Google Admitting Defeat over War with Spammers?
nofollow, no love: Google admits they are losing to spammers
http://www.baus.net/nofollownolove
Christopher Baus raises an interesting question in the threadlink above when he predicts that within one year Google will be ignoring the nofollow attribute - and i agree.
I boldly predict that in one year Google will give up and ignore "nofollow" meta-data.
Here's why:
- This will be used for reasons other than to eliminate comment spam as Scoble noted.
- Search engines can't determine the difference between comments and links from a blog entry.
- Search engine results will become worse, and not better as a result of the prejudices of linkers.
- Spammers want positioning and visibility and not just page rank, and will continue to spam anyway.
Google won because they were able to harvest the rich data available in the link networks. Link data is Google's number one asset. Today they just admitted that asset isn't as valuable as it used to be. I hope all you Forrester researchers heard that. Plus the value in links isn't just in the page rank. Its in the clicking. Don't want people to visit a site, don't link it. Simple. If Scoble links something it is my experience that it WILL generate traffic regardless of the page rank. This is just admitting that the spammers are winning.
We've been talking about this alot at Threadwatch and the majority of users (the ones involved in the threads at least) seem to share the view that the nofollow will not do a damn thing, and may even be damaging to the web.
- NoFollow - A Non-Solution to Comment Spam
- How to Abuse the NoFollow Attribute
- Yahoo, Google, MSN Announce Joint Effort to Kill Comment Spam
- It's official(ish) - Google to Attempt to cull Comment Spam
So, is the new nofollow a sign of defeat? Is it a stop-gap measure untill something more effective can be put in place or just a knee-jerk reaction to appease bloggers?
The Simple fact
The simple fact is nofollow will not kill comment spam, it will just make spammers work a little harder. The main use for nofollow imo is if you want to link to a site but don't want to pass PR (like a competitor, or your ranting about a company you purchased something off)
My 2p
Victory Party in Vegas!
Congratulations, we won! Link harvesting rules. The best part about the nofollow announcement is that it will slow down the amount of new competition. It's also a great publicity stunt for the entire search industry. Too bad for Yahpp it came out at the same time they were announcing $1 billion revenue in Q4.
Any trule responsible webpubl
Any truly responsible webpublishers will already have implemented significant defences against the very practices that the nofollow tag is alleged to address - jump scripted links in comments for starters.
I can think of a few different ways in which this new suggestion does everything to empower SEOs, and additionally seeks to limit the value of blogs.
Just another Wednesday...
>> it will just make spammers work a little harder
Not really. MT has had a redirect script in the newer versions on MT for a while now - spammers are already not getting credit from updated versions of MT and it hasn't done a damn thing to slow it down. Bloggers who update their software are the diligent ones already deleting the comment spam. All this does it make it look like they're trying to do something to stop something they can't.
I've always felt that every t
I've always felt that every tool I have is a good thing. One thing I don't appreciate is a search engine telling me how my links should work.
The idea behind PR is a vote of confidence.
Can you imagine what would happen if you ran an election the way G runs PR? (and other link pop SE's, btw).
Lets say I support Candidate A, and hate Candidate B. So I mention on my blog or website that I like Candidate A. Then I go on to rant about how much I hate Cadidate B and everything they stand for - giving examples and opinions along the way. It's easier to talk about how much you dislike someone than how much you like someone.
Under the current system, that gives the Candidate I support 1 vote and the Candidate I don't several dozen.
Not the best way to run an election...
Now, the only way to actually support Candidate A is to spam links to them as much as possible, and to limit my discussion of Candidate B (or go through hoops everytime I want to comment on something)
I don't think that is in line with how the web was designed to work.
I'd like my linking strategy to be controlled by me, not someone else. Therefore the more tools in my toolkit that address that, the better.
My personal opinion,
Ian