Respect: give it to get it

This is the third in a series of articles in which I hope to share with you my knowledge of how and why Technology Bloggers has been so successful, so fast. Learn more about this series by reading our Technology Bloggers success article.

I believe that respect is one of the most crucial things in blogging. If you are good to your readers, your readers will be good to you.


Respect - Give It To Get It

To build up a great community (like the one on this blog) you have to be a friendly author. Most of our authors, myself included, don’t just leave their article once it is written, they check back every few days and reply to comments.

But it’s not just about being a good commenter.

Being a dofollow blog is one of the main reasons for the success of this blog. People come here because they know they will be treated well.

You have heard it all before but I shall sumarise it again: if you read you benefit from out great content and the ability to comment and gain dofollow keyword rich links to your latest content; if you write you also have the ability to get dofollow keyword rich links links to your content in your article, and (if you are of author status or higher) you can get a link to your chosen site on the sidebar.

I believe that if you offer people fantastic content from a variety of different authors, as well as dofollow keyword rich links in comments, matched with great incentives to write, you have a recipe for success!

Not 100% convinced about dofollow? Well it is thought that it might lower your PageRank, especially on individual articles, and there are some rumors that it can harm you in the SERP’s, but from my personal experience, I believe that the benefits outweigh the costs.

Need some proof? Here are just a few great blogs which are very successful and are dofollow:

Check their traffic ranking. Notice anything? Dofollow blogs with great content, also the authors usually try to respond to any comments in need of a reply.

Are you a dofollow blog? If not why not? From my experience with Technology Bloggers and my own philosophy blog, dofollow is one way of succeeding in blogging.

Why does dofollow work?

I believe it all comes back down to respect, you are respecting your writers and readers, so in tern they respect you.

If you run a nofollow blog, try switching. Do it today and never look back 🙂

Back next Monday with the next in the series!

Why you would turn off comments

Just over a month ago I wrote a post that questioned why would you turn comments off?

The article was rather short, as I basically posed a question and then asked for responses. To quote me exactly I said

The real juicy content in this article will hopefully be in the comments!

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and so we scroll down… 😉

DiNaRa claimed that some bloggers may not no how to turn comments on. Fair point. Although if ever I don’t know how to do something blogging related, my first point of call is blogging forums and search engines, and usually I will have my answer in a matter of hours/days.
I see where you are coming from DiNaRa, but I do not promote lazy bloggers.

Raymund from Canon Toner said how he turns off comments only on pages, like the about page, the contact us page, the ‘advertise’ page, etc. He then went on to say that he would turn off comments on “any page that does not invite discussion” a fair point. We don’t allow comments on any of our pages. Why? Well they are part of the fixed structure of the blog. Got an issue with them? Use our contact form.
Raymund, I agree.


Joshua said how he would never turn of comments. Comments are vital, even if they are (as he puts it) ‘annoying’. He says how its our blog, and you can rule it how you like.
I agree with all that Joshua said, but if bloggers decide to ‘lock down’ comments, then they are unlikely to get many loyal readers.

Jakk from Technology Blogged mentioned how some sites turn of comments as they would rather people would interact via social media, partly as this requires a lot less management. He also said how “If you recieve over 1000 comments a day, and have limited resources, turning them off is the only thing you can do.” I disagree. Using multiple spam filters (like we do here) and having multiple comment moderators can easily solve this problem. Too much traffic? Don’t complain, put ads on your site, and use the revenue to pay for better hosting.
Jakk I see your point, but I disagree – again, I don’t promote lazy blogging.

Barbara used a great analogy: “Turning off comments in a blog is like refusing to speak to your partner in a real relationship. Who would do this?” apart from knowing a few people to whom this might actually apply, I think that it’s a great little quote.
I agree with you too Barbra.

Here are some more great responses:

Chadrack's response to 'Why would you turn off comments?'John's response to 'Why would you turn off comments?'Diana's response to 'Why would you turn off comments?'Thanks also to everyone else who left a comment, but wasn’t mentioned. There were loads of other great responses, so I urge you to go and check them out! Click to view the comments on ‘Why would you turn comments off?’.

So, do you agree with my opinion?

Did you miss the article and want to add your view now?

Comments are open to all, as usual 🙂

Why would you turn comments off?

Why would you ever turn off comments?

There is the question for today. I can see no valid reason. I have already written about how comments are the fire of the blogosphers, how they are (in most cases) vital to success.

Technology Bloggers readers, I ask you why would you turn off comments and prevent people from broadcasting their opinion via the medium of commenting?

Technology Bloggers LogoWhen I find a blog that has turned off comments, it really annoys me. I can’t work out why you would turn them off.

Do you turn of comments? Why?

Do you know someone who has turned off comments? Ask them why.

The real juicy content in this article will hopefully be in the comments!

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