Rel=nofollow is senseless, stupid, and against the way of the web

Poor Brian brought up the wrong subject at I guess the wrong time...

I don't udnerstand the Spam Link Deterrent.

13:13
ne'er mind, a little research goes a long way

benjamin melançon 11:13
hey, document your research and put it up on agaricdesign.com !

twinstar01 11:14
it's called wikipedia, lol

benjamin melançon 11:14
oh, i didn't notice what you posted above

14:43
if it's the rel="nofollow" tag, I am strongly opposed to it

15:36
it's basically telling search engines that we've given up fighting spammers, and corporations and other top-down content makers will determine what ranks in search engines

15:47
we regular people shall have no say

twinstar01 11:16
Funny, that's not how I read it at all

benjamin melançon 11:16
rel="nofollow" is a stupid, non-standard search engine cop-out (I'm talking to you, Google) that collectively punishes regular users for the actions of spammers

17:33
it follows the same logic as Mitt Romney's apparent approach to immigration-- make the U.S. so bad no one will want to visit

17:36
// end rant

17:52
I don't know if anyone shares my view, but that is my view.

twinstar01 11:18
Well, you -are- an anarchist, lol

benjamin melançon 11:18
Spam should be stopped with Captchas (the enter this text or picture things you see everywhere) and, where appropriate, semi-automatic weapons

19:18
seriously, though, I can't believe how many people bought into this

19:30
rel="nofollow" does nothing to stop link spam, really

20:05
it's supposed to take away *some* of the incentive for generating comment spam, but ask anyone who runs a web forum if it's had any effect

twinstar01 11:20
It stops the -effectiveness- of link spam

benjamin melançon 11:20
which is why i call it a search engine cop-out

21:20
Google should really be able to figure out that 47 million links to v-iag-r4.com aren't real

twinstar01 11:21
Not without user intervention

benjamin melançon 11:21
so they should be dealing with the quality of their search engine on their side

twinstar01 11:21
or ridiculously complex algorithms.

benjamin melançon 11:21
oh, they do a million things anyway. Literally

22:19
there's all kinds of legit things you can do that will accidentally get you, well, troll-rated by google

22:25
or yahoo etc.

twinstar01 11:22
like what!!

22:55
Tell me so I can use them1

benjamin melançon 11:23
so that's my feeling on the search engines, which are the ones that proposed and pushed the tag, so their robots ignor some links

23:05
use them?

twinstar01 11:23
no, wait, that's Stacey's job

benjamin melançon 11:23
I'm hoping she's not torpedoing competition by making search engines think they're spammers!

twinstar01 11:24
hehe

24:23
I dunno WHAT she's doing, but she's looking forward to working with you and your client

benjamin melançon 11:24
it should be great!

twinstar01 11:24
and profitable!

benjamin melançon 11:24
Yes!

twinstar01 11:25
for US

benjamin melançon 11:25
well, I was assuming that money she makes will go directly to you, and then on to Agaric

26:52
So, the problem that people were trying to solve, and that search engines implied they could solve by adding the nofollow attribute, was not the effectiveness of the search engines. People aren't quite that altruistic. They were trying to keep their blogs and comments from filling up with spam. rel="nofollow" did nothing for this.

27:18
Instead, what is the result? a two-tiered system where closed web sites have weight in what ranks on search engines

27:45
and open web sites that implement nofollow to try to reduce spam have no weight on how things rank

27:54
did anyone, at all, think this through?

28:45
putting nofollow is telling people who use your web site: I don't think what you say has enough value to count in how search engines rank things. You can talk here, but I don't want your opinion to have an effect on the way the web works.

28:52
// rant over for real now

twinstar01 11:29
suuuure

benjamin melançon 11:29
sorry, I've been meaning to write about that for a while!

29:16
hadn't written a word, but it was in my brain

29:18
it's out now