Comments on: Nofollow considered harmless

By: Nofollow: good idea, bad name » Semicolon

Nofollow: good idea, bad name » Semicolon — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 08:39:04 +0000

[...] I have never understood the furore that greeted Google’s introduction of the rel=”nofollow” attribute. It seemed to me to be a perfectly sensible way of specifying the provenance of hyperlinks on a Web page. However, many people took it to be Google’s way of penalising contributors to blogs and other interactive websites. Some even thought that Google was guilty of a blanket attack on all blogs. These accusations aren’t true, but the reasons they came up are interesting: Google gave a spurious justification for nofollow; and the name “nofollow” itself is misleading. Actually there are good reasons to use nofollow, and if it had a better name it would be more widely used and less controversial. affiliate program [...]

By: Mike's Blog => Say No To Nofollows!

Mike's Blog => Say No To Nofollows! — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:28:55 +0000

I also agree that nofollows are not helping…

[...] So I think if people contribute to my blog by adding a comment they deserve a link, a real link without a nofollow! [...]…

By: David Koudys

David Koudys — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 20:03:24 +0000

And I also agree that it’s useless for stopping spam, so why have it in the first place? Google ‘claimed’ that the implementation of ‘nofollow’ would reduce comment spam. Now, since most people, including Google, state that it does no such thing, why even have it?
If the actual reason to have it is to reduce ‘page rankings’ of commenters, then let’s say that.
I stated in a comment at the other blog you mentioned that to reduce spam, as we all know but really aren’t saying in these discussions, you have to remove it or not allow it to be posted in the first place–nofollow is not needed.
Let us then focus our energies on implementing things that stop spam from getting posted in the first place–if spam isn’t posted, then Google’s ‘official’ reasoning for nofollow is eliminated.
In the end, if the GoogleBot hits my website, it’s ‘allowed’ to follow all links therein.

By: Bennett

Bennett — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 10:03:40 +0000

Mathias, I got caught up in the excitement of the whole “tag” buzzword. You’re right, of course, but calling it “the nofollow value for the rel attribute for links” seems a bit cumbersome. Google calls it ‘the rel=”nofollow” attribute’ and that’s pretty close. I’ve corrected the post — thanks for being exact.

And yes, I agree that it’s useless for stopping spam.

Finally, sorry about stripping out your q elements. WordPress made me do it.

By: Mathias

Mathias — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 09:44:10 +0000

(Damn, my Q elements got stripped out.)

By: Mathias

Mathias — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 09:43:10 +0000

There is a nofollow value for the rel attribute for links but there is no such thing as a nofollow tag. By the way, I hate nofollow in comments with a vengeance, I'll never use it on my site for the semi-purpose of stopping spam.

By: einfach persoenlich Weblog

einfach persoenlich Weblog — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 09:50:05 +0000

nofollow - 6 Monate danach

Im Januar 2005 sollte ein neues HTML-Attribut das Internet revolutionieren und Spam-frei machen. Google verkündete seine strategische Allianz mit Blog-Herstellern und Suchmachinen-Konkurrenten gegen Spamer. Was hat nun »nofollow« nach…