Comments on: Google’s embarrassing mistake.

By: Dylan, Jeremy and nofollow

Dylan, Jeremy and nofollow — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:52:35 +0000

[...] Nofollow no good? - Jeremy Zawodny based on a blog post by Dylan Tweeney – Google’s embarassing mistake. [...]

By: From BitchSlap to SmackDown - Why Google is just being DUMB! | InvestorBlogger

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:39:04 +0000

[...] Removing the commenting boxes for URLs in Blogger, adding no_follow to comments (has it stopped spam?), … can you add to this list? [...]

By: Rookie Nerd » Blog Archive » DoFollow: What’s all the buzz about?

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:26:29 +0000

[...] – The Tweney Review [...]

By: on nofollow, spam and plugins / ajalapus.com / web log

on nofollow, spam and plugins / ajalapus.com / web log — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:08:13 +0000

[...] Dylan Tweney may put it: Worse, nofollow has another, more pernicious effect, which is that it reduces the value of [...]

By: the tweney review » Blog Archive » How to strike back at Wikipedia’s silly nofollow policy.

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:28:08 +0000

[...] Wikipedia is adding nofollow tags to all its links? Fine, then. We’ll all just add nofollow tags to all of our links that [...]

By: Paul Vallee

Paul Vallee — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:15:20 +0000

I know I’m joining this conversation quite late. Sorry about that. I have a couple comments.

First, my feeling is that pagerank flow is the primary objective of blog spamming. I don’t think any spammer realistically thinks that actual traffic (potential customers) can realistically click through their blogspam. The reality is that it’s a lot easier to send millions and millions of emails via … you guessed it good old fashioned spam.

Secondly, I think that rel=nofollow is not likely to be anything other than a small parry in the battle against blogspam long-term. More important weapons are bayesian filtering and the creation of a cooperative spamdex. I also think the future of the user-created net has a lot more in common with reddit or digg. Think of the old-fashioned slashdot moderation system, improved. You can still post any nonsense to /. you want, but no-one will see it or read it. So big deal.

Cheers,
Paul

By: Harvey Kane

Harvey Kane — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:23:33 +0000

Agree with the comment above about the human factor – there are so many instances of SEO where a human can pick spam in a second, whereas a computer will struggle. Take the display:none CSS value – could be used for hiding spammy phrases, or could also be used for rollover effects, menus, accessibility etc etc. Ultimately very hard for google to tell.
So I’m happy to play my part with adding nofollow to links anyway.

By: rc

rc — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:48:09 +0000

I find the rel=nofollow attribute quite useful for controlling the flow of PR within my own sites, but I agree that it’s not at all effective in preventing blog spam.

Personally, I think it’s only fair that someone leaving a legitimate comment gets some PR recognition for a minute or two of their time.

As for spam, we just have to deal with it as it comes. There’s no “easy” way to get rid of it.

By: Mal

Mal — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 09:39:05 +0000

It would be interesting to know how much traffic they get from the blog spamming alone, without any effect from SEO value on the links themselves.

By: ef

ef — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 10:33:48 +0000

Add two or three checkboxes with the prescription: please check the first and the third and uncheck the second (which are random, of course).

The bots wouldn’t get past that for a while, I guess.