Thanks.

Just curious John . . . what will you do to comments where people don’t use their real names?

I don’t know, Josh. I made it a preference rather than a rule because I’m not sure it’s that big a deal. Then again on days when I’m a jerk I might feel differently. (Many of these days end in a “Y” but it’s otherwise random).

I like the way you do it — your name and your domain.

I do think that in many instances it’s just a misunderstanding of some perceived SEO benefit that causes people to do it. On a personal note, I’d rather interact with human beings than an ad. Who the hell is “Luxury Real Estate in Florida”? I don’t know, but he’s here commenting.

In the past I’ve deleted some but not all such comments, depending on how much the comment looked like a fluff ad. Sometimes the return email is something like “promo_admin@something.com”. That’s not much of an individual wanting to have a discussion, it seems to me.

If I come up with a good answer that’s consistent, I’ll publish it.

Hey John, sounds good to me and what is the WP plugin? I’ve been wanting to add it to my side bar too.

It’s here, Missy:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-recent-comments

Solid policy, IMHO.

*Many* folks out there think that because they have a link posted, they get “Google Juice” for it. I suspect the vast majority of people who leave comments don’t even know what “nofollow” and “dofollow” mean, or how to determine which way a blog is set up. I don’t say this to slam people in any way. It’s just the way it is. Unless you are a blogger /SEO savvy person who’s looked into this, it’s quite easy to assume any link on any blog gets “the juice”.

I don’t moderate comments on my blog (at least not prior to their being posted). But I do have multiple anti-spam tools in place. They catch 99% of the blatant spam comments.

While I’d prefer for people to use a real name, I don’t kill comments from those that don’t. My blog is a “dofollow”. Other than blatant spam and advertising, I don’t really delete comments, nor have I found the need to.

Thanks for that, Jay.

Interesting, I didn’t know there was such a thing as “dofollow” — I just knew it as HREF’s default. But look at that — there’s a plugin for everything, isn’t there!

I too have anti-spam tools in place — I used to use SpamKarma but I find I’m liking Askimet now that I’ve switched.

So far having the get-recent-comments plugin and publishing the policy seem to have helped quite a bit.

Thanks again for taking a look.

John, your active rain post sent me over. Your blog and site in general look great.

The policy seems fine and personal to boot. Its about relationships right?

Thanks Matt.

Yes, I suppose on some level, it is. Certainly the last few days have been interesting ones from this perspective. For the most part the site’s been more business oriented, but lately it also seems to be attracting it’s share of socializing as well.

As regards the blog, that’s a good thing, since the business aspect is the other matierial and MLS search.

Sorry if that doesn’t make sense — it’s getting late.

I am starting to rethink about leaving comments.

With the book coming out, I am not really sure I want people to find out who I am when I browse the Internet. On most of the blogs that I currently leave comments on, everyone pretty much knows me, but for the new folks, I am not so sure I want them to find out who I am. Not to mention, giving out my email address.

I don’t mind getting emails and stuff, but I simply do not have time to read them and those I do read, I don’t have a lot of free time to sit down and write a response which makes me feel bad, so I am kind of rethinking about leaving my email address as well. There is also legal issues involved so. Here is what little I have said about it: http://www.derekburress.com/blog/?page_id=9