Want More Comments? Need More Trackbacks? No Problem.
People like active sites, and what better way for a person to tell if a blog is active other than comments. Whether they be trackbacks or user comments, the more (non-spam) the merrier. So now that we have set ourselves the goal of wanting more user input, how do we go about increasing the amount of people contributing? Easy. Make their links count.
As you may or may not know, the default for Wordpress (and many other blogging scripts) is to set all comment links and trackback links to rel=”external nofollow”. Basically, this means that when search engine spiders visit your site and see these links, they are told by the blog not to follow that link or count it as a backlink. Getting rid of this would encourage fellow bloggers and website owners to both leave comments in your blog and write posts with links to your blog. If your page rank is high, some people will even go out of their way and blog about your site just because you give them that extra link juice other sites don’t want to give.
So… How does one go about disabling this pesky nofollow problem? There are numerous plugins available for Wordpress (and other blogs I suppose) that will solve this problem. A great list can be found here, at Andy Beard’s blog in Ultimate List of Nofollow & Dofollow Plugins.
This site is using SeoPedias remove nofollow. I chose this plugin specifically because it allows for search engines to track links when a user leaves a linked comment but applies the rel=nofollow for any links within the actual content of the comment. This will minimize the comment spam and maximize real comments left.
Should I Remove nofollow?
This is a question you should ask yourself. If your blog is already large, gets lots of traffic, but not many comments, then you should at least try removing it. If any of your pages have pagerank and traffic, then removing your rel=nofollow will DRASTICALLY increase your number of comments and trackbacks.
What are the negatives? You will almost surely see an increase in comment spam and if you do follow the links. So if you do not moderate your comments, DO NOT REMOVE NOFOLLOW.
If you do decide to remove it, make sure you let your users know that you did. Most people assume that all links are not followed. One way to let them know is to edit your comments template and where (I’ll use my template as an example) is says Leave a Reply, add in a small line along the lines of
All links are Search Engine Friendly!
Make sure it stands out a bit so that it catches the eye of people who are just glancing by. Moreover, its a great way to thank your readers and fellow bloggers, so leave a comment 
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