Most of us that manage blogs understand the potential volume of spam associated with them. Blogs are often bombarded by comments that add no value to the topic, comments added only to create a link back to someone’s website. One method utilized by many blog managers to curtail this is the use of the nofollow attribute on outbound links. This method, in theory, removes the value of spam comments. However, the effectiveness of this method is somewhat limited. In today’s blog, the first of a three-part series on the nofollow attribute, we’ll introduce nofollow tags and discuss their inclusion in outbound links from a blog. We’ll also discuss a more complete strategy for controlling spam comments. Later in the series, we’ll show you a quick way to determine if a blog is link-worthy (i.e. you’ll get PageRank flow) and look into “PageRank Sculpting” as a way to control which pages appear in search results.

Why am I Getting All This Spam!??!

Many blog owners and managers have expressed this very thought. What starts as a few spam comments with no value can become dozens or hundreds a day. As we discussed in a prior link building blog, search engines measure the popularity (or value) of a site based on the number and quality of links that lead to the website. As a result, some less-than-reputable “marketers” will leave their link anywhere they can, especially in the ever expanding volume of blogs. They hope to acquire the PageRank (or link juice) from your page to theirs. This shotgun approach, especially when coupled with inadequate content, has limited effectiveness in regards to long-term benefits.

What is NoFollow?

The nofollow attribute (often written more explicitly as rel=nofollow) is a method for letting the search engines know that your site does not vouch for the content on the destination site. Implementation of nofollow is pretty straightforward:

<a href=’http://www.badsite.com‘ rel=’nofollow’ class=’url’>On-page text</a>

The HTML above simply indicates, “I don’t support or promote the content found on www.badsite.com.” By including this, your PageRank (and the anchor text) does not flow to the destination website (and doesn’t help them rank better in the search engines).

Why are so Many Blogs NoFollow?

Blogs are the most popular use of the nofollow attribute. They utilize nofollow to reduce or eliminate blog comment spam: “If there’s no value to putting a link on my page, they won’t do it.”  As many of us already realize, the effectiveness of nofollow in curbing comment spam is somewhat limited (even when publicizing the use of nofollow). One of the primary reasons behind this is that most blogs don’t openly indicate if they use nofollow tags. The only way to check, in many cases, is to look for the attribute in their source code. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that not implementing nofollow (along with failure to use comment moderation) can lead to an explosion in comment spam (perhaps through inclusion in “dofollow” search engines. At the content level, using nofollow is a way to promote constructive comments and conversations while discouraging spam. As we mentioned, the success of this can be a bit limited.

Many blog platforms (Wordpress and Blogger, for example) include nofollow tags on user-generated links, such as those found in comments, by default. This can typically be changed (see documentation for your blog platform for more information).

Why Shouldn’t I Use NoFollow?

While controlling spam is definitely an important goal, implementing the NoFollow attribute across all comments is not desirable. Frankly, people that leave constructive comments or add to your discussion should be rewarded for their time (by allowing PageRank to flow to their website). We also believe the over-use of nofollow goes against the very framework of search engines (whose job it is to provide us with the most relevant results for our query). For example, consider that a user leaves the following comment in a blog about how calculator technology hasn’t advanced with computers:

“I think your blog is well thought out, but I don’t agree with your comment on calculators. John Doe discussed how calculators are still improving technologically in his blog. I agree with John that the barrier is not technological, but one of acceptance in education.”

In this example, the blog entry the user is linking to is about calculator technology, and under ideal circumstances, the search engines would like to “see” this link, as it supports the topic of the destination page and promotes it for related searches. However, if the nofollow attribute is used in the link, the search engines miss out on this bit of information.

So How Do I Control Spam in my Blog?

Earlier, I alluded to comment moderation as a method of controlling spam comments. All blogs should utilize comment moderation, especially considering the assortment of spam currently found in the blogosphere. If you actively moderate your comments prior to posting them, you should have little issue with spam. What better spam filter is there than you? Develop a strategy for quickly looking at their websites as well as the quality of their comments and determine if the comment is worth including (and without nofollow tags, you’re rewarding valuable content).

Final Thoughts

We all want to control spam comments in our blogs, but shouldn’t rely on the nofollow attribute to prevent them. While the nofollow strategy may prevent the passing of PageRank, it’s not totally effective at curbing spam in your blog. Consider a moderation-only or moderation-nofollow strategy to achieve superior spam control.

What are your thoughts on comment spam and steps to reduce/eliminate it?

More From RiseInteractive

• Bing vs. Google – To Stay or To Leave the SERP
• NoFollow Lesson 3: PageRank Sculpting: Worth the Effort?
• NoFollow Lesson 2: Determining if a Blog Uses NoFollow

RiseInteractive Recommends

• Blog Post SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Content  (StayOnSearch)
• How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound links  (Anthony Kirlew)
• Rel=NoFollow – To use or not to use, what is it & what does it do  (Brandon Hann)

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Tags: Blogs, Link Building, nofollow, seo

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.