On The Redundancy Of nofollow

Posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

Recently I have been considering the very standard feature of Wordpress that is adding rel="nofollow" to all links in comments. I posted recently how I was receiving next to no comment spam in my Akismet spam folder due it’s latest plugin release. This got me thinking about whether nofollow is worthwhile any more.

The History

nofollow was a Google creation from early 2005 that was supported by both MSN and Yahoo. It was designed to stop the search bots from following links that weren’t necessarily endorsed by the owner of the site it was on. It had a mixed welcome, but was incorporated by many of the major players in blogging. I wasn’t blogging back then, but, as far as I can see, there weren’t many alternatives other than picking through all your comments and deleting them.

Better Protection

A lot has happened since then, now we have Akismet, Spam Karma, Bad Behaviour and probably many others that I don’t know about. These days you don’t see much spam on blogs, if at all. The spam blockers are doing a fantastic job, so why do we need this weak rel="nofollow"? I check my blog daily, if something does slip through the nets, I delete it instantly.

Do The Spammers Even Care?

In early 2005 the idea of stopping the spammers getting any Google juice seemed like a good opportunity to put them off. Did it? Of course not, otherwise we wouldn’t all have spam filters on our blogs. Are the spammers aiming to improve their Page Rank? Obviously they wouldn’t complain if it were a side product of the process, but what they really want is clicks. Page views, click throughs, traffic, the more people that see the links, whether on a blog, in the moderation section or wherever, the more are likely to click. While the majority of us do not use any old site as a pharmacy, casino, software seller or whatever, if just one or two people make a purchase then the spammers win (and surely someone is, otherwise they really would have given up by now). Think of the return on investment, considering that spamming a million blogs costs next to nothing. Any purchase is a huge win. Maybe they have ads that pay by the page view as well, every click is worth money to these people.

Don’t Follow Spam, Don’t Follow The Legitimate Commenter

All spam solutions these days attempt to integrate seamlessly with the host site so as not to spoil the experience for the user (except CAPTCHAs, which have serious accessibility issues), but nofollow takes that benefit of a relevant link away from a legitimate commenter. In an attempt to hurt the spammers, all the real, live, human commenters have taken a hit and this is the crux of the problem with nofollow. There are other problems, but this I think is really where it goes wrong.

We’ve Beaten Spam, Lose The nofollow

Yes and no. nofollow with all it’s issues still had some principles about it. No spam defence is 100% effective either, so if something does slip through, taking nofollow away awards the spammer a victory, until you get around to deleting it of course. Remove nofollow from Wordpress? I don’t think we are ready for this yet. This had almost made my mind up on the matter, until I read Dougal’s post and discovered Kimmo Suominen’s dofollow plugin.

The spam filters, my moderation (if you put more than one link in a post I do get suspicious I’m afraid) and finally checking every comment that is posted all keep my blog clear of spam. I can’t guarantee that every comment will be caught before being posted, but I can guarantee that no spam comment is going to last longer than a couple of days. That is why I have activated the plugin and why, given a couple of days, any links in comments will lose the rel="nofollow" attribute.

There are a range of dofollow plugins available (thanks Weblog Tools Collection), so if you want to join the revolution, you have plenty of choice.

This is one more way to show strength against the spammers. No longer will relevant links be affected by spam protection, but no spam will appear either. I really believe we are winning the battle against comment spam now. They may still spam, but it’s not going to bother me or my readers. Remove nofollow from Wordpress? Not yet, but integrate this plugin and give everyone the choice, that would be a spirited thing to do.

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Comments

  1. 1February 28th, 2007 at 9:39 am

    kyu Says:

    Interesting read. Actually i think youre very right.

    The anti-spam plugins are geting more and more effective. actually, even though my moderation criteria is slightly lower than yours (4 links max :) ) Spam very rarely get through. Akismet also does a fine job.
    drop no-follow? as you said not yet, but i am sure it will soon be the case.


  2. 2February 28th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    Phil Says:

    So are you considering the dofollow plugin then, Kyu?

    I do hope there is a stage in the future when we can drop nofollow completely and finally beat the spammers. Until then, this is the solution for me.


  3. Pingback by You Comment, I Follow You. Or At Least Google Will - Dawud Miracle @ dmiracle.com - (formerly Healthy WebDesign)
    April 12th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

  4. Pingback by Removing nofollow Is Now A Movement :: Unintentionally Blank
    April 14th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

  5. Pingback by Mrs. Write Right, Word Therapist (aka Writer-Editor) » Archive » I Follow- Do You?
    April 26th, 2007 at 5:15 am

  6. 3May 8th, 2007 at 9:51 am

    Timsah Says:

    I believe dofollow keeps a blog moderated, and to me an unmoderated blog is worthless. Congratulations on dofollow! I suggest you join the bumpzee.com group


  7. 4May 9th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Phil Says:

    Timsah, I’m glad to hear you agree. You are absolutely right about unmoderated blogs, we can’t let spammers beat us!


  8. 5May 9th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Timsah Saldırısı Says:

    BTW, if you make a search at google for
    “site:unintentionallyblank.co.uk *** -view”

    you can see that you have some supplemental pages indexed. You should update them for more traffic :D


  9. 6May 10th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

    Lists Says:

    Ah! So that’s how you check for supplemental results, cool tip, Timsah.


  10. 7May 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am

    Audi Cross Coupe Says:

    Nice tip timsah! I believe that the plugin can be changed in a way that it will link without nofollow if the commenter’s website also has the dofollow…


  11. 8May 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm

    Phil Says:

    Audi (don’t know what else to call you!): I can’t imagine, unless it was specifically built in to all the plugins that do this, that the removal of nofollow could be done conditionally on whether the commenter used it too! I prefer giving the opportunity to everyone who comments anyway.


  12. 9May 26th, 2007 at 1:17 am

    Hobo Says:

    Yup we’ve done the same on our news blog. Long live dofollow! Who thought Nofollow would stop spam? Only moderation and Akismet stopped it for us!


  13. 10May 27th, 2007 at 12:22 am

    Audi TT Says:

    Its ok, you can call me Audi since I am an Audi fan to the core :) I think its too much making comments without nofollow. Maybe tracbacks without nofollow?


  14. 11May 28th, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    Baxter Tocher Says:

    A nice synopsis of how we got to where we are, Phil.

    I’m certainly using DOFOLLOW, and there’s a community started by Andy Beard over at BUMPzee promoting blogs that do. You might wish to consider joining if you’re not already a member:

    http://www.bumpzee.com/no-nofollow/


  15. 12June 21st, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    luca Says:

    Baxter, I like the dofollow community but I think the dofollow list, while a good idea, can be abused easily so i think it’s better to remain silent.


  16. 13July 29th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    Turnkey Websites Says:

    I did remove nofollow on my blog too. This is not a right way to punish all the world.


  17. 14August 4th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Tomasz Gorski Says:

    I do like the fact the nofollow prevents spammers from garnering link love. It hasn’t stopped the spamming because they know that there are still lots of blogs that don’t have “nofollow” enabled.

    I’m thinking about turning it off on my site because I think it encourages more people to comment.


  18. 15August 14th, 2007 at 4:29 am

    Ryan Ward Says:

    I’m in total agreement about adding the dofollow as I have added it as well to my onsite blog. Advertise and you can get people talking. Add the notify me of new comments plugin (which you have) and you can keep people talking. Good job here with your blog. I noticed on Matt Cutts blog thst he was using “did you pass math” to cut down on spam. I have installed it and definitely recommend this as a good spam fighter as well.


  19. Pingback by Akismet Drops Spam, Catches Ham - Everything Must Go
    September 22nd, 2007 at 10:59 am

  20. 16September 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am

    siłowniki Says:

    I removed nofollow a month ago. But i see no difference, people spamming even more…


  21. 17September 24th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

    Phil Says:

    Siłowniki: The spam will always keep coming, at least we can reward our real users by removing nofollow from their comments as we remove the spam comments completely.


  22. 18September 28th, 2007 at 3:47 am

    Bape Says:

    Its ironic that many bloggers talk about this but then they actually use no follow.


  23. 19September 28th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    Phil Says:

    Bape: Nofollow is set up as default for most blogging systems, so 99%of bloggers use it without meaning to, and most without knowing. You should find that these comments here have no nofollow though.

    Of course, one way to encourage people not to use it is to take it away yourself. If you have a blog, do you use nofollow?


  24. 20September 28th, 2007 at 11:42 am

    Ryan Ward Says:

    I have actually noticed more blog spam of a different type on all of my real estate blogs. Instead of the same old spam about pills, I am seeing more real estate agents, such as my self, spamming blogs with useless posts. I am actually considering removing it.


  25. 21September 29th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    Phil Says:

    Ryan: You’re going to remove the spam though, aren’t you? Why make your comments less inviting for real commenters by giving in to spammers and replacing nofollow?


  26. 22September 29th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    Ryan Ward Says:

    Actually what I did was chage plugins to Lucia’s Linky Love (I think that’s what it’s called) It allows for more functionality and the nofollow is removed after the commenter posts the 3rd comment. It’s very easy to customize. I remove all spam and even the new tricks people try when they swing through and say “nice post” and stuff like that..


  27. 23September 30th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

    Phil Says:

    I like the look of that plugin, Ryan! Thanks!


  28. 24October 4th, 2007 at 2:54 am

    Bree DoFollow Says:

    I do-follow links now on my Aussie housewife blog. After a long time procrastinating I have seen the importance of dofollow and using the “do follow” principal to help keep the Internet better connected. http://www.reallyreally.net - Take a look at my dofollow blog and feel free to comment. Thank you, Regards Bree.


  29. Pingback by Sandier Pastures » Blog Archive » you comment, Google will follow
    October 7th, 2007 at 7:47 am

  30. 25October 10th, 2007 at 11:03 am

    Amie Stilo Says:

    This is an excellent idea. Thank you for this post. I am enabling all links to be followed in my site also :)


  31. 26October 16th, 2007 at 2:21 am

    Jerry Graffam Says:

    Great site and good info. I just learned about this a few days back and was able to remove the no follow code frmo my html, which is pretty good for an English major! Cheers! Jerry


  32. 27October 16th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

    Phil Says:

    Bree, Amie and Jerry, I’m glad to hear you are all joining in too!


  33. 28October 19th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Mike Taylor Says:

    I recently just joined the do follow bandwagon as well. I do follow, but I still hand monitor all posts on my blog. My blog is not that active with posts yet, so it is not that time consuming.


  34. 29October 25th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    Tonny Says:

    It’s difficult to againest comment spam, everyday have bulk of spam which posted by software come to our site. Dofollow is nice to everyone, will join in dofollow blog community too.


  35. 30October 31st, 2007 at 12:26 am

    Phil Says:

    Hi Mike and Tonny, glad you are jumping aboard too. Every time a blog does, the Internet becomes a little bit better for other bloggers and commenters.


  36. 31November 17th, 2007 at 1:54 am

    John Slimak Says:

    Great Stuff, going to sit down with tech in the am and talk about the blog. I have and to see if I am a follower or a leader!


  37. 32November 21st, 2007 at 11:08 am

    bLuefRogX Says:

    Its a nice concept, but it also leads to increased ’spam’ with comments like ‘Good Job’ or ‘Nice blog’ that are not actually relevant to the post, but are just there because the poster saw a ‘DoFollow’ badge on the blog and wanted a backlink.

    I suppose you could call this a double edged sword, it’d definitely get your more comments, but also increase your moderation work.


  38. 33November 21st, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    hosting Says:

    More and more sites use nofollow tags but as far as I know such links have strength (smaller than without nofollow) - that’s why spammers will always add posts everywhere


  39. 34November 21st, 2007 at 8:33 pm

    Phil Says:

    Bluefrogx: Funny you should mention that as three comments got onto the blog after you posted this all with questionable URLs or content. I’m not blaming you, I just found it quite funny.

    The thing is, I haven’t noticed a particular increase in spammy comments like you mention, and any that do appear I would have moderated anyway. There is no difference in the work I do to keep this blog clean of spam comments and the added benefit to every commenter of a little bit of link juice!

    hosting (url removed as spam, there’s no need to link to Polish hosting sites under the anchor text “hosting” on this blog, particularly on a page about spam comments): According to Google, Yahoo and MSN, nofollowed links get no weight in their system. The only reason I think spammers continue to spam blogs this way is because it is so cheap and there is always the possibility of a click through however spammy the message is. As I say above, I moderate comments vigilantly here, so do not lose out by removing nofollow, and my commenters gain (unless they are particularly spammy links ;) )


  40. 35December 19th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

    Spot Says:

    Actually, removing ‘nofollow’ doesn’t even hurt a blog in the search engine rankings through loss of link juice for example. I did an experiment on one of my blogs lately, that confirmed it. If you get spammy comments, just delete them…


  41. Pingback by U Comment I Follow Your Love Links | Blogging | Creating Value, Inspiring Vision. the Singapore way lah…
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  42. 36February 3rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    John Says:

    Lyndon Antcliff has a post on removing the nofollow tag on comments for a short period and then re-applying the dofollow tag, a short time later - as he didn’t want to waste time deleting or moderating comments.
    Personally, I don’t think it should be added as a default to WP.


  43. 37February 25th, 2008 at 4:25 am

    Vancouver Search Engine Optimization Says:

    Do-follow is so much better. It helps the linker, and the link-ee


  44. 38March 15th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    geckointeractive Says:

    I think, we should go with do-follow. thats great


  45. 39March 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 am

    MSN hacken Says:

    I think if someone wants to reward his visitors and commenters for instance by an blog? DoFollow the links. If not, you can say this: the blogger don’t reward his commenters because of spam or he wants all the link juice himself.


  46. 40March 25th, 2008 at 3:26 am

    Hugh Harris Says:

    I’ve also noticed that majority of the blogs I would consider to be on the “A-List” have the nofollow attribute in place on comment links. I realize these blogs see thousands upon thousands of visitors and sometimes hundreds of comments, but even at that, if you have a decent spam plugin installed, it shouldn’t be a problem. I guess if you’re worried about commentators leaving comments like “nice post” or something similar then using the nofollow attribute might stop a little of that, but even then, no one is completely sure how search engines handle the nofollow attribute and majority of your visitors are not going to take the time to view your source code to see if you’ve got nofollow in place. So, what’s the point?

    Great Info!


  47. 41March 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    Ecommerce website templates Says:

    Dofollow is one of the best thing to do with your WordPress, it reaches the true essence of the internet. Nofollow is false, IMO and it should be dropped but I think Google sustains this and requires it.Sucks, really!


  48. 42March 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    SEO Indianapolis Says:

    Links from creditable sites (sites with value to the title) is one of the critical parts of the Google ranking. If a blog has the criteria for a “creditable site” then those links are looked as a solid functional link to your home page. Problem the social marketing attitude is to share or comment everywhere. The more you leave your stamp the more you have in your group. Till the social marketing “spam attitudes” are under control this may never be answered.


  49. 43March 26th, 2008 at 7:10 am

    Ecommerce website templates Says:

    Interesting thing the “spam attitudes”, I think these will never go away. If you think, there is not a theoretical but a practical reason behind spamming.


  50. 44March 27th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    pamiatki Says:

    Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. So please keep up the great work. Greetings


  51. 45April 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 am

    bapes Says:

    What a great read. Best of luck to you and keep up the good work. I found the information very useful. Regards


  52. 46May 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    webshop Says:

    We have a page with a lot of linkpartners. We have also a lot of outgoing links and we don`t use the nofollow tag.

    All the hard work finding friends and partners would be gone.

    Say no to Nofollow!


  53. 47May 25th, 2008 at 11:13 am

    sydney electrician Says:

    I think no-follow automatically suppresses the discussion on a blog, because as someone with a website I am less inclined to regularly read a blog when I know that the blogger doesn’t even value a comment enough to give a link to my site. Shouldn’t a comment that adds value allow it’s creator to be credited with it’s authorship by a search engine? Otherwise - genuine commenters on blogs would be better off putting all discussion on their own page to drive traffic there rather than writing anything anywhere else at all.

    Anyhow, I do use comments to improve my pagerank. That’s not comment spamming, that’s just an intelligent thing to do.


  54. 48May 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

    prezenty Says:

    This is interesting article, I did not it think that it yes. Interesting it knew persons about this how much. Sorry if I wrote bad there now my English is novice and I do not it write yet good.


  55. 49May 30th, 2008 at 12:15 am

    Vancouver Web Designer Says:

    I agree with you. The nofollow is counterproductive. look at the traffic you are getting here? And it will keep growing to monstruous proportions.

    I like the symbiosis of contributing content in exchange for a link, fresh and 100% original content is money, and link popularity is also money.

    I belevive it’s a win win.


  56. 50June 3rd, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    malcolm coles Says:

    I have become slightly obsessive about checking nofollow now. There appear to be loads of sites that claim to have lifted it that don’t. I wonder if they tire of the spam, or accidentally drop the plugin. Anyway, I am about to implement dofollow, so here’s hoping akismet captures everything …


  57. 51July 10th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

    Debra Says:

    The nicest thing to do is reward you visitors and commenters. DoFollow the links is my way to go.


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