[wp-hackers] OT: "Nofollow" Rant

Josh Jarmin fuegodesigns at gmail.com
Sat Jan 22 05:39:55 GMT 2005


On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:52:30 -0800, Matthew Mullenweg <m at mullenweg.com> wrote:
> You're not taking anything away, you're just removing the ability for
> people besides yourself to generate pagerank for themselves on your
> site. If you want to "endorse" a site or commentor, putting them in your
> blogroll sidebar will do far more than a comment link will.

> That said, it's all done in filters! Next versions of spam plugins can
> easily disable it. Or there can be a plugin just for it. Etc...

What we are saying is that why is it so hard to add a simple checkbox
in the admin area to turn it off.  You say its simple for the plugins
to do it, but why should they HAVE to add it just because you refuse
to.  I can already imagine the number of posts on the message boards
with cranky people wanting to turn it off, so why not just save all
that now with a simple option.  It will not hurt anything, it can
still be on by default, but just a simple option to turn it off is all
we ask.  Why are you so against the option?

I don't agree with your comments about how if you want the person to
get a pagerank, just list them in your blogroll or something.  There
is no way that most people could possibly do that.  If you get even a
few comments per post, there is sure to be some new sites so you would
have to list all of them (and constantly update) to achive what is
possible today.  The blogsphere is built upon linking from one blog to
another, and one of the major ways is in comment links.  In my stats,
I get a lot more visits from the link I put with my comments on other
blogs that I do from people's blogrolls.  Why?  Because people
normally either agree or disagree with my comment and want to find out
more about me or see what else I have to say, so they click the link. 
Not so much with just a simple link in a blogroll.  I love the fact
that I can get people to my site through comment links and in return
do the same for the commenters on my site.  You seem to be taking
pagerank all too seriously and might think it is something like gmail
invites that deserve to be sold on Ebay.

The way things are right now is not that bad.  The spam plugins and
filters work, even this new no-follow might help some people, but in
the end it hurts us all.  How can spiders work if every link on the
web is nofollow?  They would stop after page 1.  No-follow is not the
answer, its barely a step in the right direction.

-- 
Thanks,
Josh Jarmin
FuegoDesigns.com
Radiantrock.com
Red & Yellow Make Green - http://www.radiantrock.com/blog


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