Link: NO NOFOLLOW
Following Google’s recent rel=”nofollow” development which is being added to blog systems and the like in the effort to combat spam, there’s now a “no nofollow” website. Somewhat pathetically designed (edit 24th jan: it’s been redesigned) and unfortunately in German (with an English footnote), I don’t think it’s going to achieve anything.
On the same note, I don’t really see how the nofollow attribute is going to combat spam either. Taking advantage of what Katy said: spam bots don’t look to see if you’ve added a certain piece of coding to your links, so they’re going to spam you anyway in the hope that eventually they’ll find an unprotected blog which will give them publicity.
Thoughts?
21 Jan at 1:14 pm
Intriguing. I don’t think it will achieve anything either, though.
21 Jan at 1:25 pm
spam in mail-change your url method to cloak the address. Invest in/install good AI spam filters. Whitelist/blacklist as a final resort. Depressing, but…it’s a huge problem. Our mailservers are knocking back 30,000+spams a day. Even they’re creaking under load now.
21 Jan at 1:28 pm
It’s nothing to do with e-mail spam, it’s about blog spam.
21 Jan at 2:08 pm
I’m at school right now and the filters don’t seem to want to take me anywhere so I can read about this nofollow thing. I’ll have to wait until I get home. I hope it works, really I do, but if they can’t do it one way they’ll find another.
21 Jan at 2:29 pm
same spam, same methods, different label. The answer is the same. Engines need ever better antispam systems in place.
21 Jan at 4:44 pm
pretty pretty pretty I like the sidebar/title of each entry where there’s the large title and then the small description underneath on the right. It looks spiffy. Very risky colour scheme, so kudos for pulling it off :D
21 Jan at 5:05 pm
Whoa. When the hell did you put this layout up? Hahaha.. it hurts me poor little eyes! Hehehe… I was actually able to read the words on that website and that makes me happy. Well, not the actual words, but the being able to read it. Heh. It’s great that all the search engines are getting together to at least try to combat blog spam. Shows some promise.
21 Jan at 5:08 pm
Mmm, tis a little bright. Different though, so I’ll keep it. I’ve added a small disclaimer to the sidebar just for you Chrissy. ;)
21 Jan at 5:28 pm
*LOL* It’s okay. There is no natural light oin my room and I don’t have any lamps on, so that makes things seem a lot brighter than they actually are. All my fault, of course.
21 Jan at 5:42 pm
hehe, loving the disclaimer!
21 Jan at 5:50 pm
I must have completely missed the boat on this one because I don’t see how this is going to cure any spamming issues. I know the people at google, msn, yahoo, and the like are very intelligent and they must know what they are talking about, but I think the impetuses behind this is that they are tired of ranking the flotsam of the internet. It wastes a lot of hard drive space and a lot of CPU cycles, but I really don’t think this is going to help comment and trackback spam one bit. You see, I don’t think comment spammers care about their google, msn, and yahoo rankings. What the spammers care about is having a link to their site in a place where someone might click it. I do see the benefit of using the ‘rel’ attribute as far as diminishing the spammer’s page rank but I don’t think it is going to help in the war on spam. My 2 cents
21 Jan at 7:12 pm
I LOVE this layout! The color scheme is a lot different from your usual blue. :D I hope that this Google thing will work. I don’t get a ton of spam like I used to, but I do get at least one a day.
21 Jan at 8:46 pm
I love how at the end you’re like, “oh, yeah, new layout.” when it was the FIRST thing I noticed! Hehehe. How.. bright and vibrant and DIFFERENT from all of your other stuff! It took me a minute to get used to.. but once I did.. love. I will have to look into that no spam thing just a little bit more. I don’t get hit by spam bots as it is since I installed a plug-in with WP.. but, extra protection is better than none, right?
21 Jan at 10:11 pm
I just spent $2 on you so I could view your website happily with a pair of sunglasses.
21 Jan at 10:21 pm
I didn’t make yellow smilies, darn. But if you wanted to try out my colorful or transparent set… :P I like the new layout – it’s quite different than your usual ones in that the feel is uniquely personal, whereas your other designs are elegantly professional. Although the yellow background is blinding me so that I can’t tell what color I’m typing in. Is this green or gray…? I don’t think the nofollow thing’s going to catch on either. I mean, it’s not even a person sitting there going through blogs, it’s no skin off spammers’ backs to keep the spambots going through every link.
21 Jan at 11:36 pm
The first thing I thought of when I saw your new layout was that you were trying to prove the rest of world wrong with using such colors in an almost tasteful way. I love the image in the top left. I’m not too convinced the no follow thing is going to work. I don’t think too many of us can be bothered. I’m fine the way I am with my comment spam which rarely gets to me with the amount of hacks and plugins I have. *touchwood*
22 Jan at 12:21 am
Wow. Very bright. I’m going to sue when I go blind.
22 Jan at 12:52 am
Good attempt on google’s part to limit spam but I don’t think it’ll be very effective either. Even hacks/plugins for blogging scripts don’t work all the time. I just gave up and manually close the entry before the most current one so there is always only one entry open for comments on my site. Much easier to control but a little tedious. Wow very bright layout! My eyes are complaining, but it is original.
22 Jan at 2:19 am
Dazzling bright. At least you know for certain nobody will get depressed by looking at your layout LOL.. That comment-spam blocking thing doesn’t sound like it will last but that’s just me. :/
22 Jan at 3:04 am
Love the top image, but I hate the background! Tone it down, woman! Anyways, I’m not sure about the viability of the “nofollow” attribute. I think the only precautions a person could take with preventing comment spam is by forcing a person to type a certain random sequence, generated by images.
22 Jan at 7:26 am
This is a weird thing to mention, but what I really love about this layout are the colors you use in the comment boxes (as in, the boxes where the comments show up). Er, yeah. Nofollow? Well, I guess at least there’s progress being made. It’s like all those pointless legislations in U.S. History. The legislation itself doesn’t do anything; but the fact that they took the step is important. I’ll stick with my primitive PHP filters. :)
22 Jan at 9:08 am
Woah.. Best weblog layout yet Jem. :o YELLOW! BRIGHTNESS! WHOPEEEEEE! *dance*
22 Jan at 3:56 pm
I like how “retrofied” isn’t the main focus of the layout. It just kinda lingers there waiting to be noticed and appreciated.
22 Jan at 5:26 pm
Whelp, at least Google are trying, poor little dears. I don’t know enough about it to comment on it, but I DO know that that website, ‘No NOFOLLOW’ will do nothing to convince me otherwise (considering that their argument consists of “nofollow sucks. It devides the net and is in no way effective against spam. Don’t use it.” It sucks? Why does it suck? Why is it in no way effective against spam? And you meant to say ‘divides’, didn’t you?) About the layout… it’s different, I’ve honestly never seen a blog layout like it. I’m not really a fan of yellow, which makes me a wee bit biased, but the colours do match and the banner at the top is really funky, so I say… keep it. Just get some pretty yellow smilies and you’ll be fine :)
22 Jan at 7:11 pm
I thought I’d come to the wrong site for a second! I love the new layout! And “retrofied” is the best word ever. :)
23 Jan at 12:17 am
Very cool layout. I’m a big fan of bright colours and retro design.
23 Jan at 1:48 am
Cool new layout, I love the yellow! You could always use my smilies again :sniff sniff: ;)
23 Jan at 2:41 pm
*blink blink* Wow, your blog is going to be imprinted in my mind for days. XD It’s unapologetically attention grabbing (though my poor eyes got/are getting a shock after staring at a screen for hours). :P But yes, it’s definitely different to your previous layouts! Man, I’m so out of the loop… I’d never heard of “nofollow” before but still, it seems pretty superfluous with other more discriminating methods of comment spam also available, but at least Google has recognised the spam problem.
23 Jan at 3:29 pm
Superfly :3 The retro is pretty sweet, the avocado and rust with yellow, c’est magnifique! Sorry, I a retro whore <3 Hehehehe.
23 Jan at 10:37 pm
I don’t think the nofollow will help anything, but I think the “no nofollow” will probably become a trendy thing to join if enough people hear about it. My EYES! Jem, I do not need neon piss-yellow across my whole browser screen! *grabs some shades*
24 Jan at 1:27 am
If “no no follow,” actually manages to stop spam, itll be only for a short while…spammers will find away around it. I’m going to have to disagree with Sarah of 3t7.net, I like the neon “piss yellow.” Well maybe I’m biased, I’m a sucker for bright colors. The “retrofied,” seems out of place however. Maybe its the font style? I think the header would look a lot better with out it.
24 Jan at 4:10 am
The new layout is definitely a neat Sesame Street throwback..XD I’ll have to get used to it. As for no nofollow…”stop no follow! comment spammers have rights too! this will greatly harm our success as comment spammers!” O_o I use haloscan. It’s been all nice and downhill for me. ;)
24 Jan at 8:44 am
Gid – those are my thoughts exactly.
16 Oct at 3:37 pm
I think having nofollow on links for comments is going to put people off posting comments, the main reason they comment is to get backlinks for their site, they will no longer gain PageRank from them.