Google: new 'anti spam' tag for blog comments...

...but could be useful for other things, too?

http://www.google.com/googleblog/200...ment-spam.html

Basically, if you now add the tag

Code:

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rel="nofollow"

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to an anchor tag, that link will get no benefit from it (beit PR, backlinks, etc).

Great for people whose blogs are targetted by comment spammers, but perhaps also useful for people wanting to link to other sites (such as affiliate pages) without those pages getting any PR in the process... maybe?

What do you guys think?

Apparently in addition to Google, MSN and Yahoo have also expressed interest in supporting this.

Very interesting. The article you linked to stresses that this tag is meant for website areas where users can post links. It seems like it would also be very useful for SEOs who want to control the flow of PR through their own links on thier sites.

I can't imagine Google letting people take advantage of this for SEO. Do you think they'll label sites that "abuse" this tag as search engine spammers?

They say it's just encouraged for comments pages. But very very cool.

I'm sure a lot of webmasters will be using this in the next few months. I'm not sure what google will think though, so for the moment I'll just stick with the out.php method.

Yeah, I certainly wont be using it for a good few months. If you're seen to try and control PR like this by Google then it can't be a good thing.

If Google don't want people working their PR, then Google should never have made it public :)

Unless they're trying to trick people into revealing themselves as PR-manipulators...

I meant PR itself.

I'd use it, but I watch my comments on my blog, and right now have an authorization image system in place, so they can't get me with their spam bots.

I simply moderate new comments. Image systems can deter people who have images disabled, or have sight problems.

This will be abused by people whilst doing link exchanges. People will have to take a look at the source code of websites they exchanged links with, to make sure they aren't scamming them.

Indeed not only a possibility, ozgression, but a probability. They may have spoiled the PR system.

indeed, I dont think this new idea is that great of an idea. It hope the rules are enforced properly.

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Originally Posted by tntcheats

Indeed not only a possibility, ozgression, but a probability. They may have spoiled the PR system.

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Perphaps Google wouldn't be too upset about this though. It would mean the end (or a reduction in) link pages and get back to the original premise that a link is a "vote" from one site to another.

I personally hope that link exchanges go back to the premise of being a way to gain more traffic, not a higher ranking. I'd much rather a text link from a low-PR, but high-traffic site than one from a high-PR, low-traffic site.

"Hear Hear" to that Mark. It is now a nice surprise when a link exchange generates a lot of traffic

Do you advocte the top sites type of approach that rank links in terms of clicks in/out but dont pass PR?

I see the usefulness of the new tag, but I'm not following the "conspiracy theories" on this.

To quote:

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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.

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It's a tag to benefit site managers. I'm hoping that se's will not follow the link at all with this tag. I'm trying it out on my site, as I have a unique url for each product to be added to the cart. I don't want se's indexing the cart page, but because it's in the format of: cart-add-B7XRT30L.php then I will end up with thousands of links to the same cart page. I'm hoping they won't follow/index those cart pages with this.

Google goes on to show the big players in the industry who will be using this tag in their software:

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Brad Fitzpatrick - LiveJournal
Dave Winer - Scripting News
Anil Dash - Six Apart
Steve Jenson - Blogger
Matt Mullenweg - WordPress
Stewart Butterfield - Flickr
Anthony Batt - Buzznet
David Czarnecki - blojsom
Rael Dornfest - Blosxom
Mike Torres - MSN Spaces

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I can't imagine they would sign up, knowing that "if you use more than x rel tags, google will put your site in a head lock and give it a wedgy."

The only downside (or, just one extra step to take) is what ozgression points out, that you will have to make sure this tag is not present if you buy links. That seems simple enough, for those that know how to check it and that this new feature is out there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GTech

It's a tag to benefit site managers.

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That's not the way I see it. It's a tag to primarily benefit Google - to help rid comment books / blogs of link spammers and therefore to clean up the SERPs.

All of the "big players" quoted include user based publishing for comments etc. That's why it's being included.

It's not necessarily wrong to use this to control your on site PR and what pages appear in the SERPs, but I think I'll wait for further word from Google before I risk it. :)

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Originally Posted by Blue Cat Buxton

Do you advocte the top sites type of approach that rank links in terms of clicks in/out but dont pass PR?

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I've never liked the Top Sites approach to link exchanges, as it's too open to abuse (ie, getting people to click your link simply to raise it in the list).

Small, targetted link exchanges between like-minded sites will always offer users and web publishers the best of both worlds: information they want, and traffic they want (respectively).

IMO:)

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Originally Posted by chromate

That's not the way I see it. It's a tag to primarily benefit Google - to help rid comment books / blogs of link spammers and therefore to clean up the SERPs.

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Maybe I'm not reading it correctly:

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If you're a blogger (or a blog reader), you're painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites' search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like "Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site."

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That seems a benefit to site managers/owners from link spammers who find a PR5/6/7 page to post linked comments to, to raise their rankings. Preventing it would certainly benefit the site owner. What benefit do you see Google getting? Edit here for clarity: Realizing of course, the google blog benefits as well as other blogs, but I'm thinking Google search.

I need to get more clarification on whether it will also prevent an internal link being visited. That's my interest in it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GTech

That seems a benefit to site managers/owners from link spammers who find a PR5/6/7 page to post linked comments to, to raise their rankings. Preventing it would certainly benefit the site owner. What benefit do you see Google getting?

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Google want to prevent sites from getting PR they don't deserve. That's the only way PR will continue to work. It's like stopping the government voting for itself. If spam sites aren't able to grab this PR so easily, then they will not rank so well. That's how it will benefit the SERPs.

I expect the tag will work on internal links too. I just think that the tag's main purpose is to prevent spammers from "stealing" PR and not for webmasters to control PR for search engine ranking benefits. Though, having said that, it's just as easy to use robots.txt with the same effect, so it would probably be alright anyway.

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google will put your site in a head lock and give it a wedgy.

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I love your wording :)

And am I mistaken, or can you just have your links all put into the form yoursite.com/link/link.php?sid=2948723 with your robots.txt keeping SEs out of 'link' if you were afraid of this tag but didn't want to pass PR?

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Originally Posted by chromate

Google want to prevent sites from getting PR they don't deserve. That's the only way PR will continue to work. It's like stopping the government voting for itself. If spam sites aren't able to grab this PR so easily, then they will not rank so well. That's how it will benefit the SERPs.

I expect the tag will work on internal links too. I just think that the tag's main purpose is to prevent spammers from "stealing" PR and not for webmasters to control PR for search engine ranking benefits. Though, having said that, it's just as easy to use robots.txt with the same effect, so it would probably be alright anyway.

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I see what you are saying now. I had not considered it from this perspective. I was trying to understand the benefit to Google, outside the blogger realm. I think it's a win/win solution for everyone.

As for controlling PR, that's definitely not my concern. What I hope the tag will do for me is, to not index a cart page for each and every product. It's the same cart page, but because I'm using mod_rewrite and writing the urls as above, then it "appears" to search engines as a separate page (even though it's really the same, but different product for each). It seems overkill. I have the page set to noindex, nofollow. PR for internal pages is not a concern.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tntcheats

I love your wording :)

And am I mistaken, or can you just have your links all put into the form yoursite.com/link/link.php?sid=2948723 with your robots.txt keeping SEs out of 'link' if you were afraid of this tag but didn't want to pass PR?

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Thanks :)

Yes, manually entering them could be done, but on an amazon site, it's not something that is practical.

If the robots.txt standard were modifed such that:

disallow: /cart*.html

that would solve it as well. Google supports this, but it's not a standard.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GTech

I think it's a win/win solution for everyone.

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I don't. It's more likely Google win / Owner lose / User lose.

Sure Google gets to follow fewer links, but wasn't that their self-professed job anyway?

From my standpoint, now I just have more work to do to figure out if a site within my own realm is reputable enough to exchange links with.

From the standpoint of websites like Wiki (who has recently placed rel="nofollow" on all its links) and others who create content based on others' effort (blogs, forums, comment systems) there should be a large reduction in people adding material. Simply put, I "give" my effort to Wiki, this forum, etc., because I get value out of having backlinks. It's not like the amount of traffic derived from any single comment or Wiki editing action will ever be "worth" the amount of time spent making the comment/edit.

Now, to solve the whole problem of only Google wining, just boycott any site that has a rel="nofollow" (or outbound cgi links, or 302 redirects, or robot skank, or . . . ) policy.

MJ Taylor, you are forgeting the reason the nofollow tag was brought in. Blog comment SPAM. Have you ever received comment spam and read some of the stuff in the SPAM? It is disturbing at best.

Wiki using the nofollow tag is another issue altogether that you should take up with them. People were abusing WIKI, anyway. Quite frankly, If you submited content purely for links & PR, than you were "contributing" for the wrong reasons anyway.

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Originally Posted by ozgression

MJ Taylor, you are forgeting the reason the nofollow tag was brought in. Blog comment SPAM. Have you ever received comment spam and read some of the stuff in the SPAM? It is disturbing at best.

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Of course I have. For Google to introduce a solution that causes more damage than the original problem is unprofessional. (And since it's Google with their "do not evil" motto, cynically I'd go farther and say they've done "evil.")

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ozgression

Wiki using the nofollow tag is another issue altogether that you should take up with them. People were abusing WIKI, anyway. Quite frankly, If you submited content purely for links & PR, than you were "contributing" for the wrong reasons anyway.

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I was using Wiki as an example, and yes Wiki (and bloggers, forums, and any other system that allows user additions) have problems with automated comment spam bots. Wiki, et. all, should solve it through a means that does not destroy the value its free editor who actually would like to see it be a decent information repository, like me, receive from placing relevant and appropriate material into Wiki.

And yes, I have taken it up with Wiki. I've also followed the free market approach and removed all material I've placed within it.

It's pretty simple, if a website does not give a user any value from posting there, then no user will post there. Using Rel="nofollow" removes a large component of value from posting. And if the Internet is suppose to be about the free exchange of ideas, then nofollow has just put a damper on it.

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And as a side note, it doesn't seem that Chris is allowing this forum to be indexed by Google either? (After not finding any backlinks from here, I checked a random thread from last November in Google and the page doesn't show up.)
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I'll just reiterate, boycott any site using value destroying techniques.

that means it will effect the link exchange too ?

Only if the links include rel="nofollow".

so let me make sure I'm understanding this, if someone has a link to my site, and then puts that in the tag, the search engines won't follow it. If this is true, I'm not a fan at all. I do like link exchanges, but for the purpose stated above, to get and send web traffic. The fact that the search engines follow the links and make your site more apparent in the serps is a great bonus. I'm working on a site that is going to have a good directory on it relating to real estate and mortgages for the purpose of being informitive, isn't that what this is all about, a free to use, informative web site. check it out, after this weekend of course, free mortgage calculator

It looks like crap right now, I just threw it up there to make sure the perl script was working, I'm going to give it some design this weekend, I'd love to hear what you all think about it.

Just don't exchange links with sites that use it, then, Flann.