View source for rel-nofollow

<entry-title>rel="nofollow"</entry-title>
__TOC__
== Specification 2005-01-10 ==

=== Editors ===
* [http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik] ([http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc.])
* [http://epeus.blogspot.com/ Kevin Marks] ([http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc.])

=== Concept ===
* [http://www.google.com/googleblog/ Matt Cutts] ([http://google.com Google, Inc])
* [http://www.shellen.com/ Jason Shellen] ([http://www.blogger.com Blogger]/[http://www.google.com Google])

=== Copyright ===
{{MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2005}}
* [[User:Tantek|Tantek]]: I release all my contributions to this specification into the public domain and I encourage the other authors to do so as well.
* [[User:Kevin Marks|Kevin Marks]]: I release all my contributions to this specification into the public domain and I encourage the other authors to do so as well.
** When all authors/editors have done so, we can remove the MicroFormatCopyrightStatement template reference and replace it with the MicroFormatPublicDomainContributionStatement.

=== Patents ===
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}

== Abstract ==
<p class="entry-summary">RelNoFollow is an [[elemental-microformat|elemental microformat]], one of several [[microformats|microformat]] open standards. By adding <code>rel="nofollow"</code> to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink {{should not}} be afforded any additional weight or ranking by user agents which perform link analysis upon web pages (e.g. search engines). Typical use cases include links created by 3rd party commenters on blogs, or links the author wishes to point to, but avoid endorsing.  For more specific endorsement (or lack thereof) semantics, see [[vote-links|VoteLinks]].</p>

== XMDP profile ==
The following is an [http://gmpg.org/xmdp/ XMDP] profile for the [[rel-nofollow]] specification.

=== URLs ===
This profile is hosted as a separate XMDP file on microformats.org:
* http://microformats.org/profile/rel-nofollow
* shortURL: http://ufs.cc/x/rel-nofollow

=== Usage ===
Profiles are referenced in (X)HTML files in the &lt;HEAD&gt; tag, e.g.:
<source lang=html4strict>
<head profile='http://microformats.org/profile/rel-nofollow'>
</source>

=== Profile ===
<source lang=html4strict>
<dl class="profile">
 <dt id="rel">rel</dt>
 <dd><p>
   <a rel="help" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#adef-rel">
     HTML4 definition of the 'rel' attribute.</a>  
   Here is an additional value as defined in the
   <a rel="help start" href="http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow">
   rel-nofollow specification</a> 
   .</p>
  <dl>
   <dt id="nofollow">nofollow</dt>
   <dd>Indicates that the referred resource was not necessarily linked to 
       by the author of the page, and thus said reference should not afford 
       the referred resource any additional weight or ranking by user agents.
   </dd>
  </dl>
 </dd>
</dl>
</source>

== examples in the wild ==
This section is informative.
Note: There are numerous uses of rel-nofollow in the wild, this is very much an incomplete list. If your site marked up with rel-nofollow, feel free to add it to the top of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page ([[rel-nofollow-examples-in-wild]]).
* [http://www.netd.it/sviluppo/ Netdesign Developers Network] uses the rel-nofollow attribute to make search engines don't follow the "off-topic" links.
* [http://funadvice.com FunAdvice] supports using the rel-nofollow tag to prevent users posting content simply for the search engine benefit, to improve the quality of the advice giving community.
* [http://petfoodtalk.com/dogfoodcoupons/ Dog Food Coupons] provides a dog food coupon collection service for dog owners.  rel-nofollow is used to instruct search engine agents to '''not''' further execute link analysis and avoid endorsement of the actual merchant coupon links.
* [http://petmoz.com/dogfoodcoupons Pet Food Coupons] While listing coupons in our Dog Food Coupons section why use the rel-nofollow tag to make sure that search engines specifically Google do not follow any links we believe have no value to the visitor.

== bad examples in the wild ==
This section is informative.
There are now numerous abuses of rel-nofollow, in particular, where it is used on *2nd party* links, rather than the original intention of *3rd party* links such as in blog comments. The primary abusers of rel-nofollow are content hosting / social network sites.
* [http://flickr.com/ Flickr] puts "nofollow" on comments by the content publisher themselves (should only be on 3rd party comments), e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tantek/2344425887/ as well as on profile links e.g. website: http://www.flickr.com/people/microformats/
* [http://twitter.com/ Twitter] puts "nofollow" on account holders' profile links,  in the "description" and "web site" fields, e.g. http://twitter.com/indiewebcamp (links in posts do not have "nofollow" yet are wrapped with "t.co" URLs).
* ... nearly every other content hosting / publishing site - please add more specific examples with direct URLs to pages abusing "nofollow".

=== exceptions ===
It may seem odd to explicitly list *non* examples in an examples in the wild section, but such non-examples may be useful to help convince the bad examples in the wild to change their behavior:
* [http://blogspot.com/ Blogspot] does NOT put "nofollow" on content publisher links, e.g. http://epeus.blogspot.com/2012/03/when-youre-merchandise-not-customer.html
* [http://tumblr.com/ Tumblr] does NOT put "nofollow" on content publisher links, e.g. http://adactio.tumblr.com/post/27135731578/the-web-unusually-came-with-a-view-source
* ... (let's hope we find more such non-examples)

== normative references ==
* [http://gmpg.org/xmdp/ XMDP]
* http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html

== informative references ==
* VoteLinks can be used by an author to explicitly state their support for or against, or neutrality toward the destination of a link.  Implementers implementing rel="nofollow" and VoteLinks should similarly not afford any additional weight or ranking to links with either <code>rev="vote-abstain"</code> or <code>rev="vote-against"</code>.
* Contributed from http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/RelNoFollow

== open issues ==
These are open issues that have been raised about rel="nofollow" that have been raised in various forums, in particular, on the public [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html W3C www-html mailing list].  Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page ([[rel-nofollow-issues]]). The issues have been grouped into four areas.

* '''Definition'''. nofollow indicates a behavior rather than a relationship from which the behavior should be inferred as appropriate for the useragent. rel values should be nouns that indicates what the resource being referenced is in relation to the source.
* '''Name'''. nofollow is a bad name.
** overloading. does not mean the same as robots exclusion standards (robots.txt, meta robots) nofollow.
** does not mean what it says. does not mean "do not follow this link", rather it means " do not add weight from this link". [http://www.w3.org/mid/opsk3cccj9lo81gp@quark Asbjørn Ulsberg]
** not a noun. see above.
** suggested alternatives:
*** noendorse - [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Jan/0046.html Micah Dubinko]
*** none
*** noweight
*** unendorsed - [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Jan/0057.html Lachlan Hunt]
*** unrelated - [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Jan/0049.html Jens Meiert]
*** untrusted
*** nonauth - [http://www.mnot.net/blog/2003/12/29/comment_spam_and_google Mark Baker]
*** norank - [http://www.digitalburg.com/ Ben Pierce]
*** notally - [http://www.eenmanierom.nl/google-penalty/ Patrick Mackaaij]
* '''Efficacy'''.  nofollow will not affect spamming behavior.
* '''Collateral Damage'''. If tools automatically add nofollow to all 3rd party links, then many legitimate non-spam links will be ignored or given reduced weight, and thus the destination of such links will be unfortunate casualties.

=== additional lists of issues ===
Additional lists of issues raised against rel="nofollow" can be found at the following site(s):
* http://www.nonofollow.net/
Matt Cutts Says No to Nofollow On Internal Links:
* http://www.techzene.com/seo/rel-nofollow-seo-disadvantages/

[[Category:Specifications]]
[[Category:rel-nofollow]]

== articles ==
When this section gets too big, we can move it to [[rel-nofollow-articles]].
* [http://searchenginewatch.com/3633972 2009-06-03 Search Engine Watch: Google Changes Course on Nofollow]
* [http://reference.sitepoint.com/html/rel-mf#rel__nofollow SitePoint reference: rel- Microformats / nofollow] by Ian Lloyd