StumbleUpon is my favorite site, so I am not singling them out. The misuse of the nofollow tag is crazy and hurting the entire fabric of the web.
Originally meant to discourage comment spam on blogs, the nofollow tag is out of control.
Notice how regular links on StumbleUpon are "nofollowed" (Highlighted in Pink). Considering how all of StumbleUpon's content comes from other sites, they should have regular links here. The same goes for Del.icio.us and many other sites.
I just tested the blog feature on StumbleUpon and see that nofolow is added to links you put there also.
They are trying to combat span and sculpt pagerank, but in my opinion, using nofollow on content you get from other sources is like plagiarism or bad journalism. Find another way to fight spam!
23 comments:
That is very discouraging! How will new bloggers and writers ever hope to get links built up if all the social networks adapt nofollow?!
I agree Marc that the nofollow tag is landing up all over the place now when it should be seen less. You know SEO goes through little phases like fads. For now one of the fads is to nofollow almost everything. 3 years ago we were repeating leywords up to 10 times each in the title, description, keyword and additional supplementary meta tag fields. We were cranking up the keyword use to almost 10% on page text. What will be the next SEO Fad? Regards
Good afternoon,
I just wanted to say thank you. I put my first page on StumbleUpon this morning and saw that you had already written me a review. I find the instant communication from people all over the world mind boggling and exceedingly touching. Kind words about my words from a total stranger.... I don't know what to say. Thank you.
Writer Dad (Sean)
No follows are good because i can keep my link juice and put it where I want it. That is if the theory works.
That really is pretty lame! There are linking to your website with your content and the link is "no follow." Great perspective.
this nofollow nonsense is just making things more complex. I am having my site redesigned for the fist time in years and there are soo many small decisions to make.
Just curious Marc. Your Author links are nofollow, yet you are sporting the YouComment, IFollow badge in your sidebar.
Ronnie T. Dodger
Tips 4 Blogspot
Thanks for spotting that Ronnie!
It appears that blogger or Google may be putting those nofollows back into templates when they are removed.
But i just removed them again, lol
this stuff is soo confusing! i still dont understand what the big deal is. should i have our webmaster do this to our links?
It appears that blogger or Google may be putting those nofollows back into templates when they are removed.
That is weird. Never heard of that before.
Did you change templates lately? If so, you will have to repeat the hack to remove it again.
Lucy,
It is confusing, but nothing you should be worrying about for your firm's website. I just took a look, and this issue does not apply unless you guys start putting ads on your site or linking to many other different sites.
cheers,
Marc
@leagallyryan: "That is very discouraging! How will new bloggers and writers ever hope to get links built up if all the social networks adapt nofollow?!"
Yes, it is discouraging, link building is definitely important but people are over doing it, they're spamming recklessly and its annoying, you want a link, put in a relevant post, talk to the blogger and leave a link, don't just leave a link and go on about a product, or even worse just leave a random completely irrelevant link. That way people wont even have to bother putting a nofollow because as long as it completely relevant they don't give a beep about the link you left.
Now people are crying about the nofollows on Twitter: http://www.sugarrae.com/twitter-lays-down-for-google/
Seems to me Google opened a can of worms with this one!
Marc, do I have to slap "nofollows" up everywhere on my blog now?
I personally hate the thought of it, but just to be on the safe side you should add them to your advertising links.
Many big sites are taking advantage of this, and as they have a lot authority in search engines, they overcome original content source.
Very bad situation, but hopefully search engines will come with new algorithms to fix that.
echhhkk. a result of idiot spammers who ruin it for the rest of us. so glad you've got link luv.
It's starting to look like rel="nofollow" will become the death of the internet. Google sure knows how to screw up a good thing. Is Meg Whitman at the helm now?
nicely put Dave, i agree fully
It's just fighting only on Google arena, other search engines doesn't use nofollow tags for building index.
How can they be so scared about it!! is just a freakin link and is not abig deal. People think they have to get free but never give away. lol
oh no more no follows, then what will all the little bloggers do to get links. wonder where the easier linking will be once its all no follow. I got a plan, do you?
If the no follow tag is used only to stop spam than they are at the wrong end, well by doing so you can stop spam up to a moment than what,but by doing so real commentators are discouraged to comment, it will lead to decrease in the traffic and this cycle will go on.Nowadays many software are available in the market which does it work nicely, if the same is installed in order to stop spam than they are benefited in many sense.
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