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 🙂