Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

by Scott Jangro on 29 August 2007

I posted recently about the dofollow effort and I actually think the number of manual comment spammers has increased since then. I haven’t counted so it’s just a gut feeling.

Are spammers searching for blogs that mention dofollow as a method of targeting sites that are worth getting links on?

It wouldn’t be easy to locate blogs that don’t use the rel=nofollow tag (without building your own spider anyway). But it is easy to find bloggers who mention “dofollow” in the text on their site.

Has anyone else noticed such a correlation? It could be a coincidence.

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  • Human spam tends to be a gray area. A few of these mixed in with 20 good posts is okay but if every comment is those generic comments it gets frustrating in my experience.
  • Sometimes yes. Even no follow blogs get spam, you need to have a powerful anti spam tool like Akismet for WP. That blocks out most of the garbage.
  • yes i agreed that dofollow a spam magnet.
    however we can minimize that, comments needs approval will help.
  • Well I think spammers will always be a problem but that doesn't disqualify dofollow as a useful tool. I've found dozens of great blogs using DoFollow, many which I still read today.
  • The Internet is a place for people to come and do what they want. The nofollow is a way of making the Internet not so free, and that isn't what it was meant to be like. I do think, however, that having dofollows does allow for more spam, but I guess you have to pick your battles.
  • Is a DoFollow blog more lucrative to a spammer? Of course, so in a way, you are a more obvious target. You just have to have a good spam catcher, and keep a good eye on who, what and where the link is about.

    I've also noticed an increase in traffic and comments, as well as more clicks on my ads. I'm glad I made the switch to DoFollow.
  • Since installing dofollow on my blog - http://the16art.com - I have noticed a slight increase in legitimate comments. In the other hand comment spam went through the roof. With some spammers simply saying 'Thanks for the link', as if...
    I have now installed the math-comment-spam-protection plugin and spam went right down. A simple but very effective plugin.
  • I have the gut feeling that if you look at the numbers your gut feeling will be confirmed. Spammers can be very creative finding dofollow sites to leave links on and though I do believe that a nofollow tag will not stop them from spamming, I also believe that a "dofollow" mentioning will certainly attract them.

    So I don't believe in coincidences.
  • I would guess that the more sophisticated spammers are able to locate blogs using the "dofollow" attribute. It's a sad thing that these people waste time spamming instead of investing some time and work into generating an honest income online.
  • One interesting side effect of the 'dofollow' campaign is that you get more visits from other webmasters. I certainly would never have visited this site - indeed, would never have found it - except that it's listed over at Bumpzee - so now I'll be a regular reader here. There's obvious problems with 'dofollow', but I think that the benefits outweigh them. Spam will be with us always, but programmers are winning that fight, IMO.
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