Commenthut would be fantastic if it filtered nofollow blogs. It's still useful as I've found that posting to high PR blogs — even ones with nofollow enabled — will get you indexed almost instantly. They will also index you more frequently. So if you add new content and you want google to index it right quick, posting to a few blogs with really high PR — regardless of nofollow — is a sure way to make it happen.
No, these won't help your PageRank or improve your SERPs, but even without passing you the backlink juice, they still index you quick.
(Notice I'm not including any kind of link to Commenthut. It wasn't my intention to promote it here. In fact, as useful as it might be, I also find it a bit clunky and unstable.)
Jon: Are you outsourcing this commenting? I only ask because 600 relevant, substantial comments over a just a couple weeks seems awfully time-consuming to me.
You specified within the comments that this is a "Is it a worth the time?" kind of study, but you don't expressly address that part of the equation within the article itself for people who don't browse the comments.
I don't mean to sound critical; I'm just noting the inconsistency. I really appreciate your tools and your genuinely worthwhile case studies.
- Rich
Jonathan… well I think it was worth the $1 just to learn something new and be able to put it into practice… I await the results. Thank You.
Is the above what you mean by putting key words in the signature? ;o)
Rich:
No worries. I didn't take your comments as critical at all. To answer your questions:
1) I am outsourcing the comments, but I review them all. They are posting some fantastic, high-quality comments on all of the blogs (in very good English), so I am very happy about them.
2) It's not just about whether it's worth the time, it's about whether it works. If it works to rank you really well, it's worth the time. If it works so-so, it might be worth the time. If it just barely works, it probably isn't.
Hi Jon,
How did you come out with the script? You are genius !! Anyway, hope to see your product soon and hope it is priced FREE :-))
- Jerry
John/all:
Any thoughts as to how many blog posts linking to a site per day/week would be considered too much in the eyes of Google.
I also wondered if a link back from a website vs. a blog was considered "better" in the eyes of search engines.
Any thoughts would be great.
Thanks,
Mike
Dear Jonathan,
In the case study about "Rowing Machines", if you don't add more new articles, or nothing more… The site become to decrease in google rank, page rank, traffic, and other???
Best Regards,
Alejandro Bustos
Jonathan:
There is a software program that is designed to search daily for blogs to post on with the nofollow tag … I think it has an affiliate program. If after doing your test you think it is worthwhile, you might also test that program …
Greg
Hi Jon,
I've bought most of your tools already, and I know they work. I'll follow this case study with interest as I know it should work, but the numbers will show if it's worthwhile committing a lot of time to it.
Keep up the great work!
I think comments would be welcome. But I've seen comments in niche sites that only promote their own link. Can you eliminate these from your comments? These would not be helpful if there's no content to the comment.
Mike:
I'm not sure how many would be too many. I'll let you know if 600 in 2 weeks is too many after this case study! Of course, I'll be happy if 600 comment submissions turn into 200 links.
Alejandro:
That has not been my experience, no.
Greg:
What's the name of the software? If you don't want to post it here, can you submit a ticket with it to AskJonLeger.com? Thanks!
Jim:
I have comment moderation turned on in my blog, so comments are not automatically approved. I have to approve them (unless they've already posted an approved comment, in which case their subsequent comments are "trusted").
Hi Jon
The script works great and if tied to some other software that updates you anytime a new post is made on one of the selected blogs then posting can become a little more dynamic. I'd be interested in the costing for the outsourcing of the 600 comments if you feel able to disclose numbers.
Rgds
Kevin
Jon,
First, thank you for all of the great information. I do not know how you find the time.
A number of the comments to this post suggest that there is a great deal of value in posting comments that include 'nofollow' links.
Why not run a parallel test using only sites that use 'nofollow' so we can learn whether there is enough value in the 'nofollow' sites to justify using them.
Jim
You come up with some excellent ideas Jonathan. I shall keep my eye on this one. Bought all your $1 ideas so far and I am putting them to good use.
Kevin:
Put a ticket in at AskJonLeger.com and I'll give you the details.
Jim:
Not a bad idea! I will seriously consider that.
Jonathan,
I have had some good experiences with blog commenting using keywords. I have definitely seen an increase in pagerank and keywords rising with just a few comments. I'm sure the rise to a PR 4 or 5 would take a lot more work though. Looking at my stats, I believe I get more traffic this way, as readers are more likely to click on an interesting keyword than just a name.
Ted
Here's a place which lists some "do follow" blogs:
http://www.bumpzee.com/no-nofollow/blogs/
Excellent Shari, thanks!
Jon,
You don't disappoint - always good products, and always good ideas. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.
Borino
Expired Listings Real Estate Marketing
Only two things…
1) Why wikipedia links didn't showed in google (google webmaster back links as well) but in yahoo & others.
2) Just Give me two examples of sites who has benefited from it.
Yes it does count as back links but only in yahoo, Google sees them and crawls them but gives no importance in terms of ranking. Also do check for "external no follow" thing.
……Debate open
Hey Jonathon,
It seems like this blog has the nofollow language, preventing us from gaining a link. =)
Good idea JL need data to justify effort on this.
Also do you or your readers know of a good auto poster that works with Wordpress?
Looking forward to more results
Jon-
I look forward to the results. I know you mentioned CommentHut, have you contacted Paul over there and asked about including that functionality? He is a good guy, and would consider it for sure if it is within means for him. I will drop him an email myself, maybe if enough people request it he will add it in.
I have done some commenting in the past also, and don't forget to throw some deep links in to your site3 not just the main page.
Mark:
1) Haven't seen this happening, so I'm not sure.
2) This post is about links from blogs, not Wikipedia.
Sonny:
It doesn't. It did, but I found out how to disable the nofollow.
George:
NO NO NO. No autoposting comments. That's spam.
whtever but wht a good way to gather different and good niches
I have seen and experienced it, Jon.
I admit its not wiki things going on here, but no-follow sure is here.
Why Mr. Matt cut was so keep telling bloggers to use nofollow tag with their links.
why so much hip hop man.
Again then it would anyones game here.
……
Jon,
I started looking into this type thing just to promote my website for my mortgage business and it has opened my eyes to a whole new world. Thanks for all your contributions. This commenting is working out to be much easier and faster than publishing articles. I won't stop the articles but I am already seeing this is a very useful addition.
Thanks!
Carl Pruitt
Hi John! It's been a while I receive your emails, but I didn't really read them; till today!
The topic that you discussed this time was really new to me and I've never thought about it!
It's really a good way to improve your site PR and get more traffic!
Thanks for all.
FYI guys, I'm building up a list of blogs that don't use nofollow. It's up to 1,023 so far, in the following PageRank breakdown:
I'm still growing it, so we'll see how it goes in the end.
Hi Jon
I'm kinda curious how this measures up against 3 way links in terms of productivity and and simplicity.
Cheers
Kevin
Jon, I have been a loyal fan of yours since early this year. I like that your aim is to educate others how to improve their business and increase their profits. I have been positively impacted by your wisdom and strategies. I have taken your suggestions to increase my search engine results and are getting more visitors to the website.
Jon, thanks a million
Another teriffic exercise Jon. You really do come up with ideas that are relevant. As Sting once said " I`ll be watching you". Cheers mate
Kevin:
So am I. I can promise you it will be a lot more work than 3Waylinks, simply because there's so much manual effort involved. I am interested in the results, though.
Demond:
You're welcome.
Aussie:
Thanks!
for people that have highly discounted hosting services without crawl/hit stats… what do you suggest as a good way "software" to uncover which bots are hitting a site, how often, etc…
thanks
Brian:
I'm not aware of any 3rd party stats services that will track crawlers, etc., since crawlers don't execute javascript and all of them rely on javascript.
Jon, i am sure you are making this list for selling as well, but i am afraid that you would offer it costly as you are offering 60 list for $17
Is blog comment posting actually a 2-way street?
I know from a recent article I read it can be used for "legitimate" (according to the search engines anyway) reciprocal linking. I make a comment, you come back and thank me, reciprocal link - search engines seem to like it.
But, what if that back-and-forth exchange does not take place? Does only the commenter get the juice, or does the blog on which the comment was made also get juice from it? And, how much?
I checked the source of your blog. The nofollow is indeed off, but the trackback has it on. I'm not sure of the significance of the - could you please enlighten us?
India:
IF I put the list of for sale, it will likely be expensive, yes, and I will only sell a few copies of it to make sure it doesn't get badly abused.
3dogs:
It's not a two-way street in terms of links, no, but it's a two-way street in that the commenter gets the link, but the blog gets the perceived value of a blog that has a lot of people commenting as well as the additional unique content added to the blog. Here's a post of mine demonstrating why it's good to get those little bits of extra unique content on your blog.
I didn't know that it was off for trackbacks. I've got the switch thrown to not use, and I have dofollow activated. I'll have to take a look and see if I can figure out what's up with the trackbacks.
This is a very good experiment Jon, few months back i had tried this with a one page site on a dog breed, the site got listed very fast in the search engine and got a pr5 in 1 months time and it still has got that pr5 and its a customized under construction page with the image and 2 line about that dog breed.
So yes, it does work.
Pankaj
I bought the $1 video and I must say, you should probably charge $10 or more minimum. It's brilliant. But of course, you are a very savvy Internet marketer and programmer. (IAW is brilliant and I will be joining your 3waylink service tomorrow.)
Thanks for making that valuable piece of info available to us regular folk.
Best,
GR
An interesting experiment! It will be very interesting to see the full results over a period of time.
It seems to me you'd want to set up a second site, with comments disabled, to use as a control in your little experiment. That way, you'd be able to compare how soon Google crawls–and more importantly, indexes–that site in comparison to the one with the comments, which should demonstrate whether it is, in fact, the comment links that have caused Google's quick response. Or am I missing something?
Regards,
Jeanne
Jonathon,
Thanks for the $1 video, will follow this story with interest. Do you always leave comments with your name, rather than putting a keyword in the name bit?
Rather than searching the page source for "nofollow", why not use the Searchstatus plugin for Firefox - this shows instantly whether or not the blog has disabled nofollow.
Also, wouldn't it be easier to use something like del.icio.us to build up a list of such sites, giving them a special tag so you can easily bring them up - rather than having to copy and paste out of a separate file. David
[…] Jonathan Leger has started a case study related to ONLY using links from blog comments on a completely new website to see what impact it has on search engine rankings. I was going to do this myself for you guys but heck, if Jon is doing it you might as well follow along with that. You'll find it here. […]
Jon
Every time I look up, you've got another brilliant idea coming down the pike:>))
Agree wholeheartedly that this concept will will be a lot more time consuming than 3 way links…which is genius in and of itself. I'm not an affiliate of yours for the product, but I would like to demonstrate it's brilliance with my own mini-case study, using that product.
Before implementing 3 way links, I couldn't get on the 1st page of Google for the life of me with my 2 prime keywords, {snip: sorry, it's against 3WL TOS to post keywords} and {snip}.
Go to Google today and type those keywords in, and you'll not only see my {snip: it's against 3WL TOS to post urls} site listed there…but notice it's the only one that's literally a one page site, which is a $7 report.
Pretty remarkable, frankly.
And no, I'm not shamelessly promoting my services on a blog for internet marketing. I'd spend my time posting where my warm market exists if that was my objective.
Sometimes an unsolicited testimonial, with proof, carries a greater impact than ones generated on a sales page, although they both may be equally true. Not only does it help Jon, but it helps those who need legit assistance and aren't sure where to find it.
Good work, Jon…and carry on.
Michael
Hi Jonathon
I tried this on Saturday after getting your email and watching the video.
Following the instructions, I found 15 "nofollow" blogs quite quickly and left relevant comments.
A number of them were moderated, so I went back to them the next day to see if my comments had beem posted - most had.
But by chance I did another "nofollow" search and discovered that 12 of the blogs had "nofollow" against my comment!
Paul
Jonathan,
Thank you for your great work!
I have a general question reagrding this no-, do-follow blogs.
I understand the concept of the nofollow attribute and its effect on SE counting such a URL in the comment as an outgoing link to the commenter's blog or not. Cool.
The reason of this exercise is to get incoming links to your own pages from a page with a high authority rank. The more links, the more authoritative the source, the better. You build up your incoming links and the Google reward you with a higher PR. You proved it yourself, the process works.
My question is regarding a different "angle" of it: I read more and more about the "PR being passed down the link". Some eloquent bloggers describe this metaphore it in bolder terms.
Where does THIS notion come from?
This is an assumption.
This turn is just a metaphore and it is not logically the same as the link/PR building process you've proven.
PR dilution or PR re-distribution — are there any proof of those?
Look forward to hearing your answer,
–AW
This is once again an interesting study. I have learned from the information provided in previous posts, and I have gained from your shared experiences. Blogging is a useful hobby to say the least, the SEO values are measurable. Several of my posts have been indexed within days on the major engines.
Thanks!
George
Hi Jonathan,
excellent topic, it would be good to see the results
Regards
Alan
Jon, It seems Google returned your page as it appears the person doing the search made a typo "reiprocal" and Google found one page on your site.
Is this a common typo?
I have started using this technique myself. I have had good results from it. It amazed me to see how many click thrus I got from my posts!
I did not do my research as impressive as a case-study though.
Good luck, I can't wait to see what happens!
Alexia
Hello Jonathan,
Great to hear about this study. Please do keep me posted. I think the results so far are indicative of what you will find.
Regards,
Keith
Jon, after following your Niche Site case study from day 1, I can't wait to see the results of this one.
Keep up the great work!
This will be interesting, blogs are still hot, but I have heard both good and bad about using comments for linking. I have been wanting to do some testing in that area but haven't found the time yet. I will be watching this study closely. Thanks for sharing your case studies. Great work so far!
I am a firm believer that blog comments can increase traffic to your website. I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago called Writing Blog Comments Equals Free Targeted Traffic which also includes a link to free software that will find blogs that do not have the "no follow" tag. Since I started commenting on blogs I have seen my traffic increase a good deal including traffic from Google and Yahoo. I'm not advertising anywhere else.
I think blog commenting is a great strategy to use to get free traffic to your site. And yes, you have to use good content in those comments. My blog post tells all about it. This really does work.
Jon,
Looking forward to seeing your results with this. I followed your article marketing case study and found the results interesting.
Sincerely,
Brian T. Edmondson
Internet Entrepreneur
I like this study. I'm just trying this and found 2 PR 4 blogs straight away but then the next 2 were PR 0. I look forward to seeing some results. Thanks Jon!!
I found it works great posting comments as long as they are relevant. I have a couple of blogs you can add to your list Jon and anyone wishing to comment feel free. In my experience if you link back to the same blog but a different post from your blog or site it works better than to the actual post you commented on.
AND it does not matter the page rank you comment on you still get link value PLUS say you don't comment today and the owner decides to stop allowing comments, where do you get your link in 1-3 years when the page has a high rank???
I added or kept only thes below reciprocal links in the last 3 years to my page when it had 0 rank it jumped to 1.
Ogloszenia motoryzacyjne
Dzialki
Baza ogloszen
Praca w Polsce
Noclegi
I added more links to other sites of mine dropped to 0 a month later i found by taking off the extra links I am back up but this time to 2. What I did was I put all the extra links on a new page & it went from 0 to 2 in about 3 months. My first links page has 3 links on it & the secondary link page has 150 on it, including the adsense links and a range of sites for Search engine Submits.
{snip: please keep personal urls out of your comment text, thanks}
Only thing I ask is you link back to whichever site you link out from please.
Hope this helps…
[…] Jon Leger's links-from-blog-comments-case-study […]
Well Jon since you see their is obviously a demand for the script that does such data mining maybe you should capitalize off of it….I see a membership site in the future if you choose to capitalize…If you only have a limited amount of members and clearly specify that you should keep the comments clean and non spammy it would work…..And since your on a dedicated server you could use that….Go get em Jon…Thank about it….Because for one I am a lazy bum marketer and I do not really feel like data mining for blogs that use no follow…However if you follow the "Do Follow" buzz right now you can easily spot hundreds of them..
This is a subject that has been on my mind.
I have some software that I can find any word or phrase in all the blogs in 5 minutes or less. You can sort them out as to PR strength and even eliminiate all the PR0 blogs ans such. I have used this many times. I have used several different ways to come up with content for my comment including Instant Article Wizard. I don't have the nofollow video I admit so I don't know what is up there. I do figure in numbers, someone will let an article stay on. Unfortunatly posting a nice article on a blog on the current subject never really got me anything on Google. I don't know much about blogs, so I am not sure what is going on. Maybe all my posts are getting erased by the moderator. I do keep track of my found links with the Google notification and blogs never did much. On the other hane answers.yahoo.com I get back usually the next day or 2. That is something where google must have a deal worked out with yahoo because in the beginning answers would sit there forever and not get caught. Now it is super fast. Anyway I have resale rights to this blog software called PRBacklink if anyone wants it let me know.
Bob
Nice video Jon!
It inspired me to search for software like yours and in fact there is one program which does it. I've bought it for $35. I've found many dofollow blogs in a minute. It's not a spamming tool by the way, you do all the comments yourself it only helps you find blogs with dofollow on more easily.
That's a nice link that Shari posted, but unfortunately, many of the blogs on that list still add nofollow attributes to comment links
Hi Jon
Great case study to start, this could help sky rocket indexing with google and yahoo and be a great addition to 3 way linking..
You mentioned that the index page got indexed quickly into google, how did it rank for the keyword niche? I mean did it get in the top 100 or top 50 for the keyword phrase.
Jason
I love these case studies Jon, so many marketers talk about stuff but it's nice to see these techniques put to the test with actual results. I look forward to the updates!
I get it. No PR bump just because you accepted a comment, but rather a possible spike in keyword searches because of the additional content. Interesting. Methinks it's time to visit the Wordpress site and download the dofollow plugin.
Thanks Jon!
Why does one need to buy, rent or write a program to search and harvest blogs that participate in the "dofollow" movement? It's been a movement for a while and the lists of participants are kept on the web for everyone to see.
Here are some Directories of "dofollow" blogs where you can find hundreds of blogs:
nicusor.com/do-follow-list
www.geekyspeaky.com/2007/04/12/do-follow-the-d-list/
courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow
www.feverishthoughts.com/do-follow-bloggers/
and the whole community of the friendly bloggers:
www.bumpzee.com/no-nofollow/
I hope this will help you to post a lot of comments!..
All the best, everyone,
–AW
How about Blog*Spot user, Mr. Leger? Waaa, I want a nofollow Blogger's template. Any idea how to delete rel=nofollow on Blogger especially in the comment. Seem like Google put a default nofollow attribute on Blogger comment.
I'm your one dollar ideas buyer, and I think you're doing a great job.
Greetings and lotta loves from Malaysia.
Jonathan, thanks for putting yet another fantastic online marketing test together. I look forward to seeing the results. Peace - Paul
Hi:
I have tried a couple of things with blog linking. I am finding that using anchor text does not create a link back to my site, but links to the blogs site. In a sense this is helping them get ranked higher for a different blog page.
Any thoughts? Or am I doing something wrong?
Kelly
Well, then, here's another:
http://www.dofollowdirectory.com/
The "DoFollowDirectory" I posted above may also contain some "nofollow" blogs. But, here's another list for you:
http://www.ecoshopper.net/do-follow-blogroll/
You can get the attribute taken off blogspot (Blogger) blogs, it's quite easy. Here's a link to instructions on how to do that:
http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2007/03/remove-nofollow-attribute-on-comments.html
Dear Jon.
It is a very good idea You have come up with, sending relevant comments to blogs that respect the dofollow case.
I will make it a habit.
Very good idea with the onedollar advice.
Hi Jonathon
Here's my update on my previous comment.
I found blogs using your instructions.
I left comments on 15 of them on 03 November.
But when the comments were actually posted 12 of them had nofollow tags. "Well what a waste of time!!!" I thought
Here's the interesting bit -
When I left the comments my site had ZERO back links.
I have done absolutely nothing else to build links.
Today - 09 November I am showing 45 back links!!!!!!
Some of these are from the blogs that had attached a
nofollow tag to my comment.
I don't understand how I've got more links than the number of comments I left. But to be honest I don't care! lol
There's a drink on the bar for you in Liverpool UK if you're ever over here!!!
Paul
Paul… so 6 days and 45 backlinks. you said 3 places you put comments did NOT have no-follow. IS this where the links are from? whats does the spider stats show? trying to find out if the 3 sites are the reason or the 12 nofollows added to it. Houston
Another interesting case study Jon, glad to see you continuing your experiments.
It does seem like a great way to get more links back to your site, but as the post that you had commented on gets pushed back as more posts are added, does it have any good effects in the long run?
Anyway I look forward to the updates.
Houston
The links are from the blogs that did NOt have nofollow AND ALSO the ones that DID tag the comments nofollow.
Jon…love what you are testing…and have a question…can you tell me how to see the bid value of bids so that I am not bidding blind?…I have seen this but don't know how to get there…from here lol!
be sure to take a look at…{snip: no personal urls int he comment please}
I found a recent list of 160 sites that have removed the NOFOLLOW attribute and can be used to build links. Most sites are in the PR 2 and 3 range and a few PR 4's.
I look forward to this case study.
DD
I am very interested in this experiment and will be watching it carefully.
Jonathan
Another update.
I left comments on another 5 blogs on 12 November.
I now have gone from zero to 111 back links in 12 days!
That's a total of 20 comments that I have left which took about 3 hours. I know that all this is from the blogs as I have done nothing else
But thats not all - one of the blogers devoted the whole of his next blog to recommenidng my site!
This will be my last update as I have now submitted my first article so won't be able to know where the links came from.
Thanks again - I guess that's 2 pints I owe you now!
Paul
[…] Links from Blog Comments: When you leave comments on a blog that includes the no-follow attribute, does it really mean the search engines don't follow the link? Well…according to this test Jonathan Leger has done, it appears all the major search engines are still following the link to some extent. Very interesting for those who spend time commenting (or have a team to do so). […]
Jonathan,
Have you used the comment sniper software and what to you think of it. Most of the blogs that it has found 95+% have been no follows, so I check each one, it only takes a second. What do you think of the software?
Steve
I found a neat search engine called Commenthunt.com ( http://commenthunt.com/ )
"CommentHunt is a search engine that helps you find High Page Rank DoFollow Blogs to get some quick links"
Infobious:
I tried it, but it returned lots of results using the nofollow tag.
I am the owner of commenthunt.com, there are some blog in commenthunt using nofollow now. Btw there is a form on website where you can report nofollow blogs.
Happy Linking:)
Hi Jon
How far are you with this experiment now?
I'm sure we are a lot of people eagerly awaiting the results…
Maybe you could give an estimate on when you publish the results?
Janno
To put the NOFOLLOW point in context, Google has about 50% of the search engine market and respects the NOFOLLOW request.
Jointly Yahoo and Microsoft control most of the balance of market share and both ignore the request, according to my informants.
So NOFOLLOW is an important constraint but far from overwhelming, if other factors are right.
IMO, to make blog commenting worth the effort, you need themed comments on blogs with some decent page rank.
There is software commercially available to search out by keyword the relevant blogs (without NOFOLLOW) - and then sort them by page rank. It does NOT provide for auto posting of blog spam - the objective is like Jon's - to make relevant and constructive posts but with minimal wasted effort.
To avoid over-exposure I will not disclose it publicly here but those seriously interested are welcome to email me for info.
Steve1943
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
That's cool Idetrorce. Everybody's got the right to their own opinion.
Care to provide some facts and proofs, though? Perhaps some examples? I'm afraid you won't win a lot of support here with "I don't agree with you."