Nofollow

Stop Nofollow

My NoFollow Policy - This is my policy on the use of rel=”nofollow” on this blog.

  1. All comments left by visitors are marked with rel=”nofollow” initially. After 14 days nofollow is removed. My feelings on this are that if the comment is germane to the topic at hand and the link provided adds value than that link should be counted as it contributes to my page and should influence the search results. Inherent in this policy is that if I feel a link is off topic, spam, inflammatory or for any other reason I deem undesirable I may prune it within the 14 day waiting period.
  2. Rule #1 does not apply if you try to be cute and use anchor rich text as a name. Those comments will remain nofollow. Go spam someone else’s blog.
  3. I reserve the right to granularly control individual links within comments and signature based on several factors including but not confined to: Bad neighborhoods, off topic, promotional links, link drops, poor quality sites, or just because I don’t like it.
  4. In the main posts nofollow will be used sparingly, rather a mention of a site that is undesirable will be broken as to not create a link at all, or with a screen shot. If I feel a site is in such a bad neighborhood I do not even want to send them any click through traffic, much less a link that some search engines may consider and all will in fact “Follow”.
  5. A notable exception to this rule is for Wikipedia pages that are used for word definitions. As the wiki has instituted a site wide nofollow policy which, in my opinion, is contrary to the original intent of nofollow, I will not be a part of increasing their search engine rankings. It also follows the logic that if Wikipedia is so unsure of the pages they link to that they nofollow them all I should be just as unsure of them as a resource.
  6. As WebmasterWorld does not allow linking of any kind to your average external sites, excepting authorities like Google, Cnn, etc, I have created a nofollow plug-in of my own to automatically nofollow all links in posts and comments to WebmasterWorld.

This policy may be amended with time, and will probably be adjusted as the web climate changes. Feel free to use the image above on your own site and feel even freer to link to me when you do, without rel=”nofollow” of course :)

For those with Wordpress blogs please consider the DoFollow , Wikipedia-NoFollow , and Webmasterworld-nofollow plugins to help maintain your own Nofollow policy. I also use the search status extension for firefox to highlight the nofollow links on sites I visit. If you develop your own policy please register at Stop NoFollow NOW

There are currently 15 responses to “Nofollow”

Why not let me know what you think by adding your own comment! All the cool kids are doing it.

  1. 1 MyAvatars 0.2 On February 5th, 2007, Sebastian said:

    That’s a very reasonable policy. To get the word out I’d make it available under a creative common license, or just encourage others to use it like with your say-no-to-nofollow image. And perhaps it’s worth it to talk about the reasons why you don’t follow the nofollow-insane ;)

  2. 2 MyAvatars 0.2 On February 8th, 2007, Doc said:

    Hi JLH - Great policy and I agree with everything bar one point -

    I’d disagree with the part about now follow in footers.

    In many cases, as you know, these links are the only form of recognition that a GPL developer gets for there work.

    If the work is good, and popular, then I believe link value should also flow to them, because in effect people are ‘voting’ for their product / add-on / widget by installing it.

    Doc

    JLH added 3/8/07 - Addressed your concerns.

  3. 3 MyAvatars 0.2 On February 8th, 2007, JLH said:

    Doc,

    I didn’t say they wouldn’t get recognition or a link, just not a site wide link. My car has the Cadillac Emblem on the hood, not on the the doors, the wheels, the windows, the seat, you get the point. After I’ve nailed down the theme I’ll be sure to write a credit page. I’ll leave the link they installed so someone else can get the template if they want but until I’ve worked out the kinks (and there are many) I’ll reserve my linking power, as weak as it is! But as a developer I can understand how you feel and I’ll take your objection and perhaps reevaluate my own stance.

  4. 4 MyAvatars 0.2 On March 6th, 2007, Craig said:

    Taking the separate pieces, I could definitely make use of the timed usage within posts and “sigs”.

    I’m in the middle of, among a bajillion other things, building a visitor discussion/comment system for my dev/tech site from the ground up. Anyone mentioning something about reinvention and the wheel can save it, this is a hobby so I can waste time if I want to! :-()

    I know this might not jibe with any original intentioned usages for the nofollow but I do know it is useful none the less. What I was thinking of doing was having 100% nofollow in the body of the comment, initially but allow a “sig” link from one who has been “approved”, i.e. they have had a posted accepted in the past, will not be mangled.

    The nofollows in the body would give me a chance to check out all the links to make sure that it is even a place I want a link to and not spam and second, that I’d want to grant some sort of “authority” to them or whether it is best left unfollowed.

    At least that’s the plan at the moment.

    In any event, there can be numerous uses for a tool for which some uses may not have initially been intended but show up latently as people push and prod and come up with different uses for the same tools.

  5. 5 MyAvatars 0.2 On March 6th, 2007, JLH said:

    Craig, come back in 13.5 days and see your link go “follow” After all you did add at least as much text to this page as I originally did.

  6. 6 MyAvatars 0.2 On March 6th, 2007, Craig said:

    You are saying I can’t come back until 13.5 days is finished?!?!?!? :-()

    Seriously though, the way I’m approaching the architecting of what will become my visitor comment/discussion system is that although a database could be use, comments will be instead stored as discrete files on the server that due to their naming structure, can easily and quickly be deteremined as to which comment thread and/or comment order they are in and from which I can also easily extract the time they were last modified.

    Then from going based on the last modified, if the current date is X days later, no-nofollow. I use basically a similar component in determining last modified and then including it in a header.

    In any event, I am digressing off-topic so I’ll quit while I’m behind.

    Oh yeah, can’t come back for 13.5 days, huh? ;-)

  7. 7 MyAvatars 0.2 On March 8th, 2007, JLH said:

    Updated it a bit today

  8. 8 MyAvatars 0.2 On April 16th, 2007, Maki :: Dosh Dosh said:

    I’m not sure how I stumbled on your blog.. but what do you think of NoFollow on footer sitewide links to WP theme designers?

    It does give recognition, traffic and credit to the designer.. the only thing missing is PR Juice. Do you think it’ll be alright to do so?

  9. 9 MyAvatars 0.2 On April 17th, 2007, Craig said:

    Theme, forum, site, whatever designer attribution as well as a link to follow for someone else to access and potentially use their work should be sufficient, at least IMHO.

    On the other hand were I writing an article about a given theme, forum, site whatever, giving references, at least positive ones, PR juice would seem natural.

    If what is being linked to has relevance, to pass or not PR juice is an issue but since a given theme/forum/site/whatever provider would have no relevance for most of what is on a blog or site, passing PR juice would not seem to make sense.

  10. 10 MyAvatars 0.2 On April 24th, 2007, Google: Trend setter or follower? » JLH Design Blog said:

    [...] Nofollow [...]

  11. 11 MyAvatars 0.2 On April 26th, 2007, JLH said:

    Reduced the probation period from 14 to 7 days.

  12. 12 MyAvatars 0.2 On May 4th, 2007, WebmasterWorld Nofollow » JLH Design Blog said:

    [...] Nofollow [...]

  13. 13 MyAvatars 0.2 On May 4th, 2007, JLH said:

    Update: Added WebmasterWorld to the list of sites nofollowed, and introduced my plug-in for wordpress to automate the process.

  14. 14 MyAvatars 0.2 On May 8th, 2007, Jay Thompson said:

    This is a great comment/nofollow policy! I like the small time delay, and appreciate your putting up the linkage to the plug-ins. Thanks for the “logo” too!

  15. 15 MyAvatars 0.2 On May 10th, 2007, Lists said:

    That’s a nice policy - but what use is the 7-day no-follow period in the long term? I mean, you either let a comment be seen by approving it, or not. That’s when you can decide whether the comment is seen or not - might make things simpler for you to manage.

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