Posted by Tom Krengel
on 06/06/09
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." This is called comment spam, Google doesn't like it either, and has a tag that blocks it. When Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links don't get any credit when they rank websites in their 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.
Following is a Q&A with Google's, Matt Cutts (Google Software Engineer) and
Jason Shellen (Blogger Program Manager).
Q: How does a link change?
A: Any link that a user can create on your site automatically gets a new "nofollow" attribute added.
Q: What types of links should get this attribute?
A: We encourage you to use the rel="nofollow" attribute anywhere that users can add links by themselves, including within comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists. Comment areas receive the most attention, but securing every location where someone can add a link is the way to keep spammers at bay.
Q: Should I put rel="nofollow" on the link to my comments page?
A: Probably not, because lots of interesting discussion can happen there. Also, if other people link to your comments page, a spider can follow that link and find any spam that's lurking on the comments page.
Q: Do individual bloggers need to do anything?
A: Probably not. Updating the software that generates these pages will ensure that most bloggers get these changes automatically.
Q: Is this a blog-only change?
A: No. We think any piece of software that allows others to add links to an author's site (including guestbooks, visitor stats, or referrer lists) can use this attribute. We're working primarily with blog software makers for now because blogs are such a common target.
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