The do-follow issue has been discussed to death lately. It also seems to be driving a wedge between a few bloggers in our community. And the fact is: We are all just guessing unless we are on Google’s payroll. Even so, bloggers can be a passionate group and we can get pretty vocal. Because of this, I am reluctant to post this but, in the traditional blogger way, I can’t help myself.
So here we go… For what it’s worth, I’m going to prove that Google does index some blog comments. It doesn’t show that any weight or authority is being attributed to blog comments but they are often indexed. I suspect many of you, if not most of you, already know this but it seems to be a recent debate. This doesn’t show that any weight or authority is attributed to the content or links attached.
My scientific experiment is flawless and precise NOT. I have a Google alert setup for my name, of course, and I see my comments showing up in the alerts all of the time. Yesterday I commented on John Sullivan’s blog. Below you can see a print screen of the Google alert from my comment on his post My Real Agenda.
Now lets take a unique string from that Google Alert and blog comment:
“The funnest statement I’ve heard in a long time:”
I also used that exact sentence when I Tweeted the post and sent it to Facebook. If you take that sentence, put it in “quotes” and Google it, you get one result (at the time of this post). Can you guess what Google indexed? Facebook, Twitter or my comment on John’s Blog?
I thought it interesting enough to share. Now let me have it. I’m a big boy, I can take it lol I wonder if this post will eventually come up in that same search? Fingers are crossed.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Making Your Google Alerts Smarter (ducttapemarketing.com)
- Use Google Alerts For Breaking News (ricksrss.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5ceebaa4-b60f-46da-8704-437fbe99622b)
I should look into a Google Custom Search box here. I wonder if that gets things indexed faster?
I noticed the same thing when I use my Google Custom Search box as well, I think the debate is a little out of control but then again I don’t blog to make money
hi Brian,
i just googled “The funnest statement I’ve heard in a long time” and there are now two results showing (at least here in California). John’s blog post is #1 and your post (this post) is number two.
I have “known” for a while that google keeps track of comments and will show them in the search results. Just to prove this point, if I say shizlegropme, and in two or three days you search for said word, I’m sure google will find this post (assuming the post itself is indexed).
But this simply means that google indexes comments (as you say), it doesn’t mean that comment LINKS are worth much at all. I tend to think they are worth very little for the search engines, but can be valuable in bringing human visitors, if you write something of interest…
“shizlegropme” Steve
PS. I got the buttons. Very cool, and thanks. Now I just need to take a picture!
.-= Steve | Trade Show Guru´s last blog ..Trade Show Outboarding =-.
Wow pretty cool and Thanks for mentioning my post.Google does for some reason like my blog and I noticed that when I wrote about this MTV show a while back and when all these hits came in I clicked back and saw that my site was higher then many well known big time money making sites.I would of thought I would slide down but still getting great hits> I learned a lot keeping that feedjit widget there for the clickback and see where people came from etc.Anyway I hope this week you can get a chance to write a post about you your business and sites that you are working on etc. I know they look out for comments by they look out for the post better,I want to add your anchor text etc so don’t be shy about keywording it up to your benfit. What I really want to do is stop running around like a chicken without a head and chill and work on my existing friendships etc.I need to practice what I preach like why have 5000 friends on Facebook if you don’t know or interact/ help any of them and that goes vice versa. It seems whenever I stumble and get to a low point my real friends come by and say get back up fool
Without you and a couple of other people I would of just quit blogging and made impersonal niche sites all day 
Anyway I really do appreciate you and want to play a bigger role in your success so BRING IT my blog/s are at your disposal 
.-= John Sullivan@The Blog No One Reads´s last blog ..The Story of Ralph Milton =-.
Great article Brian. I also have alerts set for my name and other terms as well. I knew that Google indexed the comments, which usually happens, but the question still remains, how much weight is put on the actual links placed in comments….
I saw your comment over on John’s blog and I had to laugh out loud at it! Luckily I work from home so no one was here but my daughter to here me! LOL
.-= Keith@ Blog Tips´s last blog ..I Did It The Hard Way: =-.
That’s pretty cool Steve, nice to see Google indexed this post lol. I’m still waiting for them to come back and index “shizlegropme”. That’s a cool test
Wow John, that’s an very cool offer, thanks. I’ll try to get something out this week. I’m not sure what to write about but I’ll think of something. Thank you John
It’s true Keith, I’m not convinced blog comments count much as far as Google is concerned. There are better reasons to comment anyway but I would be surprised if the were counted as even a fraction of a link back. We’ll never know unless they want us too.
Which John and which post? Feel free to leave the link, we’re link friendly here
I’ve noticed ages ago that Google indexed comments as they bring me quite a bit of traffic. That being the case you would think that up and coming blogs would be dofollow to encourage comments. The more comments you get the more active you blog appears and the more results you’re likely to get in the search engines.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..The Lighter Side Of Blogging =-.
I agree with Sire on two points.
I too have seen many of my comments indexed for years, and, isn’t this another reason TOO be do follow?
Btw, I’ve been reading all the “debates”; who said comments weren’t indexed?
.-= Dennis Edell @ DirectSalesMarketing´s last blog ..Attention Readers of all Kinds! – Multiple Articles Comin’ Atcha!! =-.
Thanks for sharing the results of your experiment. I also use Google news alerts for my name and the names of my blogs.
I wonder if Google starts giving a bit of weight to “follow” comments when the comment poster starts making multiple comments to one blog over time, which demonstrates he’s not just doing a drive-by post to get SEO.
.-= John Soares@Selling Information Products´s last blog ..Problogger’s Darren Rowse on Successful Foundations of a Blog =-.
That’s a good point Sire. I’m all for that as long as they don’t use the do-follow to get popular and then switch to no-follow after everyone helped them up. It bothers me to see that.
I spent almost an hour going through my reader and I can’t find them but there were two posts on the issue. One was the do-follow debate that turned to ‘are comments even indexed’ in the comments. I’ll run across them again I’m sure. I always subscribe to comments so I come back and link to them. I should have done that to begin with to give proper credit. Good call Dennis
I’m not sure John but it’s something to consider. I know what you mean, a scale of sorts. I doubt it simply because it would be very complicated but who knows.
Hey Steve, your “shizlegropme” is indexed now lol
I’ve seen that happen, and to be honest with you I’ve stopped visiting those that have done so. Now I only go to them if they’ve left a comment on my blog.
Hi Jayce, I think it is unless there’s something stopping the page from being indexed fully but then we have to wonder if the pages are re-crawled after the comments are left.
I have to say yes and Steve | Trade Show Guru just helped prove it to me in a comment above where he typed “shizlegropme” into his comment. That crazy word is now indexed by Google linking back to this post. Pretty cool.
Hi, this might be a bit of a nooby question but how do you set alerts set your name and other terms as well?? And can it be of benefit to developing an understanding of regularly googled terms, to enhance web pages?
thanks, h
Give me a bit to find an old post Harry, I wrote about Google alerts before but can’t remember for which blog. If I can’t find it I’ll throw one together real quick. In the mean time you can see: http://www.google.com/alerts
Hey Brian, Good article! You are correct. Google does index comments. I tried it out myself. I do agree with Sire’s opinion too. How long will this go?
Yeah, I noticed it too for some of my comments. I guess Google does indexed blog comments especially if its do follow.
Hi Brian,
A lot of time passed since I left the SEO arena and I may not be very updated on all the SEO issues. However … honestly, I don’t get the point of your blog post
First you’re talking about a do-follow debate, then you “prove that Google does index some blog comments”.
To me this looks like, let’s say first we talk about the double opt-in – single opt-in debate and then we prove that usually the cold water is cold. Doesn’t sound weird?
Now let me explain you my point.
1) The attribute rel=nofollow belongs to LINKS, not to pieces of texts (such as blog comments). A link that is nofollow tells search engines not to follow that link and that’s all (by the way, “not to follow” means something else than “not to index”). The attribute nofollow assigned to a link does NOT tell search engines, “Hey, don’t index x% of the text surrounding this link” Anyway, SE don’t index only some pieces of text (like everything except the blog comments) from a page. SE index the whole page or nothing.
For more details on “nofollow”, check for example this page: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
2) A blog comment is a text (not a link!) that is a part of a web page. Between a text and the attribute nofollow that may be assigned to some links … there is no connection, even if nofollow links are included in that text.
3) If a search engine bot spiders a blog page and index it, then it will index everything that is on that page (including the blog comments AND the links), no matter whether the links contain the attribute nofollow or not. If the links are nofollow then the spider will not follow the links (some spiders actually still do it).
***
In plain words, simplistically talking, if the page is indexed, this means that the spider makes a copy of that page, copying EVERYTHING (text, comments, images, links, etc), no matter your nofollow links. After making that copy and putting it into its “store”, the spider will “click” on a link that doesn’t have the attribute nofollow. Then it will restart its actions for that new page where it landed.
.-= Adrian Jock´s last blog ..Solo Ads: 9 Tips for Writing Better Subject Lines =-.
I now believe that Google indexes comments. I was told of this before but it skipped my mind. Your post prompted me to check this. Good!
How long will what go Adam?
Hi Adrian, sorry for the delay, I almost forgot to come back after I noticed your comment. I got side tracked.
What’s hard to understand? The do-follow debate, among bloggers anyway, has a lot to do with comments. A couple have said the issue is irrelevant because comments are not indexed anyway. I’m just posting on a related topic rather than repeating what everyone else is writing about.
As far as ‘SE index the whole page or nothing’, that is true to a point. Some things can stop or get in the way of the bots but that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. As far as the comments are text and not links, well, I’m just going to be nice and say, WTF are you talking about lol ~ joking
Of course comments are text, we’re referring to the URL the commenters are leaving in the link field that will go with the comment. The question was, do the SEs come back and spider again and again indexing comments like this one. It looks like, at least in this case, they do.
One more thing, just so you don’t think I’m brand new at this and to make myself sound smart
The no-follow attribute does not stop a link from being followed or indexed. Notice I said ‘link’, not text. All that tag says is, “Hey Google (yes, it is mostly Google, Yahoo ignores the tag) I don’t want to pass on my good reputation to this link, I do not vouch for it”.
As usual, I can count on you for an honest opinion
Thanks for that.
1) “What’s hard to understand?”
If I think that there is something valuable I have to write on my blog, I write it. If I don’t have anything valuable to communicate, I don’t post anything. If there are stupid people out there (or not educated) who think that $1+$1=$3, I won’t feel the necessity of wasting my time and writing an article on my blog. But that’s me …
2)”‘SE index the whole page or nothing’, that is true to a point.”
Really? Do you really believe that the SE bots index 85.99% or 46.37% of a page they visit? That’s a funny idea. They don’t index it or they index it. Full stop. Of course that after the SE indexed a page, if you make changes, the new content is not indexed until the bot comes back again. But that’s like 1+1=2 and it does NOT mean that the bot indexed less than the whole page. The bot indexed the whole page available at the moment of its visit.
3) “we’re referring to the URL the commenters are leaving in the link field”
Well, you’re wrong if you think that I can guess what is in your mind. I commented on what was written on your blog. And what was written is NOT about that link but about BLOG COMMENTS. See your title and the rest (“I’m going to prove that Google does index some BLOG COMMENTS”). What I’m writing now is a comment. The link that will be added to my comment is NOT a comment. That’s why I told you that there is no connection between do-follow and comments indexing. Under such circumstances, maybe now you will understand my previous comments.
4) “The no-follow attribute does not stop a link from being followed or indexed”.
a) I never claimed that the no-follow attribute stop a link from being indexed. Can you point the phrase where you seen that I claimed that? If you re-read my comments you’ll see that I pointed that “A link that is no-follow tells search engines not to follow that link and that’s all” and then I emphasized the idea that “not to follow” does NOT mean “not to index”. Crystal clear!
b) In my previous comments I said that “If the links are nofollow, then the spider will not follow the links (some spiders actually still do it)”. In your comment quoted above you’re talking about Google when you claim that “The no-follow attribute does not stop a link from being followed”. That’s NOT true. Click on the link I provided in my previous comment. Maybe you’re confusing “indexing” with “following”. Or … Actually I don’t know what you had in mind when you claimed that. Fact is that if you want to know how Google does something, you’d better read what Google says about that.
This is and the previous one was … an honest opinion.
Hi there,
I don’t understand your surprise? As long as comments appear on a page they will get indexed, or did I miss an announcement saying that Google can now differentiate article content and comments? Sure they may give links in that section less weight, but comments are part of the page so they should get indexed.
I’ve also read somewhere that it is good to comment early so that Google assumes your comments belong to the article content – I gess it’s too late now
hey Brian,
I thought I’d follow up on my comment and your reply above. That’s amazing that google found and indexed “shizlegropme” within 2 days! And FYI, bing and yahoo also show this post if you search for “shizlegropme”, so it looks like one can say that google, bing, and yahoo index comments.
One more test… I wonder now that this post is a few weeks old, if a new make-believe word will be found and indexed… perhaps a word like shizlextreme?
Ps. It’s on my “to do” list to take a picture with your button… I’m just trying to come up with a worthy picture idea.
I did a little experiment of my own on this and agree with your conclusions. Comments in general–whether they are dofollow or not–will lead you up in the rankings.
Yeah comments are indexed…if you check your backlinks in yahoo…you ll notice that most of the links are shown …but google doesnt show up every link….only those links are shown in google, coming from a high PR website or indexed from a long time.
Hey there – loved what you wrote and thanks for testing out your theory. Question: would it be a good idea for me to ask my customers/visitors to write in their questions on my blog instead of my website email address, so that when I answer the technical question, others can benefit from reading them? I tend to answer with a lot of good content since the questions are specific in nature. I have a faux painting website and I don’t want to keep adding pages just for new questions/answers. But then again, would that help my site more, in the sense that more pages to a site is good, too? It’s just that the titles for the pages are too long, but I can’t call all of them, “faux painting questions”. Let me know asap. Thanks.
Hi Peter,
You are absolutely right that Google indexes the comments posted on the websites. Also I have checked the same by taking links for trade show, trade fair keywords for my website.