There are really two ways this question can be interpreted. The first interpretation is whether or not the links they provide when they comment on a post count as a backlink. In general no, reason being that most blogs come with nofollow tags in their comments with a default install. The nofollow tag is something that Google came up with the help combat spam on blogger.com. Other search engines quickly jumped on the bandwagon to help diffuse the effect of blog spammers within their index. There is a new movement within to the blogosphere to get rid of the nofollow attribute from their blogs. These blogs are relying on spam filters like Akismet to protect themselves while sharing the benefits on regular links with their community.
The end result of this is that if you comment on one of the nofollow blogs, the URL that you provide will not be counted by search engines. People can still click it and visit your site, but form an SEO perspective they’re not worth anything. If, however, you are commenting on a dofollow blog, then URL you use when commenting will count. That being said, though it does “count”, the relative benefits when compared to an inline, in context backlink are unknown by this blogger at this time.
That brings us to the second meaning of this question. If you’ve found reading material that sets out to help you promote your blog, one of the things that’s commonly mentioned is that you should participate in online communities and comment on other people’s blogs. Supposedly this will help you acquire some of those golden inline contextual links. When I used to read that I couldn’t help but wonder how commenting on other people’s blogs would help in getting those sought after links. Well I can now tell you that it does indeed work.
If you’re looking for proof, you can see two unsolicited links to my blog over at John Chow’s. I’ve also done it a bunch of times, most recently in my post about blog post titles. I linked to a great article on Courtney Tuttle’s blog. I had never heard of Courtney until he started commenting on a few of my posts. His comments were intelligent so I thought I’d go and see what his blog looked like. I found a fantastic article there that inspired me to write a good post, +1 backlink for Court.
All of this works because of the naturally social tendencies of the blogging medium. Blogs tend to naturally foster communities and that’s traditionally been done through links. If you run a blog you know what I’m talking about. Countless tools out there are all about links (think Technorati).
The key to making it work is twofold. The first component is obvious, go participate in communities by commenting. But comment in an intelligent manner. You don’t have to always agree with the author, some of the best comments are in disagreement with the post they’re on, but no matter what, do it with some thought and insight. These are the kinds of comments that blog owners want to go check out and see who’s behind it.
The second major component to making this strategy work is to give people something to link to. Ideally you’ve got a set wonderfully written posts on your front page all the time, but more realistically what you want to do is have a list of your best/favourite posts in a visible area. If you look up to the right, you’ll see that I’ve put up a list of my top rated posts. That’s not necessarily an ideal situation since visitors will choose what will show up there, but it’s a great way to have a maintenance free list.
So get out there, participate, keep your blog up to date and write the best material you know how.
David // May 2, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I totally agree. I also learned about no follow from Courtney Tuttle and am on the bandwagon to change to Do Follow. After all isnt that why we can moderate comments.
-David
Marc // May 2, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Happy to hear you’re on board
For me, Akismet was the difference. It changed running a blog from an exercise in moderating comments into something where I can focus more on what I write.
Court // May 2, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Thanks much for the mention and for the link! I can testify that commenting on other’s blogs is worthwhile. I have found some really cool people that way and have been linked to a lot more than I have expected. Bloggers are just really cool and friendly in general and quite a few of them will end up emailing you to thank you for your comments. It’s definitely a win-win and I will continue to do it daily for sure.
Jack Wheeler // May 3, 2007 at 3:54 am
Great article! I’m relatively new to blogging and the main thing that has me hooked is the concept of building the community. SEO can be drudgery and the more I think about PR, the less I’m concentrating on my passion. I believe that if you focus on the content and the community, the links and traffic and rankings will follow. (watch the donut, not the hole?)
Marc // May 3, 2007 at 10:56 am
Court : Don’t mention it
Your article was a source of inspiration for mine so I found it helpful.
Jack: Thanks! The links do tend to flow much more freely in the blogging world than in the article based website world. That makes it a lot easier to worry less about SEO while blogging and just focus on the writing.
TeamTutorials // May 3, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It looks like it does work. I found your site on johnchow.com
Pastry shoes // May 3, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Great blog by the way…I just read about you over on John Chow and I now I’m here…so your doing something right.
Drew // May 3, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Hey Marc,
Yep, I also came here from John Chow’s site. I’m a PHP developer too, with a dev-oriented blog that I just started up (after plenty of false starts over the past few years)…and man, you guys that post three times a day, or even just once a day, amaze me. I’m happy when I finally get one post published after working on it for a week. Methinks I’m a tad compulsive about grammar/spelling/structure.
Marc // May 3, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Cool, great to hear from all of you. I’m always flattered when John finds something over here worth linking to
Drew: The trick is to keep at it. When I got started I found it tough to post more than once every few days, but as time goes on the topics come to mind faster and writing becomes second nature. Watching your grammar/spelling/structure can only benefit you over the long haul so if you’re going to spend too much time at something, that’s a good one
Market Matador // May 3, 2007 at 7:31 pm
You hit the idea right on the nail! This is exactly what I’m doing, and every other blogger in the world should be doing. Beginning bloggers continually make the mistake of working on their own website and promoting their own website, without contributing to the blogosphere. Keep up the great work man, and I’m sure you’re getting a lot of traffic for this article.
Well done,
-Sam from MarketMatador.com
Marc // May 3, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I’ll have to check the spike tomorrow. There’s usually an identifiable spike if you get Chowed
As for beginner bloggers, it’s a tough balance to find. You do have to work hard to build your site, but if you’re not pounding the pavement in the blogosphere, you’re going to find yourself writing in a vacuum and consequently trying to find traffic in a vacuum.
Rob O. // May 4, 2007 at 7:55 am
Yup, I agree. Commenting on other bloggers’ sites is a great boost community building – especially within blogs that fit in the same niche as your own, be that by topic, geography, or whatever.
Eric // May 6, 2007 at 5:49 am
Interesting points. I do most of my comments because I feel strongly about what is being said, though occasionally I stumble across something obscure like this one. I find comment spam is not a problem, as I have had one comment on my new blog!
Marc // May 6, 2007 at 1:26 pm
That’s true. Staying within your niche will certainly increase the chances of success using this technique.
Chad Dukes // May 6, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I’m new to the blogging world as well. It is a struggle to keep posts coming everyday, but I’m doing well in that regard. What I do struggle with is the insular approach to blogging where I focus on my own work and not so much on others. I appreciate the reminder that this is a community activity.
Thanks! Good Info.
Svend // May 9, 2007 at 1:09 am
yeah I have been to courts site, it is pretty awesome. Thanks for the article explaining back links, I am just begining to understand how the whole page rank works. My question is how do you know whether they are a do follow site because even on courts d-list there are some who do not follow
Marc // May 9, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Chad: Always happy to hear that my posts have helped someone
I also love those reminders of things I’m supposed to know 
Svend: The easiest way to check if they’re a nofollow is to view the source of a page with comments and do a search for the word nofollow. That being said, there’s still a lot of value is posting to nofollow blogs. You just get a little bit more love from the dofollow blogs
i.nconspicuo.us // May 15, 2007 at 3:53 am
I actually found your site through Courtney Tuttle’s site and that’s pretty much what led me to read this post. I went ahead and removed the nofollow attribute from my blog to encourage more comments – have you noticed an increase in community involvement yet?
Matthew // May 15, 2007 at 3:40 pm
great post good luck with the do follow, many bloggers are using it
Marc // May 15, 2007 at 6:17 pm
i.nconspicuo.us : I have noticed an increase in community involvement, but mostly in terms of new people commenting rather than any increase from the regulars.
Matthew: Thanks for the compliment
It is great to see more and more bloggers using it. The movement continues to build momentum 
Corporate Comedy Magician // May 29, 2007 at 7:51 am
Great info. I have been joining many communities to promote my website-not a blog. I have noticed increased traffic.
When you say contextual, are you referring to the info delevered in the blog?
Marc // May 29, 2007 at 10:41 am
My reference to contextual is in reference to a link that is within a context that matches the destination. That means if my blog about cars links to a friend’s website about mustangs, it’s a more valuable link than a link from a blog about parenting to a website about mustangs.
andy // Jun 6, 2007 at 1:29 am
I found your site on courtney’s d-list.
I have been using dofollow plugin for about a month now and it did increase my comments a little bit.
By the way, isn’t the list of ‘related post’ tad bit long? I have never seen a site with 40-50 related posts before. Is this working well for you?
Marc // Jun 6, 2007 at 7:14 am
That’s more of a technical thing. I just tossed them up a while ago not really thinking about it, but as time has worn on I’ve noticed some of the lists getting really long.
At this point I don’t like any of the solutions to that. I don’t want to orphan older posts from the brunt of my Google juice
trisha // Jun 21, 2007 at 12:47 pm
lol that is really cool , but blog comments backlinsk are not usefull unless u run same kind of site or topic.I Tryed few days back and google never counted backlinks.I use press release and themes for my backlinks mainly.
Marc // Jun 21, 2007 at 2:11 pm
It’s more of an issue of just how much a link is worth. All dofollow comments will give you some benefit, but you will definitely see more returns if you’re posting on sites that are related to yours. I haven’t used press releases at all yet, but I’ve heard that they work well.
corporate comedy magicians // Jun 27, 2007 at 3:12 am
Marc, I’ve been optimizing for about a month now and your advise has helped. Thank you.
Marc // Jun 27, 2007 at 7:48 am
Great to hear Magician
Keep at it and keep reading all over. There are lots of great blogs and forums that can help you to keep drawing more traffic.
Wayne // Aug 10, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I’ve said it before and it bears repeating. There’s plenty to go around for all of us. Commenting on other’s blogs helps us all.
Wink // Aug 19, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Guess I gotta check out John Chow!