There seems to be some falling out over John Chow’s decision to charge his readers to remove the “no-follow” links from their comments. Paying $10 a month will allow you to get some “link love” from this PR6 blog. If a blog could be a sleazy infomercial on TV with some guy preaching about get-rich-quick schemes, John Chow would be the head spokesperson.
My anger is mainly over John’s decision to charge his readers money to remove the do-follow links. This topic has been beat to death, but I wanted to voice my opinion on the issue since this is after all the place where it’s all about the readers.
The John Chow Do-Follow Argument
John Chow could sneeze and get two hundred comments. He gets a bunch and that’s fine. John has a top-commentators section on the right sidebar. If you make it to that “coveted” top commentator spot, you get a link back to your site with the “no-follow” tag removed. JohnChow.com has a PR6, so having the no-follow tag will allow his PR6 to pass on in theory.
John’s argument is, instead of wasting time and energy getting to that top commentator spot, why not pay ten dollars a month and get your “no-follow” tag removed that way? In John’s own words, he said this:
But I am giving something. This blog is PR6 and that link love passes on when there is no nofollow.
There are enough people commenting like mad to get on the Top Commentators list because the links there don’t have nofollow. If you look at the effort it takes to get on the list, paying $10 really isn’t so bad.
So he’s doing you a favor by removing the nofollow, right?
Another commenter posted this additional argument:
I guess your site would be full of meaningless comments if all comment links were free.
So the argument has turned into paying readers for the privilege of commenting and having the “no-follow” link removed?
The Problem With John’s Argument
There are many bloggers out there practically begging for comments. Comments are simply just hard to come by. But John has somehow built such a following that comments are “expected”. John Chow has long since taken his readers for granted and has a twisted sense of what a readership really is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he soon started charging to have ads removed from his site, or to limit certain posts to only paying members (John, don’t get any ideas!).
A reader who comments has taken that extra bit of time to put some thought and effort into a post you have written. However, John doesn’t seem to think that. His readers automatically leave comments. It’s a given. But it is just absurd that John thinks he can manipulate his readers into paying for something that should be free.
I may be living in an alternate universe, but I don’t believe that turning off the “no-follow” tag will encourage meaningless comments. However, in John’s case where it seems that every person is out for themselves, perhaps charging is a good idea since his comments section seems more like the classifieds section anyway.
Does John Care About His Readers?
Of course John cares about his readers. If his readers were gone, he wouldn’t be making any money. There would be no justification for him to charge $400 for a paid review. There would be no justification for his “male enhancement” ads on his site. There would be no justification for him to charge commentators money to have the “no-follow” removed.
Furthermore, without his readers commenting, there wouldn’t be a way to John to interlace ads in with the reader’s comments.
So of course John cares. As long as his readership is making him money.
Kick John to the Curb
My advice is to just kick John to the curb. Does John Chow really deserve all the money his readership is giving him? I think not.
I wish I could kick him harder…
Conclusion
Blogs like JohnChow bring a new level of perversion to the blogosphere where a blogger doesn’t care when he is chastised as long as his wallet is being filled. The credibility that is lost from quality readers is replaced by the leeches that yearn to be as evil and make just as much money. It’s a sick game and is beyond selling out.
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Don’t you think that John Chow and Paris Hilton have some things in common?
Yes. Both are playing God and have created alternate universes.
I just saw his post today about removing the no follow. He does need a good kick in the head, but you know what, let him mess things up. Then maybe his readers will come to their senses and read some good blogs instead of all the paid advertisement crap he gives them.
I also don’t think that removing the no follow would bring in crappy comments. It is rather that competition for the top commenters spots, which attracts non-sense and spammy comments on John’s blog. I tried for a week to take a spot there: it is not so much of a hard work. I spent maybe one hour on that, because I did not have to think of what I was posting there: I just had to enter something. After putting some difference between me and the guys on the last places on the list, I did not have to do much, because nobody cared to fight for that spot anyway: they were waiting for the week to end, so the counter would reset.
I must admit that the game is funny. I managed to kick him harder (102.000 meters or something like this)
I have John in my feed reader. Here lately I have wondered why. I liked the articles I first came across and oddly the travel and dining were my favorite. Now I just find myself going there to see if he falls. Funny how we stand around waiting to see someone crash. Oh well, maybe I will get tired of waiting and unsubscribe.
Unfortunately controversy sells.
From what I have seen in various buzz tracking, his site was declining in incoming links, and this controversy gave his a huge growth in links.
The money for outgoing links or his donations doesn’t matter, it is all about the incoming links.
Unfortunately, I did have to link to the site so that people would know I wasn’t making it up, but I will try to avoid such things in the future. Perhaps I can write a “don’t follow” plugin that will allow you to insert links into a post, but are added in via JavaScript so that it doesn’t count as a link out.
Even better, take a version of the Nofollow Wikipedia plugin written by What Japan Thinks, add an interface for it so you can add and delete domains to the list that should be nofollowed.
I have been meaning to get such a plugin written for ages.
You can also include a few default values, such as Wikipedia, Google (for those that link to search results) and possibly if you are feeling evil… John Chow
Oh and if you feel it is a little too controversial for you to release, I have no such worries
Even at first blush John Chow has always annoyed me. He has not sense of humility whatsoever and it bleeds right through on his blog. If he were successful AND humble, I would probably be a huge fan and follower. But, as it stand I really don’t want any of his stick to rub off on me.
I have a PR 5 blog, and I’ve been using do-follow for my comments for months, on all of my blogs. I can’t even fathom the idea of charging people to turn their comments into do-follow. I’d rather just share the link love all around, enjoy the conversation, and engage my readers. Without nickel and diming them.
Thanks Colleen. I think you’ve reached the blogging Nirvana.