The following is a piece of spam I received today. Due to the anti spam set up I use here at MaxPower, I am sure that this comment was hand written by a real human. It was posted on my social bookmarking page. In it Charles asks some good questions. Here we go:

Hello

I just got an email about an ebook download(for sale) about how to profit from bookmark sites.
But, before i go rushing to link up, I must ask what a website needs to be, before it is seen as a winner. I realise writing an article which is informative and useful before it can get bookmarked.

How about the site itself, should it have certain requirement before being considered?.

I would like a review from you if possible to see if my site might be seen as being good or adequate.

I am in need of some traffic and how to go about doing the right things to achieve it through bookmaker sites. It is difficult to get an idea of how to make it more exciting to visitors in an article.

Your honest opinions will be much apreciated

I hope I am not asking too much

charles

Here is my reply: » Read the rest of the entry..

Part 1 in this series explored the introduction of nofollow, its failure at stopping web spam, and rhetorically asked why a good webmaster should use the nofollow attribute. In the second part below, I dig deeper: Google is full of smart people, they must have known that nofollow wouldn’t work at stopping webspam. So what was the real reason for its introduction? » Read the rest of the entry..

Part one in a three part series.
No more nofollow — I don’t believe it works. It was introduced to solve a problem for the search engines. The problem isn’t webspam even though that was the guise of its introduction. The problem is bias and the nofollow solution is a bad one; it robs and devalues meaningful relationships on the internet. Before you read any further, ask yourself this question:

Should a blogger who does not allow comment spam also use the nofollow attribute to prevent ‘voting’ for linked websites?

» Read the rest of the entry..