Ack! I forgot to rip out the nofollow code when I updated to WordPress 2.0. I’ve gone through and removed all of the nofollow code now. Can we please just admit that nofollow does nothing to prevent, stop, slow down, minimize, catch or deter spam? I’d really appreciate it if it was turned off in WordPress by default, especially now that Akismet is included with WordPress.
The only comments, trackbacks or pingbacks that should be making use of nofollow are ones that are considered spam. Of course these comments, trackbacks and pingbacks should never be allowed in the first place if they are spam. It has been more than a year since nofollow was pushed upon us and the problem has only grown. I have yet to see one person during the last year stand up and proclaim that nofollow has done wonders in the fight against spam.
It was really dissappointing to see so many smart and intelligent folks get behind this idea.
The time has come to admit that while it does have some use, for blog software like WordPress it is virtually useless. If you want to combat spam you need to make use of plugins that try to prevent spam. To that end, why isn’t there an anti-spam plugin enabled and shipping with WordPress by default? It is nice that the Akismet plugin is there, but it isn’t activated by default and may require an additional fee to use in some cases.
I feel an email and or bug report coming on 🙂
30 replies on “Why Do We Still Bother With Nofollow?”
You’re right, nofollow doesn’t deter comment spam, but it does help with search engine spam, which I think is the point.
Remember that comment spam has two victims: the site where the spam was posted, and the search engine results that get boned when the spammers PageRank gets a bounce. It’s that second one that we’re trying to get rid of.
[…] Joseph wrote an interesting post on the futility of rel=nofollow for blogs. Apparently he is not alone–there’s an anti-nofollow organization, NoNoFollow.net, that lists several valid objections to this technique. They also list a few plugins for WordPress which are supposed to disable the rel=nofollow “features”, but according to conversations with Joseph none of these are 100% effective. So I have followed his lead and manually edited my WordPress 1.5.2 code to remove the nofollow bits. I also added a badge on the left column of my blog. [link] […]
[…] After reading Joseph’s blog on nofollow, I have removed nofollow from my blog. I am using the DoFollow WordPress plugin to remove the offending nofollows. I hesitate to modify the underlying WordPress code, and if at a later date I find it necessary, I will write a small script to do it. You can find more information on nofollow at nonofollow.net. […]
The problem with that Deane is that legitimate and content rich, informative websites also suffer for it. Devalueing good content hands power back to the junk anyway so the attribute is useless. This is Google’s problem; why should we have to break our websites semantic correctness just to help Googles poor spam detection?
Another point is, when do sites render comments without moderation? There’s very few around and you have to hit a button to approve a post, so where the harm in deleting?
Things like:
just won’t get posted. I’m responsible for my content and the quality of the content, not Googles multi-billion dollar search engine.
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! […]…
I agree with you. Spammers will never stop. Nofollow have not helped reduce the spam. But Nofollow tag can be very useful sometimes, like you can add nofollow tag to affiliate links, because Google don’t like affiliate links.
After a row on a SEO forum I even posted my thoughts on this attribute to backup my previous comment.
Basically, it doesn’t work.
http://blog.tn38.net/archives/2006/08/rel_nofollow.html
I don’t know why we bother with Nofollow either, but I’ve put it behind me. Just removed my nofollows today, and you know what…..it feels good.
Terry
I used to use nofollows alot but I don’t see why I did, I removed them now.
I can proudly say my blog is a Nofollow free zone, and thats the way it should be, i’m not going to punnish my readers by not giving them Google Juice.
Nofollow is great, but not for what Google intended
It can be used on blogs to improve internal linking structure, just like the “revenge of the mininet”
You can easily increase the value of any page, including your homepage through smart internal linking.
This is something worth investing time in for your central site, and any related sites in your network.
I just attempted to remove nofollow from my WordPress 2.0.5 blog; a search of the files showed that it was only in wp-includes/functions-formatting.php. However, that did not seem to get rid of it — even though there were (by a search of the files) NO references to the word “nofollow” in the files. Strange. Maybe I’m just tired? Otherwise, I don’t know what to say about that.
At any rate, I found some code at Dean Edwards’ blog that removes it; just plunk it into the my-hacks.php file, tick the “Use legacy my-hacks.php file support” box in Options =>Miscellaneous, and it’s taken care of you.
dean.edwards.name/weblog/2005/03/nofollow/?full
Yeah, you are correct that nofollow is yet to have any effect on spammers. But these things take time.
What about selectively disabling nofollow? For example, if you find that a comment is insightful and relevant to your post, you give him the google juice? 🙂 Such an approach will not reward spammers even if someone is not monitoring their blog frequently.
a bot that put a link can obtain visitors and users…nofollow can’t stop it
Nofollow is nothing but I way to push out the little guy…any time someone submits a quality comment to a forum, blog or guestbook should get some credit for it…they are creating content for the site that they post to. The site moderators should be responsible for removing the spam.
I believe nofollow was nothing but a marketing gimmick which google used to prevent high pr blog links to effect their serp rankings. Anyway more and more people are now shying away from it. I can list at least 10 blogs which i frequently visit which have removed nofollow.
[…] I say, let’s ditch it. Let’s get rid of this little piece of code. And let’s start giving link love to everyone who comments on our blog. […]
In my opinion nofollow was meant to protect search engines against spam. Not Blogs. If spammers get too many quality links they spam the search engine results. And that`s a big problem for Google and other search engines and in the result for everyone who wants to find quality content in the web. That`s why everybody should be careful what he votes for with his links.
But nofollow could also help you to protect your blog against comment spam. If you let the people know that spam links are not very helpful on your page so that you will either delete them or apply nofollow to them, the spammers will stop leaving handmade messages trying to grab links from you manually. They will recognize that they just waste their time with it.
Just let them know that you selectively apply nofollow to your comment links and you will have no problem anymore. If you need a WordPress Plugin for that please have a look here. It strips nofollow by default but without loosing control on your comment links. You can dowload the plugin from the central WordPress Plugins Directory if you like. It`s free.
I think nofollow is a good idea. I doubt it would increase discussion for most blogs since very few people bother to check if no follow is given.
remember nofollow can prevent leak PR if your page/site have high PR
i hear sometime SEbot dont notice nofollow
Funny – although one of my blogs has ‘nofollow’ I’m now getting 200 comments per day that are all spam. If I leave moderation more than 2 days the moderation page takes soooo long to load – people don’t look for the nofollow tag. Sadly – so far every one of the comments is awful in nature, the most prurient content – I wouldn’t even like my wife to read through the attemtion submissions. Could do with an easy plug-in to catch more.
Regards
Baron Turner
Search Engine Optimisation
I think that the search engines need to explain their position on using re=nofollow on internal links. I have seen a disturbing trend of webmasters using rel=nofollow on links on their own sites, thinking that they can control what pages they want pagerank to not flow to. Many folks are using rel=nofollow on links to pages on their site like “privacy policy” and “about us.” Here is an example:www.restaurantica.com.
I think that this silly and counter-productive. I also think that is fast way to ruin your own site. Erroneously, some webmasters believe that this attribute can be used for SEO. Some SEO types even advocate this policy. What do others think about this?
[…] as I’m concerned, and nofollow hasn’t really lived up to expectations. That’s why some people have disabled it. Now some people includes me. The majority of comments that make it past Akismet […]
nofollow has not lived up to its expectations.
I think nnofollow is vital by now. Until the SE finds another way to destroy the comment spam.
Why not use a combination of moderation and captchas instead of nofollow? The former would stop offensive or spam comments, and the latter should stop most bots…
Amen! NoFollow is quite useless.
I love Akismet! I shudder when I think of the days before it…
[…] is that so many people agree with this concept, that nofollow should not be used, here, here and here to name but a few- I highly doubt that all these people can be […]
You know, I think you are right. I believe the nofollow movement is a big failure. It really doesn’t prevent spam because most spam is done by auto bots. Spam detectors work much better at preventing spam. Autobots still hit sites that use the nofollow tag. I have also made my site a dofollow blog, because if someone is going to take the time to leave me a comment, I can at least pass them a little link juice 😉
FYI: Askimet has been very effective at stopping spam on my site.