NoFollow being Followed, and Counted?

as far as I can tell nofollows are followed. I've checked this only the once by linking to an orphan page from a single nofollow and it was indexed - and I can't guarantee that no other link to the page existed (it was public from the link I put in) but equally I don't see why they would have.

I presume other people have done proper tests, but I've just been working on the basis that a nofollow is a perfectly normal link except no quality vote accrues to the destination page. I know a lot of other people think differently but anyone using it anywhere but in blog comments is probably not achieveing what they think they are IMHO.

If you have a list of blogs that you know are all using NOFOLLOW I will be happy to set up a test (as soon as I have the time) - new domain, cloaked content and only blog spam from NOFOLLOW sites.

I have a strong feeling that domain will still gain PageRank and rankings :)

There's been plenty of discussion on this in several forums, and there's really no doubt (from the wails of the spammers) that it works.

If spammers had the nous to use FireFox, they'd be able to see where nofollow was used, and stop wasting everyone's time. Two chances of intelligence from spammers; fat and slim.

Can’t be a very intelligent spammer if they are doing it manually via a browser.

From the comment spam i see it’s fully automated and i guess some either don’t want the overhead of checking for nofollow or can’t/wont update their scripts.

It never occurred to me that those who have the sense to use nofollow as a deterrent don't also use anti-autospam defenses (Not rocket science, is it?).

I guess stupid bloggers and stupid spammers go well together! Small party though; no intelligent person would bother with a spam-ridden blog - not more than once, anyway.

I'd always thought it was a matter of sad idiots plaguing decent folk - but if it's sad idiots plaguing each other ... gets my vote!

Guess it is just a case of some spammers not caring who they hit, seems some spam everything and anything that allows comments. I guess they feel that targeting 10,000’s pages with a few button presses is worth it even if only a small percentage of those help them rank. End result is those who are stupid enough to think nofollow will stop comment spam still get spammed.

Can’t be a very intelligent spammer if they are doing it manually via a browser.

I am not saying anything ... :)

no actually don't, I don't think I can take that conversation again....

But perhaps very intelligent spammers low volume spammers do do it manually via a browser, and they don't get classed as spammers?

(Sorry for taking this off topic.)
Maybe i‘m wrong, wouldn’t be the first time or the last, but i always thought for something to be classed as spam it has to be done in bulk and not just be unsolicited. Thought the nofollow was meant to be the cure for bulk comment spam pissing so many people off – just like it did Nick the other week. I can't see how it will stop the button pushers unless everyone adopts it.

Seen posts saying nofollow works and others saying it doesn’t. Maybe both are right and it its only working for some sites. Hard to believe google are getting this right when they can’t even obey my robots.txt

But perhaps very intelligent spammers low volume spammers do do it manually via a browser, and they don't get classed as spammers?

You are getting closer - but not close enough :)

Spam is NOT just about size; never was. Monty P's sketch was based in a small backstreet cafe, not a large chain restaurant.

Seriously, spam is about intention, whether by pushing a button and annoying thousands, or intelligently targetting the few where your browser-inserted link actually gets a result.

One is thick as a brace of planks, the other intelligent and devoid of integrity (The internet equivalent of one who steals soap from his friend's bathroom). Both are equally spammers.

nofollow without autospam protection is pretty thick, too. But the real power of nofollow is for the first time, forum owners can point to spam and laugh at the spammer. It's not the end of the war, hardly the end of the beginning ... but it is a weapon that is having an effect, one that cannot be seen completely until almost all bloggers, guest books, forums etc, have the sense to use it.

How do I know this?. Well, I'm psychic. But also, the level of idiocy in spamfan protests shows they know what's occurring.

- well, perhaps... *cough* it's intended ... "those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results" *cough*

"link:" = "we know and we don't care"

(or "we're watching this" if you're the tin foil type)

The "credit" remark struck me as vague from the very beginning. It doesn't mean anything really. Could even mean they won't lend us money for linking out. I admire their use of language, and I'm stumped that people expect rel="nofollow" to mean that "no PR is passed" or "the link is not counted as a proper backlink". Funny how people trust Google (and the others) to think along the same lines as webmasters/SEOers do... which of course they do NOT - LOL

This thread isn't a lame attempt to convince people not to bother setting up "nofollow", is it?

I'm sure the spamfans here realise that:

(A) It's twaddle
(B) Everyone knows it's twaddle; and
(C) Other than me and a couple of other idiots, your audience is mainly spamfans, anyway.

If you seriously believe that the first co-operation between BigG, Y! and M$N was just an April Fool trick, then you'd best go order more tin foil. Wholesale.

Or maybe get some evidence? ;o)

> not close enough :)

that's fine, I'll watch this from the cheap seats at the back thanks :)

the 'credit' thing means whatever and they (SE's) could all be treating it differently anyway - since we don't really know what credit a normal link gives when they "rank websites in [their] search results" is it worth even worrying about what it does?

But an awful lot of people are assuming it does something and using it in their normal websites.

If you seriously believe that the first co-operation between BigG, Y! and M$N was just an April Fool trick, then you'd best go order more tin foil.

Sometimes you just need to get something noticed not for it to get incoming credit, covers tin foil hat with sombrero de negro

covers tin foil hat with sombrero de negro

We already knew - the tinfoil was transparent ;o)

You could be right abot them getting followed... I don't see why Google woud want to miss out on the actuall data it could find, it proably just flags it to not assign PR...

Would make sence to me...

I did a little research after reading this thread... looks lilke it's a good possibilty you are right!
http://www.searchen.com/forum/t85-relnofollow-gets-followed.html

I have watched the MSDN blogs and I have just noticed the NoFollow within the last month or so. I know it didn't have it a while back. And yes this was after the "nofollow" came out, but it appears that it took MS a bit to initiate it.

I had/have some links from there as they have not been removed yet from the G database.

This does not mean it couldn't have happened but just might explain the MSDN backlink.

They follow, they don't credit.

The links should have been called rel="nocredit"

I also vote for something like
{meta name="robots" content="index,follow,archive,nocredit"}

Kind of weird that if their is no credit being applied, it should showup in a check of backlinks....

I dunno, ,seems a little weird that all three engines show a link in a backlink check....

with Google, it's probably mostly a PR thing where it's not assigned to links that haave a nofollow attached, but honestly, I'm not sure if Yahoo and MSN are capable of not assigning weight just yet... It's really not a big deal to do, but they are always months behine Google.