Google Combats Blog Spam

[DebbieV]

http://www.google.com/googleblog/

"....we've been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn't a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it's just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists."

[Shawn]

Couldnt believe it was true at first, but when I saw it on the G blog I was like wowsers

[Shannon]

very happy to hear this

[Rivux]

Its great to see, but it also means that webmaster need to be more diligent then normal when doing link exchanges. I can just see some people abusing the tag.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Rivux

I can just see some people abusing the tag.

me too

[Rivux]

With just a line of code you could switch an entire directory from a good value to a scam. I would hope that directory owners wouldn't do this, but its just one more thing we got to look out for when adding links to places.

[Lemons]

So how much longer till someone like John decides to put the tag on huge forums (V7n), or even worse, on huge Directories like BF or Sevenseek? This is scary.....and is going to lead to bad things

[Dark_Matter]

im not too scared...forum links arent worth much in google, neither are blog links (unless its a popular blog, which most aren't).

[Shannon]

i don't think it's scary.... directories that use the tag only shoot themselves in the foot... and forums sigs are meaningless anyways... as far as REAL relevancy goes. This is a good thing for the 'moral' minority(?) and that trend will continue because the engines truly want to serve the most relevant results possible.

[dave conz]

I think it's good. We can see if a directory uses this tag or not so there shouldn't be any scamming.

I will be using it in some of my forums. I'll probably let senior members have spidered links and junior members will have to earn them.

It will also be nice to be able to include links to sites that don't deserve a ranking boost, for example, when you want to expose a scam site but don't want to give them a free link.

[sabo]

It is a great idea and tool actually, because now we can be really sure on how we control our out bound links, in my case I have 28 sites on the same server linking to each other but not to spam, just because they need to be like that, then I began using a javascript to reduce the crosslinking but it didn't work to well, now I will be using this.

I can wait to see the results.

[DebbieV]

Wikipedia's using the tag on all external links now.

[I, Brian]

The tag is never intended to protect bloggers - it's intended to protect search engines.

A lot of bloggers have already realised it's going to hit the blogosphere - I wrote a report on the subject here a few days ago, where I covered reactions from major bloggers:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archi...follow_ta.html

The use of the tag is potentially useful - *especially* for SEO purposes - but I absolutely detest the deceptive spin that this is going to be good news for bloggers. It isn't - it will leave them filled with porn, pharma, and gambling links - just that the search engines won't have to look at it - - - not to mention it will also cripple the high profile the blogosphere has enjoyed so far.

While the latter point doesn't bother me too much, it's pretty sad to see bloggers applauding the move without a clue about the actual implications.

Also, SixApart's posturing is absolutely sickening - they have had long enough to implement any number of options that could have protected their users from blog spamming issues - but instead they held off until the beginning of this year to even make registration for comments the default setting for new releases - and even then, SixApart plainly stated that this was to help their server loads, *not* to protect bloggers. The whole support for "nofollow" is a pathetic piece of posturing from a company that was too damn lazy and ignorant of its purchaser concerns to ever implement any of a number of easy fixes earlier.

What's worse is that "nofollow" will *not* address blog spam - but this morning I just witnessed one of the really nasty fall-out affects from it that is going to impact *every* webmaster in a very negative way. I'll try and get a special report written up on that for my news blog later tonight. Be warned, you are about to see something very very unpleasant that is going to cost you all money, whether you own a blog or not.

[Johan007]

Why not simply disable clickable links? Especially in the name.

[Buskerdoo]

Originally Posted by Dark_Matter

im not too scared...forum links arent worth much in google, neither are blog links (unless its a popular blog, which most aren't).

People keep saying this, but I have not seen any proof? If it were true, would companies bother doing it?

[dave conz]

I really think this move was inevitable. I can't understand why people are either surprised or upset by it.

Brian, I'll look forward to your exposé though.

[awall19]

>I can't understand why people are either surprised or upset by it.

it does not solve any problems it is supposed to. spam bots will still spam and now blog owners will have lower rankings due to less link pop

[dave conz]

Originally Posted by awall19

it does not solve any problems it is supposed to.

I'm sure it won't solve the problem of spam but I have a feeling it will help. Example:

When I ran a public phpbb forum it was overrun with spammy registrations, just so they could get their link in the memberslist. If phpbb used the nofollow tag for new registrations (and made people earn their spiderable links), surely the incentive and payoff for spammers would be reduced significantly? In theory there could come a point where there was no point spamming phpbb forums. It might not solve the problem but surely it would help?

Originally Posted by awall19

blog owners will have lower rankings due to less link pop

Boo Hoo. I'm sick of seeing half-arsed blogs rank well just because they've got lots of linking buddies

I'm not much of a blogger these days (although I effectively had a blog years before the term was coined), so it's not my area of expertise. I'm seeing it more from a general web design POV and especially as a forum manager. I say Bring It On.

[tozzo]

They need to find a better way to stop the spam from getting entered into Google, or other search engines for that matter. I have two sites that have found considerable boosts in ranking and solicitaion from users based on RELEVANT postings in RELEVANT blogs and forums, in which I will leave sigs and HTML links in my post to add links to my site. Google is taking the easy way out by simply "turning off the switch" instead of discovering a better way to filter out spam-based content...... I know there are other ways to get links, but this has been the easiest way so far.....

[T0d]

Originally Posted by Dark_Matter

im not too scared...forum links arent worth much in google, neither are blog links (unless its a popular blog, which most aren't).

Originally Posted by Buskerdoo

People keep saying this, but I have not seen any proof? If it were true, would companies bother doing it?

Dark_mattr - Not true.
Buskerdoo - Not true.

Some sites I only link to from forums when they just start. I do this to get a jump without linking to a low ranked site from my others. I`ve reciped PR3 and 300 uniques a day on multiple sites JUST linked to from Forums. So they do mean something, and if they start to not count I will notice, and so will most everyone else.