Written on April 23, 2011 at 4:07 pm by John Halderman

How FeedBurner is Stealing Your CommentLuv Backlinks

Filed under SEO {one comment}

FeedBurner is Stealing Your CommentLuv backlinks

I just read this very informative article by Brian Rogel about how Feedburner steals the unique backlinks you are figuring to get using the CommentLuv plugin on your WordPress blog. Your link juice is outright stolen by Google! In short, Feedburner usually changes the backlinks to one that points to Google that looks like this – “http://feedproxy.google.com/……”

Turns out this backlinks stealing has to do with tracking in Feedburner, which is managed through a little setting which would seem innocent if you even understood what was going on. Brian Rogel did such a great job in his article describing this I’ve just included it here so you get all the details about what Feedburner does automatically, and what you can do about making sure you get the backlinks value you intended when using the CommentLuv plugin. . .

CommentLuv is one of the best plugins available for WordPress. It allows any blog owner to reward the people who comment with backlinks directly back to one of their own blog articles.

CommentLuv is growing in popularity and many large well known blogs are starting to jump on, but there is one major hiccup that is still not very well known, Feedburner backlinks stealing:

Feedburner Steals Every CommentLuv Backlink

Yes, that’s right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you haven’t changed the Feedburner default settings, then every one of your CommenLuv backlinks points to Google.

Don’t Worry too much though because it’s not all doom and gloom. The problem is surprisingly easy to check for and fix in Feedburner. Here are the steps you’ll need to take:

How to Check CommentLuv

To see what Feedburner is doing with your backlinks. First you can either jump back to a comment you’ve made in the past or simply comment on this post directly below. Once the comment is submitted, scroll your mouse over the CommentLuv link. Check the bottom left-hand corner of your browser and the link should appear.

CommentLuv <em>backlinks</em> are stolen by <em>feedburner</em> picture

FeedBurner Problem with ComLuv links photo

There’s a second option to check the backlinks in case your current browser doesn’t support this feature. Use your mouse to right-click on the link and then click “Copy Link Location”.

Paste the link into any word processor to see where it points. If it’s a direct link back to your site then you’re in the clear, but if it says “http://feedproxy.google.com/……” then you’ve been losing all your backlinks juice to Google through Feedburner.

How to Fix FeedBurner

In order to fix this backlinks issue you’ll need to log into FeedBurner. Once your account is open, click on “Configure Stats”.

You will then uncheck the box named “Item Link Clicks”. The last thing is to make sure the setting has been saved.

CommentLuv Vs FeedBurner

That’s it! Feedburner is reset. You are now all set to receive real backlinks for the time you spend leaving thoughtful comments on other blogs.

One last note. Once the setting has been fixed there will most likely be a slight lag before implementation. So it’s completely normal if you go to test out the changes and you still see the feedproxy link showing up. As soon as FeedBurner’s cache is updated (normally less than 24hrs) you’ll be all set to go.

Brian Rogel (September 3, 2010)

There you have it, how Feedburner is stealing your CommentLuv backlinks, not good for your SEO efforts.