A lot of bloggers get wrapped up in participating at various other websites and blogs of interest to them. They take part in discussions and leave thoughtful comments that contribute to the overall value of the page. But, they forget one simple step that could benefit them a great deal. They forget to bookmark those pages. They don’t realize that when they leave comments on dofollow blogs they can increase the value of those comment links by bookmarking the page.
If a page is worthy enough of you taking the time to actually write a thoughtful comment on, then it is probably also worthy of a bookmark. 
Remember, bookmarks aren’t just bookmarks. They are also votes. In the eyes of the search engines, each bookmark is a vote. It doesn’t matter if you are Tweeting something, Stumbling it, Digging it or just saying that it is delicious. When the spiders see the link, they know that someone else read it and liked it.
By bookmarking the pages on my site that you are commenting on, you are adding juice to them. Some of that search engine juice is going to get passed on to you through your comment link. That adds more authority and ranking power to your own blog for your own posts. Granted, it isn’t going to make a huge difference if you do this once or twice. But, if you get in the habit of looking for the best places to comment and then taking an extra ten seconds to bookmark the page, you will definitely get better results with your own website as a result.
Plus, if you are already bookmarking your own material on your own site, it helps your social profiles to spread the love around a little. If 90% of the stuff you bookmark is all from just your website, you can bet that your profiles are not valued very highly by those social bookmarking sites. You need to spread your links around. You should bookmark all the material that you come across that is beneficial to you or to someone else that matters to you. That is how this game is played.
Why Not Use The Link Leverage That Is Available To You
Icon from Onlywire.com
Maybe you only use one account somewhere to do this like your Yahoo Delicious account. In that case, I recommend that you setup an account over at Onlywire.com like I did. I installed their desktop software program too. This makes it really easy for me to add twenty or more bookmarks at once. I can cast a vote at twenty different social websites at one time. If I wanted to, I could setup accounts at a lot more places so I could cast even more votes at once. It takes me a whopping ten seconds to click on the Onlywire button and finish the bookmarking procedure. If you don’t already use that service, you should check it out.
Remember, on my blog and some other ones out there, the comment links are dofollow. Plus I use the Commentluv plugin that I love so much. So every time you cast your vote for my material, you are also casting a vote for your own stuff. The more you give, the more you get back. I suggest you use this strategy at all of the blogs you come across that are dofollow and will accept your comments. It is a great way to be both generous and greedy at the same time. You don’t need to do this on the nofollow comment blogs, but definitely do it on the dofollow ones.
Remember that if the material was good enough to get you to comment on it, then it is probably also worthy of a link back to it. I think you’re nuts if you’re not doing it. You are already spending five minutes reading the post and leaving a comment on it. Why not take an extra ten seconds to give yourself a little more juice? Imagine if everyone was doing this.
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I agree with you Kathy. There are a lot of people who only spam their own links on every network they can find. Unfortunately for them, this doesn’t help at all, because nobody will follow you to only see your spam.
I always promote everything I find interesting :)
Some people use the bookmark sites for building strong relationships and others use them more for SEO. Even if you do use them for SEO, you don’t want to make it all that obvious. That is why it is important to keep adding links to other sites so that your profile is well rounded.
And, yes you are right. If you only promote yourself, people will not want to follow you (at least not people who will actually read your stuff and care what you have to say about it.)
Nicely put Kathy…
I like the way you share a tip that ultimately helps you but put in a great way to explain it also helps others…
This is something that’s easily missed I think, everyone probably bookmarks their own stuff, just to get it out there, but it would be much better if it was someone else who made the first bookmark. ;)
Especially if they have a good reach. :)
I’m going to share this post, after all, that’s the aim isn’t it? :P
Thanks for spreading the word Rob. You are right about me. I was trying to be a little selfish here while showing people that being generous to others does come back to you. Hopefully someone will read this and realize that they have been helping themselves this whole time they have been bookmarking and commenting on other people’s dofollow blogs.
Most of my audience is experienced enough to already realize this, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded from time to time.
Not selfish as such… just good common sense to let people know they aren’t just doing you a favour, but themselves. :)
Great tips Kathy, I call that link stacking but usually use it more when a site links to me in the actual article. I stack links on that article to boost it’s value.
I never really looked at links in comments as being very valuable (not that they are worthless, just not very valuable to SE’s) mainly because like you stated links are votes, and I don’t think that just because I comment here (or anywhere else) the SE’s will see that as you “voting” for whatever site I insert into for the link…. just my opinion though.
Keith,
You are also assuming that the search engines are separating the comment section from the main body of text. Then I could see them discounting the links. If they aren’t separating the two at a block level, then the algorithm will count the comment links.
Remember that on a decent blog, there is usually some high value discussion in those comments. Why would the search engines want to filter that out? In fact, on some blogs, all of the high value content is in the comments. There is a lot of honest voting mixed in with the regular less editorial kinds of links.
I know that blog comment links do help for SEO purposes. I do not believe that they count as much as an editorial link embedded within the main article, but they do help. (I have not done testing to tell one way or the other.)
As long as you aren’t approving spam links, I think your blogs’ comment links are counting. If you approve any spam links or bad neighborhood links, your blog’s voting rights will eventually be revoked.
But if you left a comment with a commentluv link, then it’s bound to benefit you too eh… :)
I do think it’s better to have someone else bookmark your stuff than doing it yourself but we don’t all have that sort of luck… oh well.
Commentluv is definitely a huge added benefit Rob.
More so if you have a link that’s on topic… the search engines will actually like that. :)
They will naturally think of spammers like we do.. adding nothing while trying to gain something.
They won’t favour it really as it seems irrelevant.
On topic though… bound to like that, it carries the flow of the topic elsewhere and it’s relevant. :)
It’s always good to be reminded of this. I do try to remember to bookmark pages that have linked to me, but I admit I don’t always remember to do the same for any dofollow comments I’ve left. Thanks for the reminder!
I knew someone like you would already know all about this. I am happy to remind you though. Happy commenting!
Thanks so much for tip on Onlywire.com. So far, all I’ve been using to bookmark is my Yahoo Delicious account. I know I’ve been missing out an opportunity to build links but it wasn’t until I read your article that I realized how great an opportunity I’ve been missing out on!
Glad you liked it Sherryl.
Don’t go nuts with the bookmarks, but there are probably some other sites there that you would find very valuable. You don’t need to build a social network on all of them. Some of them you just bookmark solo.
The idea is to spend a little bit of time setting everything up now so that you can get better results with less effort after the fact.
Good stuff, Kathy. I do it occasionally but not as often as I could. It takes time, and that’s one of the deterrents. I do tweet almost all of the posts I comment on, but tweets are nofollow, so it’s not quite as valuable. I do feed my Twitter to FriendFeed, which does help out a lot with indexing (but most blogs I circle have fast indexing anyway).
From time to time I will use Amplify to recommend other people’s posts, and that has huge advantages because I feed it to several micro-blogs and I find that to be very good in getting better back links!
One great dofollow bookmark service is Spotback, and I’ve just started using it (although have known of it for awhile).
I’ll also Digg stuff that I like, if I remember!
Sometimes, commenting well can be a huge chore!
Tweeting is good though Tia because it will actually drive traffic. If you are driving traffic to the posts you comment on, then you are doing yourself just as much of a favor as if you had left a dofollow bookmark.
I signed up for Amplify and I am following you. I will also checkout Spotback. Thanks.
As always Kathy; whenever I come over to your site I learn something. I bookmark posts I like or posts that have valuable information I need. Didn’t know it was good for me too :-) Thanks for yet more stuff that I need to know and will definitely be bookmarking this.
Patricia Perth Australia
See, it pays to be nice. All this time you were just doing what you do because that is the kind of person you are. Now you find out that it actually does help you out.
Great tips Kathy, I gave this both a stumble and bookmark not for my benefit but for yours. :)
Thanks Rose. I appreciate spreading the word. My friends are awesome!
A very good point. Not only is it the decent thing to do to show some love to posts you like, but it is also in your self interest to get a little extra link juice for a site. Great point!
What goes around comes around Steve.
I try to build a “network” of good blogs that I can ready daily and also connect with them and bookmarking has done wonders. Since my interest is divided for many topics, I am now using “folders” to manage them. The moment I see a good blog, I comment on it and also bookmark it. Used to ignore this, thinking I’ll see that site again, but of course one forgets in time. This way nothing escapes anymore :D
Sounds like an effective system Romona. Hope it works well for you.
It’s true when I bookmark a post on your site I improve your rank/value and in turn, if I have also commented on your post, if your rank is high, then I receive SEO benefit from being backlinked to you. Oh the tangled webs we weave….
My point precisely. Some of your generous juice flows back to you through your comment link. Plus, if you are writing clever post titles, you will get a couple click throughs to your own blog.
Wonderful. By far the best explanation of why we are all doing this, all the time… and indeed, I’m going to go ahead and follow this recipe right now. Finally this little ‘game’ that we play makes perfect sense. A well-deserved stumble.
Glad you liked it Chris. The more you pay it forward, the more it pays you back. It doesn’t hurt to be generous in this business any more than it hurts to be generous in the rest of your life.
You make a good point. The other reason I like to bookmark other bloggers posts is if you do it enough, it can be an effective way of getting onto their radar and a step forward to building relationships.
You are absolutely right. It is better if they know you have been a regular visitor.
Greetings Kathy- I’m very new to blogging and I come to your site to learn. You do a great job of teaching different aspects of blogging. Trying to understand links, backlinks, comment links – and any more “links” I’ve forgotten – is one of the things I’m struggling with. Now I can add bookmarking.
This post was a little over my head. Do you have a post that explains linking from a beginner’s point of view?
Thank you!
Susan
Kathy: I love your “live in abundance through generosity” philosophy… and many thanks for posting the Creed video with lyrics. Made my morning break a little more musical.
SEO’s nature is to raise the noise floor for any given search result. The worst offenders are the link farms and unethical splogs, comment spammers, etc.
A semantic search method (e.g., Hunch.com is a very early attempt at this) is a solution to provide more meaningful results. Bookmarking is also a good way (along with your suggestion to use CommentLuv).
Are you aware of any changes to the Google algorithm to favor more organic links?
Google uses linear and statistical algorithms to generate search results. These are probably inferior to an adaptive heuristic approach — but all of this is speculation.
Have you found any research to support your theories about building links through comments?
Many thanks. And I do love your blog (now bookmarked).