[theforum] nofollow in articles (was Re: New article)

Drew Shiel ashiel at sportsinteraction.com
Wed Oct 17 03:18:27 CDT 2007


Hi folks;

(apologies for top-posting; I'm compelled to use Outlook in work, and it
doesn't do inline replies well)

My opinion on the matter is probably a little idealistic, but here goes.
Evolt is a part of the web. The web is a large structure, tied together by
links, and navigated largely by the use of search engines. We all use search
engines on a day-to-day basis, so actions that continue to allow them to
work as they should (pointing people at a consensus-determined most-relevant
page on a given topic) are beneficial to all of us.

By adding nofollow to links, we essentially say "I have no opinion on the
relevancy of the site I am linking to". That's no harm, but it's also no
help. I would rather do something constructive than something neutral, and
leave off the nofollow, so that the search engines learn that I consider the
topic of the page I'm linking to relevant to the topic of my page, and also
to the anchor text that I'm using.

Links in articles, comments, etc are either relevant or not; this can be
judged in a second by the person moderating. If they're not relevant, they
shouldn't be there at all, if they're relevant, they should carry the weight
of a full link without nofollow.

Therefore, I'm in favour of removing nofollow on any part of the site that
gets editorial review.

Abuse of our user profile system, since it's unmoderated, remains a
possibility, and the options there are either to go to moderation (which
isn't necessarily a bad idea in any case), or leave it with nofollow
enabled.

Drew.

-----Original Message-----
From: theforum-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:theforum-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Dean Mah
Sent: 17 October 2007 01:48
To: theforum at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [theforum] nofollow in articles (was Re: New article)

Sounds good.  Let's put this baby to a vote on Monday.  Anyone
interested in making comments has until then to chime in.  So I would
suggest the questions be:

1) Should 'nofollow' be added to links in user profile (signatures and
personal information blocks)?

2) Should 'nofollow' be added to links in comments?

3) Should 'nofollow' be added to links in articles?

Dean

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