I wrote in comments to this post that, if the result of using nofollow was more better conversation, I'd implement it. I'm a leftie, after all. I worry about the greater good, and we recycle and stuff. But I know how web standards are created and implemented, and it ain't by executive fiat, it's by tedious and energy-sucking collective bargaining.
One thing about collective bargaining: the endurance needed for any one individual to make it through to the signing is enough to ensure that the people who do have a clear idea of what should be done, and how, and why, and what the implications are for good or ill, are most likely to be still around at the end. It takes forever to reach a decision, but at least you know you covered all the bases getting there. But back to nofollow.
I think it's worth reiterating that rel="nofollow" is a tag promoted by one entity (Google) to further that entity's short-term goals. It has been advertised as a comment-spam-prevention scheme: it is nothing of the kind. A weblogger can scatter, automatically or not, nofollow tags throughout her site's links and the responses left thereon as much as she likes – doing so will not provide her any defense whatsoever against spam.
Say it with me: Spam is not just links to crap sites. Spam is crap, period. A comment to an entry on dog shows, promoting the wonders of South Pacific cruising, is crap, no matter if the commenter included a link to a cruise line site or not. rel="nofollow" doesn't even begin to address the root of the spam problem, as viewed by a site maintainer. Her weblog can and still will be, nofollow's notwithstanding, in the absence of any proper spam-prevention oversight, polluted with pseudo-commentary left by parasitical promoters of snake oil and good times. The only thing that widespread use of nofollow will change is that Google's rankings will no longer be affected by such spurious linkage. Or, in fact, by spot-on linkage, but for some reason that doesn't seem to bother them.
In the meantime, what happens to the rel= half of the equation? It's not just a convenient handle for any old value. "Rel" is short for "relationship", and the values it's assigned should fit into that context. Here are links to four posts written by Llachlan Hunt, who has some experience in these matters:
- Link Relationships
- Link Relationships Revisited, Part 1
- Link Relationships Revisited, Part 2
- Web Communication Link Relationships
In all of them, Llachlan talks about the need for, and means of, endorsing or validating the content pointed to by links left by visitors. Some of the tags he writes about as falling short of the mark are already in some kind of use, notably rel="vote-for", rel="vote-against", rel="vote-abstain". Heard of these? I hadn't, before now. There's reasons for that, and to my mind the biggest reason jumping up and down and waving its arms is that, if you think the linked-to content is suspect or irrelevant, why would you leave it up on your site in the first place?
But that, in a nutshell, is nofollow. Its implementation assumes that weblog authors, by default, out of ignorance or laziness, leave up crap content. "It's all one to us if they want to let their sites go to hell, but they're not taking us with them," says Google.
I adore Google, but I can't go there. Google's PageRank™ algorithm created this monster, Google fed it and watered it and took pictures of its first steps. Google, for my money, can bloody well comb its own code for a dartgun. Insisting that the entire World Wide Web alter its link encoding in order to save Google from its own spawn, while leaving that selfsame Web to deal as best it can, is the mark of an entity that has grown far apart from the community it is engaged in cataloguing.
To illustrate this further, this is Google's own trumpeting of nofollow's reception:
Update: The reaction to nofollow has really been quite positive, especially considering how diverse the web is. We're delighted to announce more support for nofollow:
What follows that is a short list of those people or organizations that have gotten aboard the wagon. Leaving aside the grossly misleading headline of this article, I'd just like to point out that, when promoting a new internet standard, it's customary to publish a Request For Comments (RFC) and then to entertain dissenting positions. That's because the people and organizations so addressed are assumed to be one's peers. Google, in this instance, is not behaving as though it saw website admins in this light, but rather as though it saw itself as the web's executive. This is not trivial.
There's no list of, or links to, articles questioning nofollow's usefulness, effectiveness, fitness for intended purpose, not a sausage. This is of course how businesses behave when marketing new products, and for that reason seems "normal", but it is manifestly not how things are done within peer organizations, as anyone who has ever volunteered time in a non-profit knows.
In the same vein, and this is just plain weird, is this entry by Benjamin Trott on Six Apart's weblog. Not the part where he's supportive of Google and nofollow, he and 6A can support a dingo bat for President if they want, might improve things, but anyway, the odd part is that the giant list of trackbacks used to be longer. By at least one entry, and I think several more. I originally got to Llachlan Hunt's articles from that TB list, two evenings ago.
That trackback isn't there anymore. Nor any, so far as I can tell, that do not enthusiastically support nofollow. For my part, I'm not feeling very cheery about any of it.
I lied. I'm feeling cheery about this part. Thank you, Mr. Zawodny!
lyrical coolness currently playing: Gypsie Boy from the album "Women In (E)Motion (Live)" by Rory Block
