The importance of ‘rel=”nofollow”‘

Why ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ is broken

Programmers are programmers, they like rules. Adopting a trend that is supposed to stop unwanted spammy links sounds great, so it is with greater frequency that I am seeing content management systems and bits of code floating around the net that automatically add ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ to links.

This is bad, why? Because it dilutes the importance of ‘rel=”nofollow”‘.

If a growing percentage of new opensource software released adopts this trend, then we end up in a situation where ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ is no longer useful to search engine spiders.

Nofollow is already dead

It is my belief that ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ is infact already dead, or, at least somewhat partially diminished. It’s importance is being diluted daily by new software and misuse of the tag.

As of right now, nofollow links may not be as highly regarded as “dofollow” links; however the disparity between them both is not as great as most people are lead to believe.

Do I target ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ links and ‘dofollow’ links in my search marketing campaign?

Of-course you should, I would think it is unwise not to. If we end up in a situation where ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ is disregarded entirely, then your “dofollow” links are no longer an advantage point.