~ryanlowe/blog: Google responds to blog comment spam with rel="nofollow"

Google responds to blog comment spam with rel="nofollow"

A month ago I made the blog post Google: Protect PageRank Against Blog Spammers. In it I proposed that Google should have a blacklist for comment spammer URLs so that these URLs don't benefit from the increased PageRank via blog spamming. My main point was that Google has an interest in protecting the integrity of their search results and therefore the PageRank algorithms and search database.

Google has responded another way and put the onus on the bloggers to mark URLs that could be exploited with the rel="nofollow" attribute.

I like the idea, especially that Google is doing it in collaboration with MSN and Yahoo. The disadvantage of putting the onus on the user is that it will take longer for blog spam to disappear -- spammers will still be able to exploit older blog systems until those systems are updated (which could be never).

The advantage of putting the onus on the user is that Google doesn't have to maintain a blacklist and put itself in a potential hot seat. Blacklists are a slippery slope -- just ask the people who tried to maintain a list of open email relays to prevent spam. I forget what that project was called (ORDB maybe?) ... but here's a list of blacklists.

I've updated both of my MovableType installations to add rel="nofollow" to comment links. We'll see how well this technique works.

Posted at January 19, 2005 at 01:26 PM EST
Last updated January 19, 2005 at 01:26 PM EST

Comments

This is just another form of blacklist. It's just blacklisting on a bigger scale. The way it's sure to be implemented is that any user posted content will not contribute at all to pagerank. This just of blacklists all the user posted content, whether or not it deserves to be blocked or not. There are probably a lot of very useful links posted through user submitted comments. Blocking them all probably isn't the best answer.

» Posted by: Kibbee at January 21, 2005 10:18 AM

Well you can still follow the links in a browser. Google skips the nofollow links when it does the link scoring.

» Posted by: Ryan at January 21, 2005 10:51 AM

Yeah, which is what I was referring to. Discounting all user added links from google's page rank probably isn't the best idea, as many links, maybe the majority of them, are valid useful links, that should contribute to the scoring.

» Posted by: Kibbee at January 21, 2005 06:44 PM

Actually I disagree. The whole point of Google's scoring system is that the web page owner took the time to link to the other site. That makes the link more valuable. The more links to the site, the "better" it is.

If people can add links to other people's sites, this aspect breaks down. The nofollow attribute prevents this breakdown.

» Posted by: Ryan at January 21, 2005 06:47 PM

That's an interesting thought, although lets look at it this way. When somebody posts something on their blog, it takes them no more energy than the person who is posting the comment. The web site owner, may have more credibility then the comment poster, but maybe not. Sometimes links placed in the comments are just as valuable as ones placed by the webmaster. If on my blog, I state a problem I am having, and my readers respond with links, pointing to the long sought out answer, then shouldn't other netizens be helped, by letting these perfectly good links help the page rank? Why not just discount all the links on blogs, since they were probably posted by 16 year old girls who put no thought into what they were linking to, and just thought that linking to every second word was cool.

» Posted by: Kibbee at January 22, 2005 11:28 AM