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?

NoFollow — The beginning

In early 2005 Google announced that hyperlinks marked with rel=”nofollow” would not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. The newly minted micro format rel=”nofollow” actually tells a search engine “Don’t score this link” rather than “Don’t follow this link.” ‘Scoring a link’ is important when we consider how Google evaluates webpages to rank when people do a search. Google uses a metric or algorithm called PageRank to determine how ‘trustworthy’ a page is.

… Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.” [source]

Any link containing rel=”nofollow” should therefore not increase the ranking of the site in participating search engines because there is no ‘vote’. The whole idea behind nofollow is that webmasters could use the tag, at their discretion, to help stop web spam.

How does nofollow stop spam?

As anyone who has run a blog can attest, spam is a constant nuisance. The spammers are trying to get links (votes) to their webpages which sell their products and services. The theory goes that the more links they get, the higher they will appear in the search engines and the more traffic they will get. Spammers try to get their links everywhere (blogs, guestbooks, referer logs, anything that google indexes) and get a vote for their page.

In order to make this process harder for the spammers, Google (and the other search engine’s) introduced nofollow as a method for creating a link, but not voting for it. Nofollow was immediately adopted by blogging platforms (WordPress, MovableType, etc) which spammers like to hit particularly hard because blogs allow comments. And as we all know, comments allow links and free advertising opportunites. By reducing the value of comments that use the nofollow attribute, the theory at the time was that spammers would stop trying to get their links in blogs’ comments. This was wrong, spam is still here, and its still growing. We have been sold a bill of goods.

Nofollow and its use

Nofollow has not stopped webspam. I couldn’t find any evidence that nofollow has even slowed webspam (please, if anyone knows of any, do tell). Personally, I think it has increased it, here is why: spammers know about nofollow.

Spammers know that nofollow doesn’t help them rank higher in the search engines. They don’t care. A link is still a link, a way to get from one page to another.

By default, the nofollow attribute is used in WordPress with no option to stop using it. If you are a diligent blogger and webmaster, WordPress offers you no way to take control over your links. In fact, the only way to stop using nofollow is to either hack the WordPress core or install and enable a third party plugin. Why?

If nofollow doesn’t stop spam, why use it? Should a blogger who does not allow comment spam also use the nofollow attribute to prevent ‘voting’ for linked websites?