nofollow support added?

Uhh, ‘no-follow’ benefits Google et al., not site owners nor this Google user, and it’s doubtful that comment spam intends to boost pageRank in the first place. I hate it as much as anybody, don’t get me wrong. But if my query on “wordpress nuances” starts to feature a link to “BonerPill.com” on results page one, I’m still not following. Probably. And comment spam costs nothing to do. I’d like to meet the comment spammer who ever says, “Damn, my pageRank isn’t getting anywhere. Guess I’ll call the robot home.”

Anonymous commenting invites comment spam. Comment moderation or commenter authentication beats it. Some things can’t be automated.

Seems to me, then, that the no-follow attribute value should be an opt-in/plugin proposition, for site owners who’d rather cripple the Web than moderate. Search engines and site owners don’t have common cause here, not really.

Unless Google’s response will be to devalue links on blog-style sites (except Blogger.com sites, natch). But bowing to such threat invites a new tyranny.

LQ

Whether you agree or disagree with the philosophy behind the developers’ decision is one thing; using terms like “your own PR” and “crippled” are just ploys to incite. It’s a single setting in a moderately known piece of software. No one is going to die over it. Not yet, anyways…

There is nothing wrong with debating this. But for or against, on the side of the users or the corporations or the developers or no one in particular, at least stop pretending this forces us to do something against our will. It doesn’t.

Well, there hasn’t really been any debate in terms of how WordPress is going to support this. It has been decided. That being said, it’s for the lead developers to decide on their own, anyway. Our choice is how we get to change the setting once the software is in our hands. We will just have to find the plugin that works best for us to change whatever we want.

I’ll agree it should default to nofollow, but I would like to be able to toggle it on a per-comment basis, via the admin screen. As all good plugins go, if they are popular or usefull enough, they should be incorporated in the base product.

Just my thoughts.

“Well, there hasn’t really been any debate in terms of how WordPress is going to support this. “

I of course meant debate their decision.

I’m not understanding why, if no bloggers can link properly to other blogs, and all those blogs then suffer in ranking, this is considered a good thing.

Diane: I’m not understanding how this initiative prevents bloggers from linking to other blogs in their posts or blogrolls? That’s what I would call a ‘proper link’. Bloggers who post comments solely to build up their total of incoming links are no better than spammers, IMO, though I can see why they are up in arms about this.

If you want to rank high on Google, try producing decent content. Now there’s a radical idea.

Kaf,
I don’t see any reason to debate the decision. The bottom line is that a decision had to be made one way or the other. Now a series of plugins will be developed to toggle this setting. Had they decided otherwise, plugins would still have to be developed to toggle the setting.

If you want to rank high on Google, try producing decent content.

One can produce all the decent content they want, but if all proper, non-spamming links to that decent content contain rel="nofollow" then it won’t go anywhere in the ranks, correct?

Whether you do or not NM, it appears many others feel differently. How else to explain threads such as this one. I’m just concerned about letting such a debate blow all out of proportion to the issue at hand.

if all proper, non-spamming links to that decent content contain rel=”nofollow” then it won’t go anywhere in the ranks, correct?

They WON’T, not if it’s implemented only in comments. Do you honestly believe that no-follow will be automatically added to any links you make on your own blog? Or that we are asking you to add the rel yourself? This point has been explained I don’t know how many times. I am beginning to have the sensation of banging my head against a brick wall.

Kaf,
Very true. I am only one opinion. However, this debate is not a small issue, really. It speaks volumes about the inferred value of linking from site to site.

The default spam policy can and should be debated. However, that default policy is not going to attempt to accommodate everyone’s fancy and is not going to include lots of options, especially options that are fairly impenetrable to the typical user. Alternative spam policies are the domain of plugins. Plugins are already being modified to integrate different nofollow policies.

Something being committed to the repository does not mean the end of the discussion. It is usually the beginning.

And, finally, non-proliferation of options is a core philosophy of WordPress. Removing and refusing options always results in big, tedious debates and threats of forks and abandonment. We’ve been through it several times and will go through it again and again. The easiest path is to just give up and throw in another checkbox, but that is a mistake that results in terrible software that is used only by opinionated power users.

… using terms like “your own PR” and “crippled” are just ploys to incite.

No, they’re not, at least not without a purpose.

Comment spammers seek to game the system. rel="no follow" is a counter-game. Independence demands we be in thrall to neither.

It’d be uncharacteristic and unwise for WordPress to pick its users’ allegiances. Consensus on “no follow” is not afoot. Wait awhile.

LQ

@anonymous,
If all the blog publishing software has the nofollow enabled by default and the vast majority of bloggers don’t implement a plugin to change it or even know it exists, then indeed many links will be useless.

Comment spam is about brute-force robot scripts running amok on potentially millions of sites. They want click-throughs, not page rankings.