I wrote recently about why the worst thing about nofollow is its name. My response to Maxpower’s thought-provoking comment grew too long for the comments section, so here’s a slightly longer exposition of what’s wrong and right with nofollow.
First, for avoidance of doubt, here are some of my main points.
- Nofollow does not reduce comment spam
- Nofollow reduces comment spam’s effect on search results
- Nofollow is potentially useful to all web users
- Google does not (as far as I know) use nofollow as well as it could
- The name “nofollow” is inappropriately ad hoc
- I’m not a nofollow apologist; I just don’t think it’s as bad as they say it is
what if I left a comment on your blog, as I do now, that mentions that there is a great resource called NoNofollow and it’s all about NoFollow, a subject discussed most prominently on this very page. I think its not only very informative, but also highly relevant to this discussion. Doesn’t that page deserve some pagerank[?]
Yes it does, but not because it’s relevant. It deserves PageRank from that link because it’s a “genuine” link, not some automatically created spam link. If I have a blog all about Viagra, and some spambot posts a comment linking to a cheap online Viagra shop, then that link is both informative and highly relevant. But it’s still spam and should not transmit PageRank to the site, nor result in a PageRank penalty to my site for linking to a “bad neighbourhood”.
You raise a very good point: Many comment and trackback links are highly relevant and really should participate in ranking calculations. However, in general, Google cannot tell the difference between relevant “genuine” links and relevant spam links. They have found that their search results are better if they ignore all such links. No doubt they will refine this algorithm in the future.
But, because this is a blog and not another kind of website — it gets no boost as NoFollow is applied by default. That doesn’t seem right.
Nofollow does not apply only to blogs. Forums and many other sites that allow reader contributions also use nofollow. Some (like Amazon) don’t allow links at all. If I review a blogging book on Amazon, and want to mention NoNoFollow, Amazon won’t let me link to the site at all. Do you consider this unfair too?
pagerank love (a term created to explain the complex calculation that is pagerank…
The term “pagerank love” explains nothing. It has a lovely 1960s caring and sharing vibe about it, which I applaud, but it really doesn’t give much insight into the “complex calculation” that Google uses to rank search results.
A blog owner controls all facets of their online website including other people’s comments…
This is clearly not true. The reason nofollow exists is that many (most?) blog owners don’t have full control over their blogs. They may be using a blog provider that doesn’t give them full administration rights; they may simply lack the technical expertise or the time to manage the blog fully; or they may even have abandoned their blog. For these bloggers, it seems worthwhile to indicate that certain links were not created by them, but were contributed by third parties.
If all bloggers controlled every detail of their blog, then blog spam would not be a problem. But they don’t, and it is. “As I have argued ad nauseum, it is plainly obvious that nofollow was never intended to stop comment spam”. Nofollow does not solve the comment spam problem, but it helps negate its effect on search engine results.
There can’t be any controversy about simply including nofollow in a link. rel="nofollow" adds potentially useful semantic metadata to HTML markup — it indicates that a link may not have been reviewed by the website owner. However, many people take issue with the way Google uses nofollow. It makes sense for Google to take nofollow into account when calculating rankings — but they apparently take an “all-or-nothing” approach, ignoring any nofollow links completely. They are simply treating all unreviewed blog comments, trackbacks, forum postings and so on as if they were spam.
I suspect later versions of Google’s algorithms will use nofollow in a more subtle way, reducing the PageRank contribution of nofollow links but not necessarily ignoring them entirely. This will make its inappropriate name even more inappropriate over time.
So here’s an overly-simplified nutshell version of my views on nofollow:
If you don’t like nofollow, then turn it off. If you can’t turn it off, then you’re not in control of your blog and you should have nofollow turned on anyway.
Great post! I am enjoying the points you continue to raise and I hope you aren’t taking my disagreement with some of them personally. Anyway, from the above post:
– I agree with your comment regarding genuine links. Regardless of the adjective used to describe a legitimate link that brings utility to the topic on a webpage (and to the Internet as a whole), that link deserves to be counted on par with all other links. Still, because this is a blog, and not MSNBC or CNN, the link is discounted. I believe we agree on this.
– Just because nofollow is used on other websites that aren’t blogs doesn’t make it right. There is still discrimination against blogs based solely on their nature as blogs.
– Amazon doesn’t allow links at all because it is their site, to do as they please, they control every aspect of it, as any responsible website should do. This is fair. They set the terms, you follow them or leave.
– While bloggers can choose to control every aspect of their website (its true!), many do not exercise their power. This is bad. This is how spamming works. NoFollow is a good thing for delinquent website owners, those who aren’t responsible to police their own site, because it takes some of their power away — all links created by visitors are labeled as not peer reviewed.
I happen to be a responsible website administrator. No spam links on maxpower, all links are peer reviewed. I should not have nofollow and I don’t.
My objection to nofollow is not in its nature, but in its blanket use. I think it is ok to treat blogs as irresponsible from the get go and implement nofollow on all links. I do not think it is ok to have no option to turn nofollow off in a default installion of a blog. This is the case with all popular blogging platforms that I am aware of.
Surely, if people can be given the options of controlling commenting on their blog (on or off) they should also be given control of whether or not nofollow should be on or off too.
Not at all — I enjoy a good, robust debate. And in that spirit…
This is not true. The link is discounted because it was contributed by a third party, not because this is a blog. If bloggers put links in their posts (as opposed to comments), nofollow is generally not applied. If CNN.com allowed readers to submit comments with links, they would most likely apply nofollow to them. As I said above and previously, “Nofollow does not apply only to blogs. Forums and many other sites that allow reader contributions also use nofollow.”
To discriminate against something is to (unfairly) treat it differently to other things. Since nofollow applies to blogs and non-blogs, by definition it does not discriminate against blogs. But as you point out, this still doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
(I don’t understand why Google would want to discriminate against blogs anyway. People like blogs, and expect to find blogs when they use search engines. Why would Google want to cripple their own search results by marginalising blogs?)
It’s not bad; it’s life. Most bloggers (me included) have far too much else to do in their lives to care about trivial matters like whether their blog commenters are distributing PageRank.
That terminology seems harsh. Is my Aunt Agatha “delinquent” because she doesn’t know how to control spam comments on her Parrot Photo Blog? She’s not delinquent; she’s just not a propellerhead. As you say, nofollow is good for her because it prevents her lack of competence from affecting others (via spammy search engine results).
Perhaps, but it’s pretty obvious why blog platforms don’t generally give you this option. Let’s face it: nofollow is a techie feature that most people would neither care about nor understand. Most bloggers (probably the vast majority) would never turn off nofollow even if it were really easy, because most bloggers have no idea what nofollow is. A minority (including me) understand nofollow and are happy with it. Some savvy users (including you) understand nofollow, disagree with it, and have the expertise to disable it. (For example, by installing their own copy of WordPress and using a nofollow-disabling plugin).
This leaves the relatively small number of bloggers who understand nofollow and disagree with it. but lack the wherewithal to turn it off. These are the bloggers who need to lobby their blog vendors for change. I’m not one of these people and neither are you. I wonder how many there really are?
I’m mixed on it myself. Personally I have no sympathy for the people who can’t control their own websites / blogs. I would rather see comments actively contributing to pagerank by default, than not. That to me has been the spirit of the web since the beginning. I can see the reasoning behind it, but bloggers allow comments to have URLs linked to their names for a reason.
In this age of SEO Google has become an important part of that reason, and I do feel it’s a blanket method of just sweeping the problem under the rug. That said, Google know more than I do about their methods and if they feel it’s needed and helpful, I suppose they ought to know.
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