Nofollow And Links

Just one thing this morning. I have some work to do.

I’ve been meaning to get around to something for a while. It has been announced that Google and a number of other major search sites are going to be supporting a new attribute on html link tags, and it looks like this: rel="nofollow".

I’m sure you all know, but let me explain something to you anyway. Search engine ranking is often determined largely by how many people are linking to you. So if you have a thousand links to you, and someone else has ten, you’re probably going to show up higher in the result set for searches. What this means is that if you link to something and critique it, you are actually increasing its search engine ranking. Adding this tag allows you to link to stuff you think is bad and not help them all at the same time.

Yes, I know some don’t like the idea. But I do. The simple reason why is that it gives me more control over the effect that I have on the web. Yes, I know, I don’t have much affect at all. But at least it gives me a little power!

Anyway, I heard about this through the Scobleizer. And he has some discussion there, as well as a link to a critique of the concept.