Wikipedia And Nofollow Links Options

[Jill]

Just yesterday Wikipedia deployed nofollows on all external links. Previously they were on the talk and user pages only. It makes me wonder what happens when most of the Web 2.0 goes to nofollow in an effort to stop linkspam. Obvously, Google previously chose to count external links from Wikipedia because it helped their search results. If Wikipedia puts on nofollows, will Google choose to ignore them? There's no law saying that search engines have to honor nofollow.

Contributing to Wikipedia won't increase your link popularity. It never did.

I'm guessing that Google will start ignoring nofollow (if they haven't already). They're already being used in a completely different manner than they were intended, and really don't tell the engines anything anymore.

Google likes to know about all links.

Reason for edit: I split and moved these two wikipedia/nofollow threads - jill

[Scottie]

Um... Google invented the nofollow attribute?

Well, I've thought it was a stupid thing from the beginning. It's so against Google's "visible on the page" criteria for spam. "nonfollow" in effect, hides links you don't trust from users. Don't they have the right to know you don't trust a site you are linking to?

[qwerty]

Yeah, it's the sort of thing that just shows the shortcomings of the algo's dependence on links. They can't figure out whether a given link represents a real recommendation, so they throw up their hands and tell us to label it for them, then threaten to penalize us if we don't. But if they're going to penalize us, they must be able to figure it out, so that means they don't need us to tell them, right? (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

[jehochman]

I think this whole nofollow thing is like the fake thermostats they hook up in big office cubicle farms. They aren't connected to anything, but it gives people the impression that they have some sort of control.

[bluenote]

I have just recently noticed that all external links on Wiki pages (the 5 that I've checked) use the rel=nofollow attribute. It seems to be global for Wiki now and I think it's fairly recent. I could be wrong, but I didn't think it was like this a week ago. Anyone else?

I haven't used Wiki for linking to the sites I am responsible for, but I'm not sure I'm on board with a sweeping 'nofollow' for Wiki. If there's a site that actually is a good quality resource and agreed upon by many others for significant period of time (not just link spam), then I think it deserves to get 'credit' for such a link.

A compromise could be that the 'nofollow' attribute expires after a period of time (a week/month).

This post has been edited by bluenote: Jan 23 2007, 11:45 AM

[jehochman]

Wikipedia added the nofollow attribute on January 21, I believe. This won't deter spamming, unfortunately, because Wikipedia links send a significant amount of real traffic that converts. Furthermore, Google is under no obligation to honor nofollow. If Google could improve its search results by using Wikipedia links, why wouldn't they? Wikipedia is big enough to warrant special case processing.

[bluenote]

Wikipedia added the nofollow attribute on January 21, I believe. This won't deter spamming, unfortunately, because Wikipedia links send a significant amount of real traffic that converts.

Actually, while it would still be a good link, the link would be significantly devalued with 'nofollow'. Therefore, it would deter spamming to some degree. It is the degree that it would deter spamming that is in question, not whether it would.

Furthermore, Google is under no obligation to honor nofollow. If Google could improve its search results by using Wikipedia links, why wouldn't they?

Because there's no reason to. As I understand it, the purpose of 'nofollow' is to give site owners the ability to make a "do not count this link" for the search engine, rather than leaving it up to the search engine to decide. How strange would it be for Google to ignore a site's explicit message (via the nofollow attribute) that it doesn't want its external links counted as 'votes'. It's up to Wiki to implement it or not.

Wikipedia is big enough to warrant special case processing.

My understanding is that Google is the one that introduced this attribute (actually, a value of an attribute) so I'd be surprised if they made an exception for Wiki anytime soon.

Regardless, I predict Wiki will continue to use nofollow and Google will continue to honor it, but Wiki will eventually implement it in a better way that allows quality and venerable external resources to get a deserving 'vote'. There are several ways of doing this.

This post has been edited by bluenote: Jan 23 2007, 02:58 PM

[jehochman]

My understanding is that Google is the one that introduced this attribute (actually, a value of an attribute) so I'd be surprised if they made an exception for Wiki anytime soon.

Officers of Google have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize value. If Wiki was helping Google sort out the Internet, Google isn't likely to give up that advantage. Consider also that Jimbo Wales implemented this change through his absolute powers, not by consensus, and that this is the same Jimbo who is currently working on a new search engine that would directly compete with Google. I am not usually paranoid, but my spider sense is tingling.

[bluenote]

Officers of Google have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize value. If Wiki was helping Google sort out the Internet, Google isn't likely to give up that advantage. Consider also that Jimbo Wales implemented this change through his absolute powers, not by consensus, and that this is the same Jimbo who is currently working on a new search engine that would directly compete with Google. I am not usually paranoid, but my spider sense is tingling.

Interesting further info (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) However, I still think Wiki will change on this before Google will.

[Big Bill]

Contributing to Wikipedia won't increase your link popularity. It never did.

Quite by coincidence, I re-wrote the wiki page on search engine submission earlier today. Oddly, it seems to have reverted back to the old version already. Is there some trick to doing this?

BB

[Scottie]

As I understand it, the purpose of 'nofollow' is to give site owners the ability to make a "do not count this link" for the search engine, rather than leaving it up to the search engine to decide. How strange would it be for Google to ignore a site's explicit message (via the nofollow attribute) that it doesn't want its external links counted as 'votes'. It's up to Wiki to implement it or not.
My understanding is that Google is the one that introduced this attribute (actually, a value of an attribute) so I'd be surprised if they made an exception for Wiki anytime soon.

The stance from Google (who created this attribute) is that putting a "nofollow" on a link means that you don't trust that link. They have declined to commit to what that means they will do with a nofollow link.

I know this because I was at the NYC SES right after nofollow was introduced and asked Matt Cutts during a "Indexing Summit" session specifically to explain how they would treat a nofollow link.

He hemmed and hawed and said it was a good question, then turned to the other engines to ask what they were going to do with it. Neither of the other reps had an answer to that question.

Matt then said ""Nofollow is a vote of 'no confidence'. It says you do not want your link to count as a vote for that site. At this moment, we are not following 'nofollow' links. But we reserve the right to change how we treat nofollow links in the future."

Here's the minimal recap from SERoundtable

Q: How do the crawlers actually treat the nofollow tag?
A: Matt said its a good question. He said, this is a vote abstain. Google specifically does not allow its crawlers to follow those links AT THIS TIME. Tim adds that when the agreement was made, the engines did not decide on the behavior of the engines. Tim didn't answer the question, I think he didn't know.

All nofollow does is say "I don't trust this link." It is not a command for the engines not to follow it, although you would think that.

It's likely they don't have to make an exception for Wikipedia at all because they've never agreed not to crawl a link tagged with 'nofollow', simply to understand that you don't trust it.

[jehochman]

So it's a suspicion flag, sort of like accusing somebody, but that's not equivalent to conviction. Google may look at other factors when deciding how to treat the link. If the link looks spammy, they may disregard it. If the link looks solid, they might count it. Is that what you think?

[jehochman]

Big Bill, when contributing to Wikipedia, your chances of making an edit stick can be greatly improved by citing reliable sources. Wikipedia isn't a community blog; it's not a place to publish original research. You need to find ideas that have been cited elsewhere in independent publications with editorial oversight, and then cite those sources.

[bluenote]

Great comments--especially the quote from Matt. I realize no one has to do anything (that's not in dispute). I'm more focused on how it is now and what they actually will do (or likely to do). If Google chooses to ignore Wiki's 'nofollow', they are essentially saying "I trust this link on this site even though the site owners themselves are explicitly saying that they don't trust it. We know better than the site owner. We don't trust Wiki's judgment but we highly value Wiki pages." I guess it's just me, but that just seems incongruent to me and I think it could have negative consequences on Google's credibility in the context of Wiki.

This post has been edited by bluenote: Jan 23 2007, 05:00 PM

[Big Bill]

Big Bill, when contributing to Wikipedia, your chances of making an edit stick can be greatly improved by citing reliable sources. Wikipedia isn't a community blog; it's not a place to publish original research. You need to find ideas that have been cited elsewhere in independent publications with editorial oversight, and then cite those sources.

How many citations are in what's up there on the page now? It's misleading and irrelevant and some netcop has reverted to it from my contribution apparently without doing a shred of research. The material I created is far more accurate. Bad enough we have to educate the public, we have to educate those who hold the keys to that education too.

It wouldn't hurt if some SEOs made their collective presence felt over there.

BB