I agree they should be rewarded, that’s why the do follow is turned on. That is the reward. The putting keywords in where the name field should be is like me offering you piece of candy and instead of taking it you reach into my hand and take two. And I don’t want to be trying to carry on a conversation with “Condos in Tulsa” or “Palmdale Homes”. I want to talk with “Liz” or “Sam”. But you are free to disagree. : ) And the next time you offer someone something and they ask you for more, ask yourself how that makes you feel.

Dave

When you are ready to start blogging, I’m sure you will find a treasure trove of information here in the lab.

When you are ready and have questions feel free to drop by the Lab.

There are qite a few people who I feel i know just from reading there blogs.

I for a long time was a lurker on most blogs and rarely if ever commenting. I don’t read thru a reader but probably should.

I have only used the Rain as a blog and mostly for advertising purposes.

One of these days I will get my own blog going but for now I am content on reading and learning from the works of others.

If you are into WordPress you should find a lot of interesting reading here (of course wine glass in hand).

It is only 110 here in Tucson so we wanted to go where we could get warm.

My wife has a two day GRI class there on Tue. and Wed. I’ll be manning a WIFI desk at the motel room.

Coming up on Sun afternoon as a traditional trip since Monday I’ll be 2 short of 3 score.

As far as commenting goes, I’m kind-of, sort-of, with you. In that I only allow real names or the domain names as the author link. So, we are only one step away in our policies.

I run 5 blogs (NOT counting the POS ActiveRain blog I have too), but I only really speak to the general public on one, the other 4 all are business. Of the above 5, 3 are do-follow, 1 is not ’cause it’s still on Blogger (yuck-since Jan. 2005) and the other is not because it’s on a Drupal platform since the entire site is.

It’s very interesting to see everyone’s take on this situation as I move from blog to blog. And, I have to tell you that Jay’s is the only real estate blog I read and comment on a regular basis. The rest are tech and internet related blogs, some of them are my friends and others I read are from their friends. Sort of a small group, and most want only real names and/or domain names.

Let me read up on your blog a bit more tonight (with a glass of wine in hand…) and see what you’re all about.

BTW, what-cha coming to Phoenix in the summer for?

Matt Pellerin – Realtor

I’m not sure when it all started replacing people’s names with keywords they wanted to rank for. The first place I saw it being talked about was on The Real Estate Webmasters forum back more than a year ago.

It was considered to be a good practice for SEO to have your anchor text to your link be keywords. I still do this in some situations. Like in the context of a blog post link.

But in a comment author tag is might be good SEO but it isn’t good social networking. Like I say in the post, I don’t want to be commenting back to Scottsdale Homes.

The second reason for me, I give you a link back to your blog for every comment you leave. My posts get indexed and many have pretty good PageRank wich means juice to you. I could turn the Do Follow off and you would be getting no link and no juice. And I wouldn’t care what you put in the author box, but I doubt very much a Scottsdale Home can think, write, type, or post.

But I pass both along to those who comment here at the lab. You get a link and juice for contributing to the discussion. This is rare, most blogs have the rel=no follow on all links to comment author blogs.

I don’t have a good example so this if off the top of my head, so take this one with a grain of salt.

I provide a filling station, give you gas for your car and you want me to pay for the oil change too.

If I’m entering my sites into a directory, it is good SEO to put keywords in the anchor text.

When I’m writing or posting about what I do, I put those keywords in anchor text. But when it is related to me and not what I do or sell, I put in my name for reasons mentioned above, no it isn’t the best SEO, but it isn’t all about SEO.

I hope this explanation makes some sense. I tried to outline this in the comment policy page as well.

And Matt, you are always welcome here at the Lab. Have a great weekend and stay cool.

I say this because I’ll be on Phoenix Sun – Wed this coming week : )

Never been here before, but looked around a bit before posting this…

I am quite late to ‘the party’ here, but was pointed to this post after making a recent comment on Jay’s blog (http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com) using my domain name as the anchor. It’s not my first ‘rodeo’, nor was it the first time I’ve commented on Jay’s blog, in fact I’ve commented a lot and have had quite a few engaging ‘back-n-forths’. And, that is how I always comment, everywhere (using my domain name as the auther).

So, my question to you becomes:
In your opinion, is commenting and using my domain name a “shortcut to seo”?

Of course, no matter which way you answer the question, the blog IS ultimately yours and you will do as you please with it… it’s your right!

Oh, and if this use of my domain name is an issue for you, please modify it to my name as I would like to this posted and to hear back from you.

I’ll check the box to notify me of followup comments here.

Sincerely,

Matt Pellerin – Realtor
Phoenix Homes Team Leader