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No Fearing the Nofollow Link Attribute
November 23, 2005
While I believe that sites that are ultimately successful do have high quality, user-focused content, many people incorrectly infer the converse of that statement: that if they have high quality, user-focused content, they will be ultimately successful. I don't necessarily believe that, because the demand is simply not great enough for all the high quality, user-focused sites out there. Many will do great, but not everyone is going to get rich.
But my pessimistic outlook is still no reason to avoid creating the best content you can - both at your own site and elsewhere. Think about the "nofollow" link attribute and its recent influence in SEO.
The mass adoption of the "nofollow" attribute about a year ago meant that site owners now had a way to illegitimize comment and trackback spam, even if they couldn't control its spread. If a link on your site has the "nofollow" attribute, engines know that you don't "vouch" for the authenticity of the link. Consequently, the engines won't reward such sites with any rankings benefits.
This effectively squashes a spammer's chances of benefiting from your site's status. He can add all the comments he wants to your PR4 post, but the links back to his site don't get a vote of confidence like they would if you made the exact same link in your post.
Unfortunately, however, many people promote their sites via forum and blog comments that are well reasoned, helpful to the discussion, and quite informative. And many of these people now feel that their sites no longer benefit from the links in comments. A mass exodus from SEO Chat forums is a recent example. While the introduction of the "nofollow" attribute was only a small reason for the members leaving, it was certainly a factor.
But if you think back to the days before link popularity was a religion, it's no different now. If you have something intelligent to say, if you're contributing to the discussion, and if you're offering a fresh perspective - and you do this long enough - you'll earn links the old fashioned way: By earning them. People will click through to your site via your profile, and eventually, if you impress them long enough, they'll want you to be a part of their community.
You've always had to impress potential customers with your intelligence and perspective. Be glad that "nofollow" is here, because all it has done is allow the specter of easily gained popularity to find peaceful rest.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at November 23, 2005 11:45 AM
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Comments
Yes it's true, the Nofollow tag did hurt the legit commentors in fact i think it hurt most the bloggers because the blogging world now is divided in to 2 schools the dofollow and the nofollow school. and if a reader gets a choice, whom do you think they will choose to go and read their posts and put some comments? i guess the dofollow guys.
So i think bloggers should move more towards moderation of the comments rather than just going to the nofollow tag.
Thanks for your post,
Mike Jason
SEO Software
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Good post, thanks
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