Well, this is my first “real” post on this blog so I figured it would be suiting to talk about the rationale behind it. The invention of the “rel=nofollow” tag was a huge set back for many in the SEO world while also easing pains on those within the blogging community. This tag makes it so that the major search engines do not recognize links within a given page as passing any link power. In effect, this makes it so that most spammers do not see a value in spamming, this is the theory anyway.
The problem behind this theory, is that the real hardcore automated spammers out there will still continue to do so, they are just now hoping either for traffic or to hit a few of the “dofollow” blogs. Think of it this way, if you were to have a comment on every single blog post on the internet, would you really care whether or not the search engines are looking at it? The traffic from this would be absolutely massive and it would have to make others take notice and link to your site anyway. The creator of WordPress himself says that the nofollow tag is not the solution to blog spam as it helped short term but then others continued anyway.
As a link builder, it is essential to seek out dofollow blogs and keep tabs on them so that you can wring out some of those all important do follow links (and blogs are viewed very highly in the eyes of a search engine). This explains the recent popularity of “dofollow blog search engines”
What is the solution? In my opinion a combination of software, social responsibility, and personal responsibility. If you haven’t noticed, this blog is “dofollow”, I have installed the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin which rewards those that continue to come back to my site and post. I feel that the way to reduce the amount of spam you deal with should be handled mostly by society and software that you use to weed through blatant spam attempts. This is done by showing your readers that unless you have reasonable comments, they will be deleted. If people look at the comments and they are all well thought out responses that took a minute or two to write, others will follow suit. As a reward for this, those that return and post several times will see that their links become regular links without the nofollow tag and those that truly take the time to contribute should be added to your blog roll.
In closing, making your blog do follow can be a blessing as it will increase traffic and the comments will pour in and as long as you tightly regulate the comments coming in, it will set the right example for future visitors/commentators. Feel free to comment below, and read my comment policy first 
James,
You did well for a first post! Well written and thought out. And I could not agree more with every word, except the ‘comments will come flowing in’ part.
I have no doubt that you will get your comments flowing in. You have a good style and will catch on to a lot of people.
Some people do not understand that they have to have good posts to get those good comments in the first place. Making their blog Dofollow does not guarantee them that.
Ronnie T. Dodger
James – I completely agree with your assessment of dofollow and the importance of back-links. Much of today’s web is based on collaboration, comments, and user-generated content. While it’s important to keep the bad guys at bay (I use Askimet on my website to prevent spam), it’s also important for little guys like us to be able to capture some links via the comments we leave on other blogs. Social responsibility, as you mentioned, is key here – posts like “good article” don’t add anything and their intent is obvious. Thought-out, well-written comments, on the other hand, add to the main content and in my opinion, should be rewarded.
Nice blog design, by the way. When I get the itch to change my template, I might use the one you’re using – it’s a nice, crisp template for a free one.
Thank you for your comments both, and yes I also use Askimet on my blog to keep out a lot of the hassle. If needed I might use spam karma as well but for now I don’t feel that it will be necessary.
@ WiredParent, I was on the way towards paying for a template, I was just about to do it before seeing a DigitalPoint forum post about this theme and I fell in love instantly.
hey like your blog. Keep up the good work. I know your young but age is only a number.
All the best!
Nice tips on dofollow blog. Previously, I thought all blog can be commented. Since I am a newbie. I like to ask some questions on commenting on other people’s blog:
On your comment page, there are 4 areas: Username, Email Address, Website, Comments.
1) If I enter my URL into the “Website” box, will this count as backlink?
2) If I enter on “Comments” box, which one is counted as backlink? :
a) Just type the URL. eg: Regards, my name & http://www.abc.com
b) Use Hyperlink: * My Description
Thanks,
Regards
Entering your URL would be the only way to get a dofollow backlink on my site. Simple html is allowed, and you can build anchor texts within a comment yet once again, it will be nofollow.
Any http://www.example.com links will be automatically parsed. Hope this helps.
Since I just read your other post first about “nofollow” blogs, I think you meant to say that this is a nofollow blog, since that’s what you said on your most current post. I’m not sure how many posts one has to do for Linky Love to kick in; do you get to set the number, or is there a default number?
As for spam, I have to say that by adding a few specific WP plugins, the only spam that still seems to get through from time to time is Russian spam; no one seems to have come up with a way to screen those characters. Askimet catches pretty much everything else, and one or two a month may slip through, and those are easy to delete.
I really enjoyed reading this post… well thought out and written. Thank you!