Google rules out comment spam

Rumours and buzz by the cartload have been flying around between bloggers about the possibility of action against the curse of blog comment spam this week.

It has now been made public that a new tag has been proposed by Google and agreed to by Yahoo and MSN. The code will be built into blogging software to prevent the spam bots which auto add links to blog comments having any value as the links will not be followed and so not influence rankings.

Official Google Blog

"Preventing comment spam"

Matt Cutts runs through a few guidelines. A main feature is that this is to be built into blog software by a large number of blog service providers and will automatically be applied to links in comments. He also states that it will applied more widely than just blogs: "We think any piece of software that allows others to add links to an author's site (including guestbooks, visitor stats, or referrer lists) can use this attribute. We're working primarily with blog software makers for now because blogs are such a common target."

Cutts explains that "Any link that a user can create on your site automatically gets a new "nofollow" attribute. So if a blog spammer previously added a comment like

Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.

That comment would be transformed to

Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site."


Blog and press coverage about this story

CNET News.com cover the official Google announcment and comments from around the blogosphere.
"Google will introduce new technology controls to thwart people using blogs to manipulate rankings in its search results. Otherwise known as "link" or "comment spam," the ruse is as old as Web marketing. Such Web site promoters use the comment form on forums, blogs or any Web page to place or gain a link pointing back to their own Web site."

CNET quote Danny Sullivan "said that Google plans to give publishers a new control, or tag, that they can insert onto a Web page to indicate that comments or links are not their own or of lesser value to the search engine. Called a "no follow" tag, the control when placed before pages of blog comments will signal to Google as it indexes the Web that the pages are to be overlooked. That will render comment spam ineffectual."

Sullivan at SEW Blogcontinues: "the indexing tag will be the first innovation in almost 10 years for publishers. The last was a tag to avoid being indexed entirely by the search engines. "It's nice to see the search engines give Web authors a new tool to control how we're indexed"

Sullivan concludes: "I'd recommend using it as intended for now -- as a means to flag that there are certain links on your web site that you didn't place there."

He warns against using it to "hoard" PageRAnk or otherwise artificially manipulate within your own site and watch out for potential link partners who use it to avoid you beifiting in terms of PageRank. It may be useful if you need to link to a page that you have doubts about.

Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion: Report: Google to Put Kibosh on Blog Comment Spam
Provides links to the build up to the official announcements by MSN, Yahoo and Google stating "several bloggers have reported that Winer was testing a new Google linking mechanism that might put an end to blog comment spam by omitting all links from its PageRank calculations that have a rel='nofollow' attribute tag. This would change the economics behind why people comment spam popular blogs - to boost their Google search rank."

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger
Robert Scoble makes two pertinent points:"

1) It will encourage more people to link to their competitors
2) Anyone notice how Google got its competitors to do something without needing to get a standards committee involved? All within hours? Hmm, why doesn't everything in the industry work like this?


Yahoo! Search blog: A Defense Against Comment Spam

Working Together Against Blog Spam