A ‘no- follow’ value is an instruction to search engines such as Google or Yahoo not to attach any ranking value to the link website that the commenter has indicated is theirs in their comment.

Many commenters do not have a website, so the issue is of no relevance at all to them.

But for those who have a website they want to promote and to whom no-follow does have applicability:

‘No follow’ is the in-built standard in WordPress blogs (and this is a WordPress blog) and that alone ought to indicate that out-of-the-box it is preferred to ‘do follow’ and for many reasons, not least of which is the attraction of spammers to do-follow links.

I would guess that many bloggers never give a thought to the no-follow value.

As it happens I am looking into WordPress plug-ins that can turn no-follow on and off on a case by case basis. There are a lot of these plugs-ins, and I am not sure yet which is best. As and when I implement one, I will be in the minority of bloggers.

But let’s think about what your comment indicates. It seems to me it says quite clearly that unless you get some payback that’s good for your site then you are not interested – and specifically, you are not interested in what my blog post says – not a great reason for applying do-follow to your post.

I’ll watch Google Webmaster Tools, and if the links don’t show up after a couple of weeks — I won’t go back to that blog again.

Another suggestion: you should have a Top Commentator widget installed.

Do Follow and Top Commentator will ensure that you have a successful blog with lots of readers!