It seems that more and more sites are using the nofollow tag these days. Which, at first, may not seem like a bad thing for google. I mean, it should prevent sneaky-evil webmasters from spamming quality information sites... right? But the problem I see is this: The most informative sites are all using nofollow while follow-able link directories are allowing mediocre sites to thrive. When you look at the only places that seem to NOT be using the nofollow tag, you begin to wonder if eventually it's going to hurt the quality of the search results in the long run. Examples of sites that use nofollow: Wikipedia, YahooAnswers, Almost every forum These are the kinds of places where good, relevant links and information is posted all the time. (They obviouslly use nofollow to prevent abuse, but this is where a large portion of the web's on-topic information is.) Examples of sites that do NOT use nofollow: Directories, Paid links, Link exchange pages within sites You get these kinds of links through shrewed marketing, networking, or paying big bucks. These are not necessarily quality links that provide good information. It just seems to me that the information sites are using nofollow, which means the best sources of information aren't getting credit for backlinks. Anyone have any thoughts?
You are totaly right, but other then the good sites that use Nofollow there are the bad ones, the ones that without nofollow tag the Search resolts would be spammy. I belive goolge have dedicated time to ask review all aspects of the topic.
Discussion: Is "No Follow" tag going to HURT google? Something needs to loosen their dominance. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm going to build useful, unique sites with original content, while most people keep trying to figure out how to win the 'Google game.' When the time is right, promoting my sites off-line (to people in the real-world) will be a great way to start.
Well, I'm with you Gemini. I agree that sites with unique, useful content are best. And those are the type I try to build. But that's when I started thinking about this problem. I noticed that more spammy sites with far less content were outranking me in the searches. So, I did some backlink checks on those "other" sites. Almost all of them had hundreds of link-farm links, paid links, links in generalized g-normous directories, etc. None of them had any "real" backlinks. So, I asked myself, "Well... where are the sites with "real" links? I *want* the sites linked in wikipedia to show up in my searches... and the sites that people are talking about in forums... etc. But, unfortunately, all of those types of sites are all nofollow.
I don't think you even understand the level of abuse and spam that was hitting Wikipedia & Yahoo! Answers. I do alot of editing on Wikipedia and spend 99% of my time remove external links.
i pretty agree with all the points. nofollow can be use if the sites are popular. how bout the new sites? it seems that it will take forever for them to get popular and get high pr. btw -> google will killing himself by dictating all site without the nofollow links how bout "me" rel ?
ssandecki, I do understand WHY wikipedia and yahoo answers are using the nofollow tag. They're protecting themselves from spammers-- which they should do! But, from a big-picture point-of-view, all the main content sites are usinng nofollow these days. Seems like there's fewer and fewer follow-able link left for google's spiders. Their spiders seem to be following thousands of link directory sites, and giving higher SERP to sites that are mediocre at best. Just my thought. I don't really have a solution to the problem to propose... but I see this hurting google's search in the long-run.
Totally agreed. because mosf of article sites, blogs and forums mark outbound links with nofollow tag, it seems that google hasv't enough source to count backlinks. IMO, google will change arithmetic soon.
Well, I guess this means natural backlinks will once again provail in providing relevant searches, who would of thought!
This is just another reason why Google should forget backlinks as a factor in determining their search results. The rankings should be based on on-site CONTENT, not backlinks.
So if I had to rank for Google, should I simply put " Google Google Google Google..............................." on my site. ? In a way, the backlink algorithm takes content into consideration. It is because you have good content that people give you backlinks, and it is because of those backlinks that you rank.
Quote: In a way, the backlink algorithm takes content into consideration. It is because you have good content that people give you backlinks, and it is because of those backlinks that you rank. The problem with this is that the vast majority of backlinks aren't "natural", but are created by spammers to try to artificialy manipulate the search results and gain an undeserved high ranking for their sites.
There will always be people who will try to manipulate. The SERPS are no different. And while some people are '' spammers '', the rest belong to a category which offers something good to the end consumer, and use SEO in a greyish manner. In the end, if your site is not good enough for the consumer, artificial backlinks won't help you to make money.
Using no follow is great move by google to stop spammers but it make life tougher for google and webmasters what if one day come every webmaster use no follow certainly ever site will have no follow if this continue so no backlink is worth let it be natural or paid ones so there will be a day where top page in reserved for wiki,about,ebay like this jaint sites and no other site can come up as no backlink counts its hurts both google and us if trends set to grow using no follow for every website