News By Tom Brownsword

Aaron Anderson has decided to stop using “nofollow” tags on blog comments. You got it right, Aaron.

“Nofollow” is not natural. The Internet, also known as the World Wide Web, is just that: a web. Interconnected. It is *SUPPOSED* to have links.

Page rank bleed? Only Google cares. I don’t build my pages for Larry and Sergei; I build them for you. If I link to you, it’s a “dofollow” link unless I’m pointing out a “don’t do this” example (in which case you probably won’t get a hyperlink at all!).

So here are a few blogs that don’t use “nofollow”. I found them by using the search term “internet business”. Other than searching for these blogs and ensuring that the content is OK, I don’t know these people unless otherwise stated; it’s simply a bit of “dofollow” link love for them (I’ve linked to the most recent blog post on these blogs). And not knowing the people makes it kind of fun, too; I’m telling you what I think they are doing after reading their main blog page (how close did I get?):

1. Steve Olson. I think I’d enjoy sitting down for a cup of coffee with Steve. His blog posts seem to be quite long and introspective. I also think that the slower you read them, the more you get out of them. The main page has a page rank of 5, so the “dofollow” movement has definitely hurt him… NOT!

2. John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing. I’ll confess to knowing about John; I even subscribed to his list for a while (I unsubscribed back during my “focus purge” — but at least his list offered some value). I’m going to add his blog to my RSS feed; it contains useful information, like the post I linked to.

3. Neal Harmon’s blog. Neal’s blog is about publishing. He also talks a lot about politics and Ron Paul (a lot of small business people seem to like him and I’ll admit to thinking enough of him to take a second look). His posts are infrequent but contain some good information and have lots of links for further research. I’ll be using this link myself to go back later for further reading.

4. Des Walsh’s “Thinking Home Business” blog. SOBCON 08? “Successful and Outstanding Bloggers? I like that… clever — and since it’s in Chicago, it does sound very interesting… But back to Mr Walsh. According to his “About” page, he’s a “business coach and social media evangelist” as well as “a writer, public speaker and group facilitator”. He also lives on Australia’s Gold Coast, about five minutes from the beach. Congrats, Mr. Walsh; it looks like you are quite happy with your life and it’s a great encouragement to see you living and working as you wish! This is another blog I’m going to have to go back to… lots there to look at.

5. Jump Start Internet Business. I’m not sure who runs this site; I couldn’t find a name. The blog also seems to be heavy on affiliate marketing. While it’s a good way to make some money online, I’m not convinced that it’s a viable long-term business strategy because it requires constant work to find and promote affiliate products, plus your income source can be pulled at any time via terms being changed, products being pulled from the market, etc. At least this person encourages people to limit the number of programs they promote and to buy and use the product before promoting (as opposed to sending out an email to your list every time there’s a product launch). Again, I’ll be back to this blog to see what other tips I can pick up (I do a bit of affiliate marketing but it’s not my main focus). I do like the approach this person seems to be taking to affiliate marketing.

One thing I noticed about all of these blogs: They all contain useful information and are written for people, not search engines. Congrats to all of you for not using “nofollow” and for sharing good information with me.

Thanks for listening,
Tom