Who the %@#^ is Garry Conn?
Let’s just say there are two big ‘G’ in the world of blogging. One is Google with a double ‘o’ and the other is Garry with a double ‘r’.
Garry Conn is a down-to-earth blogger who finds joy in helping other bloggers in the business of making money online from any method imaginable.
With all due respect to those top adsense earners, no one knows explains better how to make more money from Google AdSense than Garry Conn.
While I am not the strongest and most powerful teacher in this business, the information you get from my blog comes from the heart.
The Guy Who Forgot to His AdSense Check
While most of us will rush into cashing out our AdSense check fresh from the mail box, Garry is one blogger who had the privilege of forgetting to cash out his $2000 Adsense check and live to tell his story! How’s that for an inspirational introduction!
Oh that month alone he deposited $11,ooo into his already inflated bank account.
That story alone caught my attention and I was sold. So one fine day, I asked for a Q&A chat and to my surprise despite his busy schedule of running 100+ sites, he gladly obliged. So that’s the hallmark of a true blogger if you ask me.
Sharing is Learning
The story goes like this,
I was just being unnecessarily concerned about the time Google take to index my article and rank it for my primary keywords. Prior to this, I was able to get into Google page one for my “long-tail keyword” almost immediately but it isn’t the case anymore now.
Let me just give you one example, here and here. Can you tell the difference? I wasn’t ranked for the former but got into SERP successfully for those articles that have been indexed for 14 days or more.
So in the spirit of sharing, below is the edited excerpt of our wonderful conversation in the hope that by making it public, it might probably give you some insights on what Garry Conn thinks about Google.
Garry: How old is your blog?
Yan: 6 months but this only happens quite recently..
Lesson #1
Garry did a search on the phrase from my article to see if my article was dupe content…LOL…everything here is authentically original. The lesson is Google will just ignore any dupe contents so if mine is dupe, case is closed.
G: How many posts do you do per week?
Y: 2-3 per week….probably that’s the real cause of the problem
G: So you do 2 to 3 per week? that isn’t the problem at all
Lesson #2
Your posting frequency does make a difference but 2-3 per week is still permissible.
G: Old content pulled up fine but new posts are not pulling up. Here is what I think….
G: Because your older posts pull up fine for exact phrase search but the newer ones do not I think that there is a lag, there is latency where Google has to catch up. All of your content is indexed but it hasn’t PROCESSED the information yet. Your blog at the moment is still healthy.
Lesson #3
Google is indexing billions of pages each day so patience is a virtue and time is your best friend.
Y: So it isn’t about sandbox, is it?
G: I don’t think so… because I can still get your listings to pull up, just not new stuffs and we’re talking just about a week old, anything week old and older does great, anything a week and newer does not. Sandbox would equal to your entire blog not ranking well.
G: You need to continue as you have been and NOT change anything. You have a sitemap which is great. How long have you had your sitemap?
Y: Since the beginning of the blog.
G: Excellent
Lesson #4
If you want Google to come to you, send it a sitemap. Period.
G: Do you have any errors in Google Webmaster tools?
Y: A couple of them but I rectified them already
G: What were they?
Y: Some of them are not within my control like inbound links….but those broken links on my site I fixed them all
Lesson #5
Google hates broken links. So ask yourself when was the last time you did spring cleaning? You’ll surprised those errors are getting on the nerve of Google crawlers.
G: One thing I don’t like about your source code is the use of H1 and H2 tags. First off the web crawler is going to see your featured articles first.
Y: Oh OK?
G: So the path it will take when it visits your home page will lead to the featured articles, once it hit featured article then it will try to crawl out from there.
G: The featured articles provide a road block from Google finding your new articles below them and that is ONE issue on your home page…this isn’t too big of a deal because you have sitemap but to me it is still an issue.
Y: Oh…(astounded)
G: SECOND issue with the home page, if you look in the code you will see <h2>SEO</h2> then <h1>post title</h1>; <h1> is like the KING of heading tags and is usually the Home Link or links on the very top, actually I am going to save my breath.
I just covered this topic on SEOHosting.com of which I am a freelance writer for HostGator.com and they hire me to write on their sister company so read that post.
Lesson 6
The importance of heading tags should not be underestimated for the optimal SEO effort. If you are still clueless about it, that article is worth a read.
G: I think you can just do a few minor SEO modifications for the future health of your blog… but all in all, I don’t see that you have any problems with the blog at all.
G: Google is a database…and things get shuffled around from time to time. The worst thing you can do is make changes and make a simple problem becomes a compounding problem.
G: Are you a dofollow blog or nofollow comment blog?
Y: Dofollow for now….
G: Ouch…that doesn’t help you
Y: Should I make it nofollow, sir?
G: That is up to you…. what happens is you kill your PageRank. Link juice on a page is like a 9 volt battery that last long time if you you have a small LED light attached to it. However it will DRAIN DEAD if you use it to power something bigger like a car head light.
Y: I’m following, sir
G: So…when you DOFOLLOW comment links, you are draining your battery dead rendering your page useless in terms of having PageRank authority.
G: Internal PageRank contributes to the overall site PageRank health, DOFOLLOW is like cancer deep inside your belly.
Lesson #7
Despite all the debates, dofollow or nofollow is a matter of personal choice. This blog has been dofollow since its inception and PR hasn’t changed much since.Like a true blue student of Garry Conn, I’ve decided to experiment with nofollow and see where it will take me to.
Getting a PR5 isn’t much of a wishful thinking, is it?
Y: Understood! Remember the first question I asked on twitter a couple of days ago, the page “the best places to get quality links” has the most dofollow outbound links but I got a PR2 instead. How’s that for a PR leak?
G: Even though that page has PR2 it is spent up so the weight that page holds for backlinks isn’t much value. So if I had my www.garryconn.com on that page, it wouldn’t really be credited as a PR2 backlink as the PR2 power is absorbed by many other links.
Y: making sense now…
G: If you had a PR5 page and my www.garryconn.com was on that page that would be a HUGE value to my blog..
G: If you have $1.00 USD you only have 100 penny to give to people and that page is giving more money than it has saved up.
Y: Understood! My question is even though I dollow all the outbound links, why Google rewarded that page with PR2?
G: Because Google finds the page to be valuable based of natural human behavior.
The page has had interest among people
People come and go
People come to see it… people leave
People link to it
People talk about it
Google knows
Google is not only a search engine but also an artificial intelligence, it monitors human behaviors
How does Google value things?
G: You sent me to this page http://thoushallblog.com/the-best-places-to-get-quality-backlink/ and I am logged into iGoogle. Google keeps a record of my web history as they do for thousands of people so they keep a tally on how many people access this page. Its pretty mind blowing…Google is bigger and smarter than most people realize.
Y: You have your point…..so that’s the reason why the big G gives a little PR for the page, right?
G: This page is PR2, that is pretty good for a page in a blog, you have a lot of links pointing to it, just take a look at the number of trackbacks you have.
Y: WOW, this really changes my whole perspective of what I thought I knew all along…..
Lesson #8
How Google calculates PageRank will always remain as a mystery. We can only follow certain guidelines but one thing is certain that Google records everything online. What we do, we say, we send, we link to.All those activities pretty much affect the popularity of a page. The more popular a page is the higher is its PageRank.
The rest of the conversation is kept private to protect the secrets of Garry Conn. If you want to find out what those secrets are, it’d be a good idea to visit his site www.garryconn.com and pay attention to what he has to say on making money online.
Oh ya, if you have some pertinent questions you’d like to ask Garry, post your questions at bloggingquestion.com. Otherwise, you leave your thoughts below and tell me….
What have you learned today?
Your thoughts?
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Thank you Yan for sharing this with us. It really got me thinking about the “no-follow do-follow” issue.
Valeria | TimelessLessons´s lastest post..The A–Z Guide to Fine-Tuned Brain Performance
Hey Valeria
Thanks for your continued support too. I’m experimenting with nofollow now as per Garry’s advise. That’s the fun part of blogging, it keeps fascinating me with the kind of new stuffs I learn everyday.
Yan
Great post, i learned lot of new tips and rulles for SEO
UniqueBlogger´s lastest post..Twitter, Promote Your Blog or Website
Good to see back here, Jasmin. Glad you’ve enjoyed it.
Garry sent me over here. I appreciate that you took the time to detail the conversation. Now, you and Garry have proved helpful.
I use DoFollow in order to give back to those who are adding to the discussion. Some might argue the link is enough. Frankly, when leaving comments on other blogs I don’t go check. So for me it is just something nice to do.
I, too, am having to learn to be patient. I have one blog doing okay. And two others I need to work on. My problem has been worrying so much about the one.
CD Rates Blog´s lastest post..Who Can Make the Better Decision
My problem has been worrying so much about the one..
I supposed we are all guilty of it. Who doesn’t want to rank better in Google? Garry has helped me quite a bit recently and he’s given me the permission to make the conversation public so that his wisdom can be shared with the rest of the readers here.
Thanks for stopping by here and hope to see more of you joining our discussion. There are lots of sharing here. See you again.
Yan
Garry sounds like the man and it was great that he could take some time to help you out. Google is a mystery some times (even to the pros) but it is great to have people helping you out because that Search Engine Traffic can be a great adsense earner :)
Ryan McLean´s lastest post..Could Advertising Be Harming Your Website?
Hey Ryan
It’s been a while, huh? Thanks for the taking the time to make a visit and oh yes, you’ll surprised Garry really went to such a great length to help others. He is the man indeed.
Yan
Cool. Learned about the No-Follow/Do-Follow controversy.
Thanks for posting!
Brad Blogging.com – Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help´s lastest post..6 Important Reasons to Bold Your Important Text
You are welcome, Brad. Glad it helps…
Wow that’s great lesson from Garry to Google, “G” to Big “G” :). Nice to read them all, will learn from the conversations above.
From another “G” :)
Goonie´s lastest post..Using Your Website to Make Money with Clickbank
From another “G” :)
LOL, is that your name? Thanks for the visit anyway. Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t done so as the best is yet to come.
Yan
Garry Conn is such a nice guy. Even if you don’t talk to him in person or in private, jsut read his blog, definitely you will learn something. You are both talking with pagerank but I don’t think it helps you to earn money. Just seoptimize your blog post and make it keyword-rich and you will for sure hit the first page and make money from it.
Hussein´s lastest post..WordPress Theme Weekly: Digital Statement
You bet it, Hussein. I’ve picked up quite a handful from Garry and thanks for your input too. I do see you quite often at his site as well.
Yan
Simply interesting matter, I am non stop thirsty for this kind of news or learning. How does Google value sites and pages?, I’ve been contemplating the natural traffic from searches in relation to the ‘bounce-back rate’ on the visits. There are many searches visibly done by web and SEO designers or website owners who don’t click further after coming in from a search page. Instead they bounce back to Google page to observe other sites – I assume that these visits don’t count and that they are perfectly understood by Google’s algorithm and sort of ignored.
A second thing drilling my brain would be that why there are fewer blogs keeping or having assigned by Google’s system any PR deeper on old posts. On my other site half of my blog posts have PR#’s and the other half don’t, and the only difference in these 2 which I am able to see is in the natural incoming traffic with relation to the bounce back rate. I intend to study robots.txt files other sites use hoping to find at least some answers there.
Convert´s lastest post..Wholemeal flour amounts converter
Interesting hypothesis, Rado. I think you are making sense here. The quantity of backlinks aside, a page that has a high bounce rate will not rank better than, say those with follow through click.
Google will even record the time spent on the page and all these says a lot about the popularity of the said page. I’m meticulous enough to make this kind of study but wait, perhaps I should spent more time on Google Analytic that I would normally do.
Thanks , Rado for sharing your input and good to see you here again. Hope everything is fine with you. Will keep in touch, right buddy?
Yan
Yes keeping in touch.
There is heaps of info in Google’s Analitycs area, I bet most of the numbers are useful to analyze also PR and search engine positioning (from a new website to a old established site) and fixing up. It might look harder then going to uni to study these numbers but fragments are always making larger pieces. Same like with the nofollow, there are more of such important points to keep in mind to succeed better. There would probably be so much mess to get out from if Google haven’t set the right standards as they actually do.
Convert´s lastest post..Wholemeal flour amounts converter
Hi Yan,
Garry is a great guy and I got a lot of value out of this post. Even though I am a relative newbie I think quality backlinks are what help you out most when it comes to pagerank. Ive been doing a lot of research on this and it is far from over, but I think quantity and quality of links are huge factors.
The thing is we just gotta focus on what is controllable. The main thing we can control is the quality of our content. If its quality people will naturally visit and link to it.
Cheers
Jeremy
Jeremy Day´s lastest post..Carnival of Personal Development
I think quality backlinks are what help you out most when it comes to pagerank.
It may not be the single factor that decides but it certainly is the most important. The links have to be as natural as possible and who links to you does make a difference as well.
You are absolutely right that we should produce the kind of contents people will talk about and link to. Something that I’m yet to perfect.
Thanks, Jeremy. Glad you join the discussion.
I’ll be the stupid guy here, because I’m not sure I learned anything new really. Then again, you know how much research and reading I’ve tried to do on the topic, based on conversations you and I have had, and conversations Rodney and I have had.
In a way, I guess it all comes down to how you feel about your audience versus the money you could possibly make. I’m not sure that the amount of money I have an opportunity to make is more dependent upon my page rank as much as how many visitors I can get to my site. I guess I’ll be siding with the dofollow crowd for now.
Still, nice interview, Yan.
Mitch´s lastest post..Curious About Your Backlinks?
There’s no doubt in my mind that traffic and interaction on my blog has picked up dramatically since going dofollow. It’s also given me the opportunity to get listed in a few dofollow directories which have sent traffic my way. Now, I realise that some of those visitors are just coming to get a cheap backlink, and also that I’m leaking a lot of Google juice to all and sundry, but for the time being it’s working for me, so I’ll stay dofollow. I guess at some point in the future the number of comments will start to become overwhelming, at which point I’ll reconsider.
Interesting article Yan – thanks!
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s lastest post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent
THis was REALLY a nice post Yan and I really mean it. What really caught my attention is the dofollow vs nofollow. You now, I’ve always loved do follow blogs and I thought this really was the way to go until recently. I decided to go nofollow because I figured I didn’t need the little extra traffic it brings and also because I wanted to improve the site’s ranking in SE. It’s all part of a marketing strategy you know…
It’s just nice to get things confirmed by someone else! ;)
Ben Tremblay´s lastest post..Drive sales with offline marketing – going crazy
Thanks, Ben. I’m experimenting with nofollow right now till the next PR update to see its effect. It’s yet another experiment for me.
Great post Yan!
And now thanks to you i will be following Garry.
Cheers!
Farrhad´s lastest post..Question and Answers: 1
hey Yan, I’m want to ask stupid question, what it’s mean dofollow and nofollow blog? this post is great man
newbiesblogger´s lastest post..Google PR Vs Visitor – Why This Hapen?
Hey newbies
In laymen term, dofollow means search engines will (do) follow the link and recognize it as a backlink while nofollow has no value in the eye of search engines.
I hope it helps. If you need further clarification, please do not hesitate to ask me.
Yan
Well if you said do follow is search engine will follow the link and mark as backlinks, so when i make comments on your blog i put my website URL, is this can call as backlink to my blog and from what i read, Garry is not recommended this situation (doFollow blog) is that true?
newbiesblogger´s lastest post..Google PR Vs Visitor – Why This Hapen?
Hi again (I wish I had your name, newbies)
Yes, if you comment on dofollow blogs, the url you place will be counted as a backlink. However, keep in mind that Google is not putting much weight on comment url but still it’s counted as backlinks.
Garry is anti-dofollow, so to speak.
I have been wondering about the do follow/no follow thing myself. Gary would you take a gander at my blog and let me know what you think? ;-)
Gerald Weber´s lastest post..Web 2.0 Startups That “Have It”
Hey Gerard
Thanks for the visit and leaving your comment. I hope Gary is listening to (reading) your call.
Yan
Hmmm, ok…
First of all, I agree Garry Conn is a great guy whose blogs are an interesting read, and no doubt he does well with adsense, but I actually think there is at least one better teacher out there…
Secondly, you know how I have always felt about dofollow – ie; not using it (although not necessarily simply for the reasons stated), so no change there :)
Thirdly, about those header tags, I’ve looked at Garry’s post and yes, for that type of blog his use of header tags makes sense, but I am experimenting with something a little different at the moment regarding header tags, with one particular blog (not linked to here for various reasons…), as I want my posts to rank above the blog name itself.
I may post about it some time on my old MMO blog.
zania´s lastest post..Depression Should Never Be A Topic For Spam
but I actually think there is at least one better teacher out there…
I know who you are referring to, Zani. You told me once before and I’m still following him actually…;)
I want my posts to rank above the blog name itself.
That really makes me think but I think I can figure out what you are trying to do and still I hope you’ll share it with me..;) Looking forward to your post. It’s been a while since you last updated it.
Yan,
This is a nice interview. Two things i don’t agree in full:
1) Featured post at top – Google does not crawl pages like a spider as most people think.It is not that the spider will follow the featured post link and won’t come back to home.
what the serps really do is collect all the links on a page and then crawls it the next pause.so the featured post is not really an issue.
Moreover Google indexes pages from the sitemap regularly and it does crawl the site only at intervals and not as frequently as it does the sitemap.
2) Nofollow is not something that should be done to every link.Though it is always better to nofollow comments. But dofollow links in posts.
PR is not the only important criteria to get the search engine love but it is only one of the 200 criteria that Google’s algorithm uses to rank pages for keywords.
finally, a shameless self promotion:
for broken links, i do suggest to try my broken links remover plugin and you will fall in love with it. :)
Hey Rajesh
Thanks for sharing your input on point #1. It really does make sense to me and as for point #2, that’s exactly what I’m doing here as all the links within the post are still dofollow selectively, except the comment link.
Oh yes, I almost forget about that plugin and thanks for the reminder, buddy.
Yan
Hi Yan,
I ‘ve learned quite a bit just following this conversation. I guess now I may have to be a little more selective in giving out too much link love lest it depletes my page link juice.
Peter Lee
Work At Home Ideas´s lastest post..200+ Passive Income Resources, Tips & Home Ideas
Hi Peter
No matter how selective you should be, just don’t forget your little bro here….;)
Yan
This is a great asset for your readers Yan, I have learned some great things from Garry on his blog… Now, this post has helped me to understand a little more about Google PR…
Good job
Thanks, Javier. Good to see you here. We all learn a thing or two here, don’t we?
Yan, that is AN OUTSTANDING interview or what ever. Thank you for sharing. I see right now that GARRY CONN is no joke!
I have got step my game up and will start that by staying glued to his and your blog.
Thanks again, smokin!
Freddie Taylor´s lastest post..Blog Contest a Linkers Blog
I always love your OUTSTANDING comment, Freddie boy. Not only Garry is no joke, so is Yan….;) and so is YOU. LOL
Great article. I can believe Garry managed to forget to cash his check! I can not wait to get mine and every day i check how much money i got from Adsense. Moving on, Dofollow is just a choice and i think that it doesnt affect the pagerank (look at your site). On the other hand even if it affects your pagerank you get a lot of benefits in terms of traffic so maybe Google seeing your traffic tends to prize you in a way or another.
Web Talk´s lastest post..The best Google tricks, tips and hacks
I think you are making sense here. PR alone is not going to give ya traffic but with PR, it gives your blog certain credibility in the eye of both search engines and advertisers.
I’m still struggling to seek the best of both worlds…;)
Yan
SIGH!! i just enabled dofollow and commentluv recently as a way to attract a bit more traffic. now i learn that it’s not the right kind of traffic and the links are dilutive.
learning all this stuff and keeping track of it is hard. i already have a dayjob.
but i do love blogging…
jackie sheeler´s lastest post..AIG’s ceo belongs in JAIL
Jackie, I believe commentluv has the option of having dofollow or nofollow. Whether or not you want to use it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
I believe you can compensate for the “leakage” via backlinks or other page focus. Remember, the Google pagerank is calculated by about 200 different items. Only a few are known, such as backlinks.
I prefer to have dofollow as a give back. But, I’m not sure how many commentors go and check before leaving a comment I know I don’t. If I think I can add something valuable to the conversation, I do.
CD Rates Blog´s lastest post..Who Can Make the Better Decision
I believe commentluv has the option of having dofollow or nofollow….
No it doesn’t give you the option and I’m positive about it.
Anyway, thanks for your input. Google is only giving us some guidelines to follow. The subject of dofollow and nofollow is highly debated and caused a lot of confusion to those not in the know.
My take is to experiment it yourself and see what happens next. Seeing is believing. All the reading and learning are deemed useless without any effort to put them into use. If my PR goes up on the next update, nofollow will stay. Otherwise, I might revert back to dofollow. Let’s see….
Yan
Sorry, I just don’t agree with his conclusion on no-follow and do-follow. It doesn’t fit the evidence I’ve seen:
My first blog to go dofollow is now PR5 and about 90% of the posts get 2-4 PR by the update (10% stay gray, but every other one gets at least PR2 permanently). They get more comments and they go up the SERPs on a constant basis, but this “drain” only seems to affect the influence of my outbound links: NOT the influence of my internal links or the external links pointing to me.
Now, you can lose some trust & authority if you dofollow link out to bad neighborhood sites. I’ve seen individual posts on that blog go to zero when some spammer leaves a link to his penalized domain – But hey, would you want to nofollow link out to them anyway? It wouldn’t benefit your visitors even if the search engines don’t care!
John McDonald´s lastest post..What We Do Every Weekend – Try to Take Over the World
Hey John
What an awesome comment! I have to agree with you that “drain” only seems to affect the influence of my outbound links: NOT the influence of my internal links or the external links pointing to me..
I’m glad you share your expertise with the readers here and I hope they can gain something just by following the conversation here and make a more informed decision – that is to dofollow or nofollow which is highly debated.
Bad neighborhood? It’s inevitable when your blog is dofollow but if time is on your side, deleting those spams might be a good extra-curricular activity…;)
By the way, John may I ask how do you get to know this blog?
Yan
I think I followed one of your comments here from Slyvisions. I have found a lot of good new stuff to read lately, but the only problem is I’ve got no time left to write my own posts :)
John McDonald´s lastest post..What We Do Every Weekend – Try to Take Over the World
Well, John….it happens to the majority of us and that’s why I follow 80/20 rule where I only spent 20% of my time writing post and the other 80% making good connection with fellow bloggers and reading all the great stuffs from the blogosphere.
Glad that despite your busy schedule you make the time to revisit us. Have a nice weekend ahead.
This plugin is very similar to CommentLuv and Johncow has an excellent blog as well. His plug-in does allow you to set it to nofollow or dofollow.
I don’t know if links are automatically hyper-linked here so if not, just cut and paste.
http://www.johncow.com/all-new-commentmilk-version-10-is-ready/
cd :O)
CD Rates Blog´s lastest post..Who Can Make the Better Decision
“Like a true blue student of Garry Conn, I’ve decided to experiment with nofollow and see where it will take me to…..”
Yan you’ve said something very important here. You and I and if I guess correctly possibly everyone in your community may have said that we should change our blog to ‘dofollow’ for the good of SEO, backlinks growth. What you have just said or going to experiment means a complete about turn. This means that all your readers who now comment on your blog will not get backlinks on their comments since it’s a no follow blog. I agree that backlinks from comments are not as good as contexual links, but still better than no backlinks. Your thoughts on this?
Peter Lee
Work At Home Ideas´s lastest post..200+ Passive Income Resources, Tips & Home Ideas
What you have just said or going to experiment means a complete about turn….
I for one never approach commenting as a way of getting backlinks as I realized early that Google is not putting too much importance on comment url. How many times do you see your comment url appear on Google? do a quick search.
Having said that, I’m all for commenting my way to the top commentator list as it gives me a little ego boost to see my Technorati ranking and “Yahoo backlinks” go up. It’s the strategy that I’ve used, advocated and promoted all a while.
But at the end of the day, commenting for me it’s all about building relationship with fellow bloggers. Bloggers who have never visited and commented on my blog.. Oops, I’m spilling the beans again..
Needless to say, you’ll never see me on Probloggers, Yaro Starak, John Chow…..you learn from them but they will never read your blogs.
Lastly, I never really put much thought if people comment on my blog purely for backlinks. Probably they are as you have just said, you’ll be surprised that I receive about 50 spams daily. Can you imagine that?
To sum it up, dofollow and nofollow is highly debated by the community but I hate to say this, all the listening to “gurus” and reading what others said are “useless” if you never put it into an experiment. I have dofollow this blog for the last 6 months and PR remains nicely #3.
So what I’m experimenting here (not because of what Garry said….he never asked me to do it) is to see what kind of effect nofollow will have on my blog and live to tell my story.
Didn’t I always say everything I do here is just parts of my experimentation?
Do what you think its necessary for your blog, Peter….since I believe you don’t blog for money right now, you have all the privilege to do what you want. Nothing is more real than proven results, bad or good it doesn’t matter.
It is true. PR is not just about the traffic it gives your site the title of being valuable and worth visiting because of its useful content.
Hey Yan, excellent post! Garry really is awesome; I’ve known OF him forever, but just recently started really following him on his blogs an d such…even bought a product or two.
Interesting on the PR drain issue. I always knew there was one, I just didn’t know it was THAT much of one. I too have started gaining PR on some inner posts and I really don’t want to lose it.
Although I will never go completely no-follow as it really has brought me a considerable amount of regular readers and commenters and continues to do so…
I am seriously considering switching it out for something like Lucias do-follow, with which you can set a number of comments before it goes do-follow for that person.
Like “after 3 comments your link is do-follow”…and you can set it all the way to 10 comments…..regular readers have nothing to fear, while 1 comment spammers are completely fooled. ;)
Dennis Edell´s lastest post..10 Effective Joint Venture Ideas To Get You Started
Yan,
Your articles never cease to amaze me. I consider myself a blog skimmer but I can’t ever leave your site without reading a full post.
I will definitely be making some changes to my sites and how I think about Google in the future.
It is also time that I start paying more attention to Garry’s Site.
Adam
Adam´s lastest post..Danny Cooper’s – Blog Comment Blueprint
Your articles never cease to amaze me. I consider myself a blog skimmer but I can’t ever leave your site without reading a full post.
Hey Adam, I take that as a compliment and appreciate your kind words. I suggest you’d better do it now before he starts charging $1 for some of his premium contents. Unless, you do join his mailing list.
Yan
Wow, that was pretty heavy, thank you very much to both of you for sharing it with us.
I have to admit I never really have paid too much attention to big G since I write the way I would speak with someone, kind of like shooting from the hip, but there were some great points raised here that I definitely need to consider.
Thanks again,
Xavier
Xavier Nelson´s lastest post..Drained, exhausted and tired… What to do? Plus some really cool gifts you don’t want to miss.
Wow, I’m surprised that for the last 1 and half year, you don’t pay much attention to Google. Probably, you have other proven methods of driving traffic to your site. Care to show some, Xavier?
Yan
Hi Yan,
Looks like you have a fruitful time spent with Garry Conn. SEOs are the area I always lack information on and Google are constantly updating their algorithm to make it more difficult to keep up with.
I haven’t really been focusing on fixing my broken link but I guess it is time to do something to it. Thanks for the great interview. It clear part of my doubts on Google and SEOs.
Wei Liang
Wei Liang | ABloggerBlog´s lastest post..Lesson 17: Social Media Marketing
Hi Yan,
I just recently found him myself. I have read half of his blog so far. HA HA
I love finding like minded people because they have so much value to offer everyone else. I have learned some great tips from Gary.
Tara @ Affiliate Marketing Prodigy´s lastest post..New CPA Affiliate Network on The Block
Hi Tara
My goodness, you’ve read half on his blog already which is good considering that he is going to charge $1 for most of his premium content.
Yan
What? I may have broken links and Google doesn’t like broken links? If that is true I want to know who is breaking my links, it can’t be me because I don’t make mistakes. Damn! I suppose that I better go and check em out. Gotta keep Google happy.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
Well, even though we shouldn’t put all our eggs into Google’s basket, our organic traffic depends very much on the big G. Who in the right frame of mind is going to anger the god of Google.
Now that depends. If you say what is true and just and that angers him then he is not worthy of my respect.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
Yan, my blog has dofollow plugin. What is your advice?
Remove dofollow?
What have you decided?
Nihar´s lastest post..Friday Night Links Party – 14 November 2008
Nihar
I’ve decided to change everything into nofollow right now as yet another part of my experiment. For the last 6 months or so, this blog was dofollow but I don’t see any change on my PR…(keep in mind that I’m not one who is obsessed with PR as to me PR doesn’t necessarily translate into traffic. We do need traffic more than PR, don’t we?
That said, I’m exploring with this ‘nofollow’ thing and see what happen next on the next PR update. If it does improve, I’ll stick with nofollow. Otherwise, if everything remains the same, dofollow will take priority over nofollow.
Let’s see what happen next, Nihar. Keep in mind too that it’s a matter of your personal choice and do what you feel comfortable with and is in the best interest of your readers.
Yan
Yan,
Interestingly there is one blogger I came across who had her blog as ‘nofollow’ has now changed it to ‘dofollow’ when I visited it yesterday. It’s Caroline-Middlebrook. Good luck on your experiment and hope you get the desired results (PR5, among others) at the next PR update.
Peter
Work At Home Ideas´s lastest post..200+ Passive Income Resources, Tips & Home Ideas
Oh really, I didn’t realize Caroline really did it. She certainly has her reason for doing so. Thanks for your support, Peter and I hope you’ll stick around now that this blog is nofollow.
Yan
Not disputing the fact that you have great content Yan, but what will you do if you notice that your commentators drop off because you have chosen to go nofollow? Do you cut your experiment short?
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
Sire, that proves that those who actually participate here as purely doing it for backlink and my experiment gives me an opportunity to test the real loyalty of my regulars.
Who are they and which category of regulars do they fall into? But I’m pretty sure, without any slightest doubt that you are not here commenting simply for backlink alone. Right, Sire?
Yan
@Yan, I think sire is in a way right. Your blog may not have more readers who are only commenting because of dofollow feature but there will be few who are for that.
So, i think there might be little decrease in comments after you remove dofollow.
But yes, it will be a good experiment to see who are just for dofollow and who are not…
Nihar´s lastest post..Friday Night Links Party – 14 November 2008
Yes, of course I do respect Sire’s opinion and yours as well. Definitely time will tell everything and I’m willing to risk it all instead of listening to all the debates between the “should” and the “shouldn’t”.
Thanks guys for all the concern and I do value them from the bottom of my heart.
Yan
If that was the case I would not be here now, as I see you have wasted no time in making this blog no follow. It will be interesting to see how many loyal followers you have. The thing to keep in mind is that over time even the loyal may disappear as they search for blogs that offer a but more love.
Take Problogger as an example, he is known for his content and yet I leave more comments here than I do there.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
I’ll agree and disagree at the same time, Sire, based on your own words. It’s not that we would disappear, but some people might comment less if they didn’t think they were getting something “extra” out of it. Yet, we’d still read those blogs that seemed to offer us some value. As you said, you read Problogger, whether you comment there or not, and I don’t think he really cares one way or another these days, since he never comments back. Still, I read his blog, as opposed to Seth Godin, who just might have something to say, but since he doesn’t even accept comments I figure he could care less what I think, so I could care less about what he has to say.
Mitch´s lastest post..Planning For Building A Commerce Website
That was what I meant Mitch, in my rush I just didn’t express myself properly, although I did allude to it in my reference to Problogger.
The thing is that I make more of an effort here because I know that I used to get link luv. I do not make the same effort on problogger, where I just skim my feed to see if there is anything interesting.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
I can honestly say that getting dofollow hasn’t been as important to me as knowing that the blog host is participating in some fashion, and Yan easily does that for us.
Mitch´s lastest post..Alltop
That he does, a hell of a lot more than Rowse.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
I make more of an effort here because I know that I used to get link luv…
So am I expecting the same kind of effort since I’ve wasted no time to make the comment section “nofollow”? ;p
…that the blog host is participating in some fashion, and Yan easily does that for us.
I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks, buddy. Your support is very much appreciated.
Anyway, this blog is semi nofollow right now considering the fact that all the links within the post (except for sponsored reviews) will always remain “dofollow”.
Thanks, guys for such an awesome and interesting debate. It’s really enjoyable to be able to follow and read all the differing opinions on the subject. Each of you is entitled to your opinion and all of it certainly deserves my greatest respect.
Yan
Going with no follow is not important thing as I believe. So sire, you are right.
Going with no follow is not important thing as I believe.
It’s a matter of personal choice…
The good thing about being DoFollow encouraging people to comment is that you’re getting others to contribute to your content. Fundamentally (and leaving all the algos aside ftm) what Google is really interested in is ranking pages that humans would want to read otherwise Google’s no use to humans.
It would follow that meaningful content is almost the most important aspect of a page with good PR, so get as many people to meaningfully contribute as you can would be my ethos.
In any case, I’ve always thought that maybe a few genuinely useful outbound links would be favourably viewed by Google.
Hi
That’s a piece of awesome comment. Your input is indeed valuable and very much appreciated. It does make sense that in order for the readers to contribute, the subject of the article has to be valuable and one that evoke readers’ interest.
In any case, I’ve always thought that maybe a few genuinely useful outbound links would be favourably viewed by Google.
You bet it is, I do make a point to link out to those articles I find to be valuable and informative for my readers and yes, they are all dofollow.
Anyway, welcome to thoushallblog.com and if I may ask, where did you get to this blog?
Yan
I have mixed feelings about this topic.
My sites get most of their traffic from Google, but I don’t spend much time at all trying to make Google like me. I try to write the best I can and let the chips fall wherever they do.
My blog is a dofollow blog and I intend to keep it that way. I’m not worried about PR or losing “link juice.” I also don’t mind the time it takes to delete comments that add no value to the conversation.
What I want is more readers and people who will carry on conversations about the topics upon which I write.
I have pages on my relatively-new blog that have no PR, yet still show up on page one of the Google results for the keywords I’ve targeted.
As long as my readership continues to grow, the pages stay high in the search results, and I enjoy what I’m doing, I won’t waste much time thinking about Google or PR.
As far as commenting on others’ blogs, I try to leave a comment if I have something to say that may add to the topic and I don’t put nofollow/dofollow at the top of my list in regards to choosing which blogs to read or comment upon.
However, if I know of two blogs that are relatively equal in quality of content and one is a dofollow blog, that’s where I’ll comment.
I’m not too concerned about whether or not my comment will qualify as a backlink, but I do think it’s only fair to people who take the time to add content to my site, so I think it’s only fair when I help add content to someone else’s site.
It was a good interview, even if I don’t agree with the conclusions.
Act on your dream!
JD
John Dilbeck´s lastest post..How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens
I’m with you on this one John. Whilst I will take any PR given me I do not write to appease Google as my intention is to inspire and attract people to my blogs, and if they are nice enough to leave a half decent comment then I will reward them in any fashion that I like. If Google decides to penalize me for doing that then so be it.
I know of blogs who have done paid links and after being penalized by the great Google removed those links and begged for their PR back. What of their obligation to the advertisers who paid them, did they return all their earnings. I think not.
I understand that Google is a business but all they are trying to do is to have as great a monopoly in selling links as possible. A bit hypocritical if you as me.
Sire´s lastest post..Wassup’s Bloggers Forum Adding To The Blogging Experience
So from what I see here Pr leaks can be dealt with by having enormous click-throughs :?:
Caleb´s lastest post..Some Obscure WordPress Plugins
Hey Caleb
I’m afraid I don’t get what you are trying to say here…. care to explain further?
Yan
Well from this part:
Y: Understood! My question is even though I dollow all the outbound links, why Google rewarded that page with PR2?
G: Because Google finds the page to be valuable based of natural human behavior.
The page has had interest among people
People come and go
People come to see it… people leave
People link to it
People talk about it
Google knows
Google is not only a search engine but also an artificial intelligence, it monitors human behaviors
It seems to me that the leakage was balanced out from having steady,consistent traffic to the page…
Caleb´s lastest post..Some Obscure WordPress Plugins
Wow, thanks for posting this great interview! Learned quite a number of stuff. So I guess DoFollow or NoFollow really depends on one’s liking..
Roger Hamilton´s lastest post..Start Blogging Today with XL!
Nice Interview!
Eric Tan´s lastest post..Securing Your Blogs Twitter Name
Yan, I respect your reasons for going nofollow, but I just hope there’s not too much of a backlash from readers of this post suddenly getting all miserly with their links. I strongly believe in the “give and you shall receive” philosophy. So far it’s worked for me, although goodness knows I don’t link out as much as I’d like, but that’s more down to laziness than stinginess. :)
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s lastest post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent
I strongly believe in the “give and you shall receive” philosophy..
So do I. The truth is I dofollow all my links within the post but decided – as part of my experimentation – to nofollow all the comment url.
Anyone with great articles deserve the link love as usual and it’s been a practice here since the beginning. In fact, I do link out in most, if not all, of my articles.
Yan
I know you do, and in no way mean to imply otherwise – my comment was directed towards those who haven’t made up their minds yet and may have a knee-jerk reaction and stop linking out. I’ll be interested to see the outcome of your experiment.
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s lastest post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent
I’ll be interested to see the outcome of your experiment.
Well, Rod…the next PR update should prove my case… till then I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Yan
Well, I’m sure you’ll go up – how far is the question. By the way, any idea when the next update is gonna be?
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s lastest post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent
Great post! Thanks for the useful information. Hope to see your new posts soon.
Very interesting interview Yan. I do have a question though, when you wrote that writing only 2-3 posts is perfectly fine, do you think that writing somewhere like 4-7 posts better?
I have found in my studies that writing more frequently will keep your blog running smoothly. You will get more traffic and more comments and you will grow at a more fluid rate. This is just my experiences though, what do you think?
IronBlogger – Blogging Tips and Tricks´s lastest post..Create A Pop Up Form With Aweber
Hey Rob
I notice that you’re finally out of your blog and start to comment aggressively in the last few days. Where have you been before? ;)
when you wrote that writing only 2-3 posts is perfectly fine, do you think that writing somewhere like 4-7 posts better?
Yes, it’s definitely better if you ask me. As you’ve said above, “You will get more traffic and more comments and you will grow at a more fluid rate.”
If you’ve been following my blog, I did mention on a couple of occasions the reason why I’m doing it my way and I’d like to reiterate that it isn’t something I’m advocating. As far as I’m concerned, it has worked quite OK with me.
Anyway, it’s just part of my experimentation so do what ya think it’s best for you and your readers and that’s what matters most.
Good to see ya, buddy. All the best.
Yan
I would say the more the better but every post ought to be be of good quality content, with fresh ideas and those that readers can learn from and appreciate or useful for them.
Peter Lee
work at home ideas´s lastest post..Discover 10 Wordpress Plugins That Make Readers Repeat Visitors
You have given some awesome tips. Does the nofollow work yet?
Fas´s lastest post..Canadian Poker News
WOW ! Two words – Great interview. I think this blog is going to be my “blogging bible” *bookmarked*.
Thank you for this great info Yan !
Best regards,
The Moneyac
TheMoneyac´s lastest post..Yaro Starak – New Free Blog Report
Dofollow is a cancer? That’s a little harsh. The web was meant to be, you know, a web. And not linking out to any sites can damage your site by putting you in a vacuum.
seowriter´s lastest post..Are Unrelated Inbound Links a Problem?
Great list. I already knew a bunch of these, but I have some problems with them. I’m having trouble creating and submitting a site map for my main website to google. Also, I’ve used a couple of broken link checkers, and they say that I have a few broken links in my site, but I can’t find them. It’s a small website, only around ten pages or so, so I really should be able to fins them. Anyway, these lessons are great; Thanks!
Gini´s lastest post..How to Create a Simple Menu Bar in Blogger, No Coding Necessary!
Hey Gini
I’m having trouble creating and submitting a site map for my main website to google.
Let me know if you need any help on the sitemap. It should be too much of an issue.
Now with regard to the broken links, they could be those that others link to you. Send them an email if you can and see if they are willing to fix it for you.
Good to see back at TSB.
Yan
Well Yan,
This interview with Garry Con has been a real eye opener for me.
Google is like the big brother – it is always watching.
On the good side of this, if we are always working hard on maintaining a good quality blog, then we should be rewarded by Google.
The do follow situation is quite shocking – a real eye opener and I’m going to have to make a decision here on whether to go do follow or no follow. I’m not sure which way to go yet.
Online Marketing Promotion´s lastest post..Plug In Profit Site – Review
wow… i never thought that Google can be that good–promoting our blog. Nice article!
dosz´s lastest post..DOTA.
I’d rethink any advice I got from Garry Conn.
http://www.brentcrouch.com/2009/12/17/garry-conn-sued-today-con-man-or-guy-down-on-his-luck-you-decide/