Google Penalty | Selective Nofollow Dofollow Attribute | Next Wave Of Real Estate Website Penalties?

It's comforting to know I'm not alone in regards to comment spam neglect! I couldn't delete them without doing them 25 at a time. You'll need to contact someone who knows a little about WordPress' back end to delete the comments. Plus, I had the WordPress plugin WP-SpamFree installed and it works perfectly.

Joe, Nice blog post. I have the dofollow attribute on my wordpress blog but moderate all comments, and also have Akismet watching as well. I think you are right about what Google will eventually do about the selective dofollow/nofollow attribute. Keep up the great work. Jim

Joe, I have the exact same problem with my wordpress blog with 1000`s of comments there how did you delete them I`d love to know. Hope your well. Mark.

Ok thanks I`ll have it looked into, I tried the 25 at a time by the way and gave up!

Joe, were you following the PT Members spamming blogs post? http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread21986.html - As with many of these kinds of things, those that are participating think their little network of organized comments and behavior will go undetected, but you will see more and more threads like the one I just posted where people are sick and tired of their blogs being used (Read abused) by those who are obviously there to spam blog comments to get links. If enough of these people get upset and complain to Google, you can bet they will do something about it.

I agree with what you are saying Morgan, however, I take exception to the first sentence regarding PT members. This post was not about them, nor have I noticed any of what Knox mentioned in the thread about PT members. In the referenced thread Eric Blackwell summed up my feelings. In essence, Eric didn’t want to group all PT members together as a consequence of one person’s spam. Personally, I’ve had no contact whatsoever with Property Town members recently, however, several months ago I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with several of the first members of Property Town. The folks I met were former Advanced Access clients who needed something better. The real estate agents I met were of the highest caliber and would not spam, malign, and/or threaten anyone like the person did in Knox’s introductory post. To be honest with you Morgan, I wonder how much of the “selective dofollow” that I saw was really an issue. Prior to my blog entry, I had never heard of Lucia’s Linky Love, so I wonder how much of what I saw was covered by this WordPress plug-in. At the very least, today’s blog entry serves notice to folks who might be considering selectively allowing dofollows for reciprocal linking purposes.

Joe, Not trying to make this about PT at all, I was referencing a recent thread and that was the title of the post. What I was trying to point out is that "kind" of thread, will happen more and more often, not just for property town members but for anyone who thinks they can use selective dofollow commenting to create an organized network of links that are created to artificially inflate link popularity. You are correct of course, it is not fair to paint any customers of a vendor with the same brush (And vendor that allows customers to control the content of their own site) - That same thread could have been started about REW customers (Hopefully not) Advanced Access, Point2, whatever - As a vendor myself, I have been advising members who ask not to participate in this kind of behavior, and I would encourage other vendors (Or users of other platforms) to stay away from commenting on other people's blogs just to get link love, it will only end badly.

And for anyone reading this who IS participating in this kind of behavior, be advised - all links in comments at REW Blogs to outside websites are no follow, so there is no link love to be had here

Your last comment about links to outside websites are nofollow may need some clarification.  Currently, links to outside websites are dofollow, except when the REW blog user is spamming.  Are you saying if a user is spamming outside of the REW blogs the user's account will be flagged and nofollows placed on their REW blog account?

Interesting discussion.....I'm staying tuned!

I've officially stopped using the identical comments link to my blog everywhere I post comments on dofollow blogs.  I can see how that could end up looking fishy to google.  From now on I'll just be using "jay" or "jaybird" or "buzz" (nickname in high school for getting first flattop haircut).  And occassionally I'll use some keyword text in comments that link to certain pages--but the text links will not always be the same.... Not taking chances when there is so much $$$$ at stake for staying in the good graces of the big G.

Joe - what I was saying is that anyone who posts a comment HERE at REW Blogs and tries to embed a link for instance http://www.realestatewebmasters.com will be no follow, this is not selective, all links in comments are no follow. In terms of nofollow being manually applied IF you blog is flagged for violations, all outbound links do go to nofollow - that is correct.

Thanks for the clarification Morgan.  Upon reading your other post, you were clear the first time.  Oh well!  This is the first I've heard of nofollows on comments.  A good idea, I might add.

I have heard that Google is deprecating backlinks from comment sections anyway.  Is this true?  How would we know if they are? Why would Google see any value in comment backlinks anyway? Thanks Kermit