Here is one plugin that you should install if you are blogging on the WordPress platform. The Nofollow-free plugin turns off the default settings in WordPress that makes all links in the comments section of the blog “No Follow”. Most blog writers who are networking are trying to accomplish three things:

1. They want to check out other blogs, and learn as much as possible about their topics, niche or design.
2. They want to draw attention to their own blogs by leaving comments, with links, on other blogs that others can follow to their blogs.
3. They want to build their page rank by developing more links to their sites.

Unfortunately, on most blogs, this last objective is not met because all links are “No Follow” by default. If you install this plugin, you can allow those who comment on your blog to get those valuable back links. Of course, you will still want to keep an eye on all the comments, and not allow useless comments just for the links. Most bloggers will only comment when they think they have something valuable to say, so this is not usually a problem. However, it does become a problem, you can always delete inappropriate, or gratuitous comments through your control panel.

This plugin also has a lot of user control built in. You can define how many comments a user has to leave before the “no follow” tags are removed. The default is 5, but you can change that to anything you want. You can also control whether links put into the comment itself are “no follow” or not. Personally, I have this blog set so that all links attached to the name of the commenter is “no follow free”, but links placed in the comment itself will remain “no follow”. My thinking is that I want to encourage comments, but I don’t want people trying to put in a whole list of websites just to get links back to their sites.

You can download the Nofollow-free plugin by clicking here. If you need help getting the plugin installed or configured, visit the Nofollow-free plugin page.