DISQUS

robojiannis · 1 year ago

Youre right, I didn't think of it like that. Anyway, I think in order to get these options widely spread, they must also concentrate on user-friendliness. The wider public doesn't have a technological affinity with code.
Anyway all this openness of data can evolve to an important privacy hazard for someone who doesn't know how to protect himself.

robojiannis · 1 year ago

Youre right, I didn't think of it like that. Anyway, I think in order to get these options widely spread, they must also concentrate on user-friendliness. The wider public doesn't have a technological affinity with code.
Anyway all this openness of data can evolve to an important privacy hazard for someone who doesn't know how to protect himself.

Michael Martinez · 1 year ago

Nofollow has been an absolute disaster since day one. It has completely and totally failed to deliver on any of its promises but Google continues to goose-step down the road of imposing self-emasculation across the Web.

People need to stop adopting every nofollow tactic and trick that is proposed. Instead, Web application developers, service providers, and SEOs need to stand up to Google's bullying and say, "We're sick and tired of your screwing up the Web with Nofollow and we're not going to take it any more!"

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Michael you are the anti-nofollow advocate who still uses nofollow on comments even though he requires people leaving comments to register.

Then in the comments of your recent post about Rand Fiskin's nofollow results you state this

There are some legitimate reasons to use rel=nofollow within internal content in a Web that has been mutilated by link spam. All personal profile pages should probably be nofollowed just to discourage people from signing up for profiles (not that a relatively orphaned profile page on the average social media or forum site will pass value anyway, but the perception of possible value stimulates the bogus link economy).

If you are active on social media sites, those pages can build up a considerable amount of link equity and provide a valuable hub, and with this new initiative from Google could prove to be valuable.

I would love to know how you determine your site is better indexed than most other SEO blogs, considering before Christmas Google decided to totally break /* reporting which was previously just inaccurate.

Sure you could do extensive analysis on crawl frequency of every page on my site, but that might become a little excessive, and also is affected by temporal changes.

It can certainly be improved but even what I would look on as fairly unimportant pages such as infrequently used tag pages still seem to be indexed fairly frequently.

Michael Martinez · 1 year ago

Nofollow has been an absolute disaster since day one. It has completely and totally failed to deliver on any of its promises but Google continues to goose-step down the road of imposing self-emasculation across the Web.

People need to stop adopting every nofollow tactic and trick that is proposed. Instead, Web application developers, service providers, and SEOs need to stand up to Google's bullying and say, "We're sick and tired of your screwing up the Web with Nofollow and we're not going to take it any more!"

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Michael you are the anti-nofollow advocate who still uses nofollow on comments even though he requires people leaving comments to register.

Then in the comments of your recent post about Rand Fiskin's nofollow results you state this

There are some legitimate reasons to use rel=nofollow within internal content in a Web that has been mutilated by link spam. All personal profile pages should probably be nofollowed just to discourage people from signing up for profiles (not that a relatively orphaned profile page on the average social media or forum site will pass value anyway, but the perception of possible value stimulates the bogus link economy).

If you are active on social media sites, those pages can build up a considerable amount of link equity and provide a valuable hub, and with this new initiative from Google could prove to be valuable.

I would love to know how you determine your site is better indexed than most other SEO blogs, considering before Christmas Google decided to totally break /* reporting which was previously just inaccurate.

Sure you could do extensive analysis on crawl frequency of every page on my site, but that might become a little excessive, and also is affected by temporal changes.

It can certainly be improved but even what I would look on as fairly unimportant pages such as infrequently used tag pages still seem to be indexed fairly frequently.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Andy my question is related to the topic, but not necessarily to Google Social graph.

As you know I have been long time supporter of removing "nofollow" from blogs comments. However lately I was thinking if what had taken place in "no nofollow" movement was all worthless? Don't take me wrong, I have learned a lot from bloggers like yourself. I have discovered some outstanding blogs in dofollow movement. I am just asking this in terms of the no nofollow movement's future? Is there any?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

If you read my comments policy, you could look on the links I allow as those that could be used as rel="me" links

Sometime in the future I might tweak the theme and add that, because that is what I regard as the purpose of the links.

This actually makes the dofollow movement more valid than less, because blogs and discussions on blogs are part of the social graph, a part that without dofollow gets destroyed.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Thanks Andy. I think it explains it. I never included rel="me" into the equation. I guess I have some work to do as well with my theme. Why do you write a rel="me" plugin? If you have time that is.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Andy my question is related to the topic, but not necessarily to Google Social graph.

As you know I have been long time supporter of removing "nofollow" from blogs comments. However lately I was thinking if what had taken place in "no nofollow" movement was all worthless? Don't take me wrong, I have learned a lot from bloggers like yourself. I have discovered some outstanding blogs in dofollow movement. I am just asking this in terms of the no nofollow movement's future? Is there any?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

If you read my comments policy, you could look on the links I allow as those that could be used as rel="me" links

Sometime in the future I might tweak the theme and add that, because that is what I regard as the purpose of the links.

This actually makes the dofollow movement more valid than less, because blogs and discussions on blogs are part of the social graph, a part that without dofollow gets destroyed.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Thanks Andy. I think it explains it. I never included rel="me" into the equation. I guess I have some work to do as well with my theme. Why do you write a rel="me" plugin? If you have time that is.

David Eaves · 1 year ago

Do you know how Google treats rel=me Andy? Do they pass anchor text? Or are they like nofollowed links?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Rel="me" is purely informational

rel="nofollow" is the only attribute that currently has negative connotations which is why the W3C purists are so negative about how it was introduces, though apparently it is included in new draft specs.

David Eaves · 1 year ago

Do you know how Google treats rel=me Andy? Do they pass anchor text? Or are they like nofollowed links?

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Rel="me" is purely informational

rel="nofollow" is the only attribute that currently has negative connotations which is why the W3C purists are so negative about how it was introduces, though apparently it is included in new draft specs.

Bob King · 1 year ago

That's right. The NoFollow tag is more like a plot to sustain Google's aging PageRank algorithm. It's sad to see that the web is being shaped that way, i.e. by the needs of a single company.

Bob
http://WealthyNetizen.com/

Bob King · 1 year ago

That's right. The NoFollow tag is more like a plot to sustain Google's aging PageRank algorithm. It's sad to see that the web is being shaped that way, i.e. by the needs of a single company.

Bob
http://WealthyNetizen.com/

Mark Barrera · 1 year ago

Another great write up Andy! It is unfortunate that Google has limited its own abilities to find the data that they are now championing.

Yet another example why the nofollow attribute has had large unintended and unnecessary effects on the relationships of linking on the web.

Mark Barrera · 1 year ago

Another great write up Andy! It is unfortunate that Google has limited its own abilities to find the data that they are now championing.

Yet another example why the nofollow attribute has had large unintended and unnecessary effects on the relationships of linking on the web.

News reporter · 1 year ago

Everyone is talking about it because it's Google. Now any dummy can follow you.

News reporter · 1 year ago

Everyone is talking about it because it's Google. Now any dummy can follow you.

refinance · 1 year ago

Google has obviously really tried to put a wrench into the blogging communtity but I do think it is important to have some recourse for fighting spam. no follow is ok but you want to fight spam most of all. I dont mind giving someone some link juice as long as they are doing it right.

refinance · 1 year ago

Google has obviously really tried to put a wrench into the blogging communtity but I do think it is important to have some recourse for fighting spam. no follow is ok but you want to fight spam most of all. I dont mind giving someone some link juice as long as they are doing it right.

m07 · 1 year ago

great article.thanx

m07 · 1 year ago

great article.thanx

Weight Loss Wand · 1 year ago

Every one can follow you as it is related to google. Thanks for the post.

Weight Loss Wand · 1 year ago

Every one can follow you as it is related to google. Thanks for the post.

Steven King · 1 year ago

I think "nofollow" really sucks and soon Google will come up with another tool similar to the "nofollow" to further prove its status.

Steven King · 1 year ago

I think "nofollow" really sucks and soon Google will come up with another tool similar to the "nofollow" to further prove its status.

Andy Piper · 1 year ago

I actually find that sticking my Technorati profile in there makes a complete mess of the results for how my sites are connected, since I write for some group blogs so I end up seeing data for other people who share those blogs. It actually works OK for my own connectedness - in fact, as you say, it is quite effective based off of the Technorati profile, but that's likely because I have things like Twitter in there as well. So I guess the net is that it's an interesting experiment, but not very useful. I also can't easily instrument links as being "me" on WP.com, unless I go and hack at my pages I suppose. Oh well.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Andy it is very interesting that it is working for you, maybe there is a hole in my testing that I overlooked.

I hadn't linked to my profile on Technorati recently, and due to nofollow even though my blog is quite prominent on Technorati as a top100 favorited blog, it wouldn't be indexed naturally.

Since this article was written, and I linked to my profile within the article without nofollow, Google has now cached my profile page, and the results are a lot more noisy

Andy Piper · 1 year ago

I actually find that sticking my Technorati profile in there makes a complete mess of the results for how my sites are connected, since I write for some group blogs so I end up seeing data for other people who share those blogs. It actually works OK for my own connectedness - in fact, as you say, it is quite effective based off of the Technorati profile, but that's likely because I have things like Twitter in there as well. So I guess the net is that it's an interesting experiment, but not very useful. I also can't easily instrument links as being "me" on WP.com, unless I go and hack at my pages I suppose. Oh well.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Andy it is very interesting that it is working for you, maybe there is a hole in my testing that I overlooked.

I hadn't linked to my profile on Technorati recently, and due to nofollow even though my blog is quite prominent on Technorati as a top100 favorited blog, it wouldn't be indexed naturally.

Since this article was written, and I linked to my profile within the article without nofollow, Google has now cached my profile page, and the results are a lot more noisy

George · 1 year ago

That is so funny! Google should have realized how a bad an idea it was for them to try to get webmasters to fix a fundamental flaw in their algorithm.

They should really do away with the nofollow tag, it is SO being misused these days that it's not even funny. Oh well...

George · 1 year ago

That is so funny! Google should have realized how a bad an idea it was for them to try to get webmasters to fix a fundamental flaw in their algorithm.

They should really do away with the nofollow tag, it is SO being misused these days that it's not even funny. Oh well...

christophe · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

Great posts and interesting comments !
Just one idea I would like to submit to you.
What do you think if you have a coComment API that returns to you a list of "social" links that you can insert in your page ?
The links can contain your claimed blogs in cocomment, blogs where you are commenting or tracking conversations, blogs of your favorites, friends and neighbors in coComment....
Then, if Google do its job correctly, it should build a more complete social graph of your activity from those links.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Honestly I think the biggest help for Google would be for all the social sites to remove nofollow from profile links, and the same to happen with blog comments on blogs that have active moderation.

I haven't been using cocomment for a while due to browser problems and a few complaints regarding compatibility, I do need to take another look.

APIs for this stuff is useful, but only if people create tools that make a real difference.

christophe · 1 year ago

Hi Andy,

Great posts and interesting comments !
Just one idea I would like to submit to you.
What do you think if you have a coComment API that returns to you a list of "social" links that you can insert in your page ?
The links can contain your claimed blogs in cocomment, blogs where you are commenting or tracking conversations, blogs of your favorites, friends and neighbors in coComment....
Then, if Google do its job correctly, it should build a more complete social graph of your activity from those links.

AndyBeard · 1 year ago

Honestly I think the biggest help for Google would be for all the social sites to remove nofollow from profile links, and the same to happen with blog comments on blogs that have active moderation.

I haven't been using cocomment for a while due to browser problems and a few complaints regarding compatibility, I do need to take another look.

APIs for this stuff is useful, but only if people create tools that make a real difference.

christophe · 1 year ago

Yes, true. But also this assume that Google is following the links properly to build the network.
If you are using coComment browser extension, we can track all blogs you are commenting on or just reading and then include those blogs in your social network. This is an information that Google might have some troubles to build ;-)
What I mean by API, could also be a line of JS code that insert all the links in your blog page (or at least the most recent ones).

christophe · 1 year ago

Yes, true. But also this assume that Google is following the links properly to build the network.
If you are using coComment browser extension, we can track all blogs you are commenting on or just reading and then include those blogs in your social network. This is an information that Google might have some troubles to build ;-)
What I mean by API, could also be a line of JS code that insert all the links in your blog page (or at least the most recent ones).

Beautiful minds · 1 year ago

Andy,
Heard that the new w3c standard will have "nofollow" as a standard element.? Is it so? or is it already in practice?

(Is everyone gonna be an idiot?)

Beautiful minds · 1 year ago

Andy,
Heard that the new w3c standard will have "nofollow" as a standard element.? Is it so? or is it already in practice?

(Is everyone gonna be an idiot?)

Miguel Salcido · 1 year ago

Great post Andy! This is probably THE most intelligent and personally relevant post regarding the Google Social Graph API that has come out thus far. The idea that the nofollow tag is the ultimate impediment to the Google Social Graph API was masterful!

Thanks again for the insights!

Miguel Salcido · 1 year ago

Great post Andy! This is probably THE most intelligent and personally relevant post regarding the Google Social Graph API that has come out thus far. The idea that the nofollow tag is the ultimate impediment to the Google Social Graph API was masterful!

Thanks again for the insights!

T. Martin · 1 year ago

The most important thing is that blogs like yours encourage participation because you don't use nofollow. Google's nofollow element will just make them irrelevant if no one uses the tag!

T. Martin · 1 year ago

The most important thing is that blogs like yours encourage participation because you don't use nofollow. Google's nofollow element will just make them irrelevant if no one uses the tag!

Ingo · 1 year ago

Great reading, this introduced me to the whole XFN-Thing and the implications. Didn't know yet that there's such a huge impact from the nofollow... I just switched my blog to do-follow because of that.

Ingo · 1 year ago

Great reading, this introduced me to the whole XFN-Thing and the implications. Didn't know yet that there's such a huge impact from the nofollow... I just switched my blog to do-follow because of that.