Back in “the day”, one of the best ways to get your site noticed was to leave valuable comments on blogs relevant to your web site. Not only did these links give you some free exposure to your site, but they also played highly (they still do) in Google’s ranking equation, meaning that you would have higher search engine rankings because of the increased exposure.

The problem with this today is that many blogs have added a code to their site called a no-follow tag meaning that they will still allow you to put a link on their site, but they do not want Google to count it their search engine rankings. This is not a bad idea because many sites would comment spam on those blogs just for a link back. However the main problem with no follow tags is that it completely reduces the interactivity of a blog because it doesn’t give readers much incentive to voice their opinion on the blog’s post. One of the best things about blogging is that everyday people get their own voice, which is becoming a larger voice than what large companies are delivering to you in the form of advertising.

Adding a page to WikiPedia with a link back to your site used to be a great way to increase your search engine rankings. Unfortunately WikiPedia has recently added no follow tags as well. Take a look at this McDonald’s Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdonalds. Right click on the “MCD” link at the beginning of the article and select properties. You should see “Relation: nofollow”. This is what a nofollow tag looks like. I’ve had a time finding places where I can leave useful comments and then link back to this blog.

I did some digging on a Do Follow Blog Directory where all the blogs listed have do follow tags. I urge you to visit these blogs and if you feel there is a relevant and useful comment that you can make on a post, do it and link back to your page. It aids everyone!