No Google juice for nofollow attribute, will this negatively impact legitimate comment activity? |
Loading ...Google is encouraging webmasters to add a rel=”nofollow” to any hyperlinks that users can create (EXAMPLE. comments and trackback section) via googleblog:
A: Any link that a user can create on your site automatically gets a new “nofollow” attribute. So if a blog spammer previously added a comment like:
Visit my <a href=”http://www.example.com/”>discount pharmaceuticals</a> site.
That comment would be transformed to:
Visit my <a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>discount pharmaceuticals</a> site.
MSN Spaces has jumped in to already enable this feature [update: no, they actually haven’t]. I have mixed feelings about this and have not yet enabled this in the comments area here … yet. On one hand I think it’s great that Google is providing a way (and MSN search too) to prevent the robots from following spam links. The comments are still running through a redirect script here so it is kind of a non issue.
On the other hand, as somebody who leaves legitimate comments and doesn’t comment only for the Google juice, I will probably leave less comments now and have more blog posts as comments/responses for sites who enable this (especially MSN Spaces TypePad). This way maybe my comments will be seen and linked to in the blog area where hopefully the rel=”nofollow” is not added. I wonder if this will have a negative effect on other legitimate commenters.
I’m all for taking the benefit out of comment spam, which is what this is designed to do, but how will this impact legitimate comments? I think it will reduce them. It will reduce them for me. If I take five minutes to write a pensive reply, it was always nice knowing that my link would be there to go along with that reply and maybe I’d pick up a few Google hits, but again it wasn’t the primary motivator. I wonder how many other legitimate users there will be like me who feel this way?
Perhaps there will be ways to provide karma to legitimate commenters so that they continue to get the juice. In sites like MSN Spaces TypePad, they’ve given no choice to the owner of the blog which I do not like. It should be my choice as the blog author, not the choice of MSN Spaces TypePad to enforce this on my behalf. Scoble thinks that this is a great idea, but I think sometimes that he has a quick trigger finger and doesn’t think things all the way through before posting. With all due respect, this is one of them. Again, I think the blog author or webmaster should control this, sites like blogspot and MSN Spaces TypePad should make this a configuration option (they can have it setup for default on, so the blog author needs to turn it off) for blog authors, not force feed them. I’m a bit annoyed that they took this liberty with my MSN Spaces TypePad blog for the commenters. Maybe I want those (non-spamming) commenters to get SE juice, didn’t they think of that side? Mike Torres?
Update 1/24/2005: Mike Torres from MSN Spaces has rightly pointed out to me that MSN Spaces has not in fact implemented the nofollow tag yet, only that they support its use. I’ve since published a retraction of my comments about them (too numerous here to completely strike out). You can pretty much substitute TypePad for MSN Spaces with most of my comments in this entry (I’ve tried to add that where relative).
Related Posts- Treating all commenters like spammers is a slippery slope
- Google responds to my nofollow concerns
- Blog comment spam and SE impact: is it that significant?
- Retraction: MSN Spaces not enforcing nofollow on all blog authors
- Why nofollow continues to be against the spirit of the web
- Can Scoble prove that his blog can turn a site from PR0 to PR5?
At least we can lobby/inform developers who work on blog software other than MSN and Blogger about how to implement this as an OPTION rather than a default… Doesn’t most blog software now have a good number of anti spamming tools? Are Blogger and MSN just lazy?
Comment by FranciscoIV — January 19, 2005 @ 12:49 pm PST
Yeah, I think not having a CAPTCHA system (like I do here) as an OPTION is bizarre, FranciscoIV. The system I use is less than 20 lines of code and it has all but eradicated comment spam from this blog. It doesn’t help human generated comment spam, but if they take the time to dance with the CAPTCHA then it takes them more time to leave the comment spam than it does for us to remove it. If it was a huge problem, then I’d use some sort of karma system for authorized or registered users and make it default all anonymous commenters and people who don’t have the karma to not get the SE juice.
I’ve described how they could get creative with this and make a karma system, thereby giving the power to the content provider (the blog author) where it should be. You, me, every blog author should control this behavior, not some blog software that requires hacking or doesn’t allow hacking. Many bloggers will not have the knowledge to hack out these enforced changes, which bothers me. The content provider should be enabling or disabling this type of activity.
Now I just wait and hope that the blog hosting companies and blog developers do the right thing on this one.
Comment by TDavid — January 19, 2005 @ 1:27 pm PST
I have an idea for another way this could work.
I use a WordPress plugin called Spam Karma to keep spam off my blog. Works great. What if Spam Karma, or similar plugins, gave you the option of adding the rel=”nofollow” attribute to links in comments that don’t quite score low enough to be certified spam but are still suspicious? You could then get a notification via e-mail or through the admin interface and have the opportunity to restore full Google juice to commenters that are actually friendly.
As complex as some anti-spam plugins have become, I can’t imagine that it’s too big a leap to implement something like this. It strikes me as a good compromise.
Comment by Adam M. — January 19, 2005 @ 9:21 pm PST
Oh, and to more directly answer the question posed in your subject: no, at least not my commenting activity. I don’t comment on other people’s weblogs because I’m whoring for PageRank; I do it because I want to contribute to the discussion. Anyone out there who’s doing it just to get higher raking in search engines is free to leave their comments someplace other than my weblog, thank you very much.
Comment by Adam M. — January 19, 2005 @ 9:26 pm PST
Adam M.
I really like the idea of only giving some DOFOLLOW to those whose scores are high enough to be considered a real human being.
I see this post was made back in 2005, 3 years later i wonder if there is a solid solution.
Comment by Sneef — January 10, 2008 @ 9:07 pm PST
Sneef - there are some plugins out there which will follow based on a set of criteria and it would be trivial to add nofollow filters to some of the well established antispam plugins out there, but I don’t see any single magic bullet for this situation yet. NOFOLLOW has never worked as a spam deterrent, if anything it’s discouraged legitimate comment activity.
Comment by TDavid — January 11, 2008 @ 5:09 am PST