NoFollow

[sjharvey]

Because of the uncertainty of the effectiveness of (and possible penalties for using) the rel="NoFollow" attribute, I am switching to a new method.

I have prepared a page at http://tiqi.co.uk/fakelinks/ to illustrate.

I haven't, yet, worked it in to my template, so can't call it a mod, but if there is enough interest, I might be persuaded to 'release' it as one :)

Let me know what you think.

Steve

If an admin wants to move this to a different forum, because it is not a full, working mod, I will understand.

[James]

Am going to leave this for the time being. However I want to correct you on something.
Google advocates the use of nofollow so the idea of penalties for using it is wrong.
Using javascript to 'hide' links from a bot will more likely draw their attention and earn you a penalty long before using nofollow does.

and if you think for one second that this forum as well as other major link directory scripts are not monitored.... think again.

[msolution]

do you have a source of you apprehensions about nofollow!???
Google/ Yahoo/ MSN .... all support and advocate nofollow.....

and anything with javascript and links will get u into penalties,...
as the bots might take it as the links are being changed only for them!
thats my take on it,

please post if you have a source of all this, or is this just your apprehension!

Regards,
M.

[shadav]

i tried googling it and the only thing i've come up with is this
Content visible to registered users only.
Source: {non working url removed}

[floppy]

Content visible to registered users only.

No follow was created to help webmasters. Nofollow can be used safely for links outside your site that you don't trust or feel you should pass link juice too. I have seen instances of yahoo not supporting nofollow. I can provide proof of that, but I would rather not. Just hunt up domains who have tons of edu links and follow their sources.

a little off subject tip
I can prove and have proven many times that using nofollow on your own links (www.lobolinks.com/submit.php (http://www.lobolinks.com/submit.php)) in excess will be detrimental to your link quality and overall linking structure. If you want to hide your own pages from search engines abuse the robots.txt. Its more stable and supported by the majority of engines.

[sjharvey]

Matt Cutts has said (in a roundabout way) that nofollow is/was a failure:
http://photomatt.net/2007/01/22/wikipedia-nofollows/

Google et al do (or did) advocate the use of nofollow on unmoderated comment posting. I think you will find in the coming months that Google starts clamping down on the unnecessary use of nofollow... especially in a hand-edited directory where the administrator has had to approved the link for it to appear on the page!

Isn't Google philosophy "Make pages for users, not for search engines."?
Having answereded that affirmatively, now answer - Who does the nofollow attribute affect; the user or the serach engine?

Just my 2 cents

There are no anchors on the page I showed you, so a robot will not be able to store any, and I won't get penalised (in future) for overusing the nofollow tag.

Added to that, I found this:
Content visible to registered users only.
Original source = http://www.vdgraaf.info/nofollow-is-a-leaky-condom.html

[floppy]

Content visible to registered users only.

I bet that is true, but I never heard that before. Interesting. Although I wanna know how someone could prove it. I like proven facts.

[msolution]

interesting,.... didnt know this,... never read this on nofollow, will do more when i get the time.

BUT:
1.
@ sjharvey : photomat.net is NOT Matt Cutts, it is Matthew Mullenweg (http://photomatt.net/about/)
Matt Cutts is http://www.mattcutts.com/

2.Matt Cutts says :
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/quick-comment-on-nofollow/

3. And he also says :
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/questions-answers-with-googles-spam-guru

Content visible to registered users only.

So.... for the time being nofollow rocks for me,.... though i agree i will have to read more on this.

thanx for bringing this to everyones note :)

Regards,
M.

[sjharvey]

Content visible to registered users only.Oops, my bad.. should look at what URL I am pasting before adding a name! I did have a Matt Cutts URL copied, but removed it from the final post. I'll see if I can find it again