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All Wikipedia Links Are Now NOFOLLOW

searchenginejournal.com — No more Spam for wikipedia. To bad the good sites won't get value from being linked but this will surely make spammers less interested in this great encyclopedia.

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  • cumbrowski, on 10/12/2007, -37/+15Finally, after months of discussions. Now its time for the Search Engines to fix their broken system. I hope they will get the message.
    • daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -6/+79not clearly good news. while it stops some spamming, it also stops legitimate scoring.

      e.g. if your site is linked as a source on many wikipedia articles, it loses scoring, while it _deserves_ it.
    • mrfoos, on 10/12/2007, -20/+5I'm all for hating spammers... but really guys, you don't think you can stop them do you? Really?
    • tomee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+152Here's my idea: if a link survives in the page after 5 different users edited it, the nofollow should be removed from the link. And new and anonymous users don't count. Maybe that wouldn't work though. I only just thought of that idea.
    • drlog, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5While there are dumb people on the internet, you cant stop spam. Its that simple!

      However, this means that we can reduce spam on wikipedia which is a good thing!
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5I have suggested in a post on my blog that Wikipedia should introduce a "WikiDigg" system on the back end. I am not totally against nofollow, if you can't trust the links, or to control the flow of link equity on your own domain, but long established links should let some of the built up link equity flow back out to sites that deserve it.

      In the comments on my blog I have stated "Incest Breeds Mutants" - Wikipedia adding nofollow to all the links will mutate search results unless Google simply abandon respecting nofollow.

      If blogging software that is open source such as Wordpress can block the vast majority of spam, Wikipedia should be able to as well.
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10@daxsymbiont

      Google actually use links to determine the original source of a document. Wikipedia in many ways have a moral obligation to link through to any source documents with a followable link.
    • rolandog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@tomee:

      That isn't necessarily feasible: some spammers use 'cloaking' styles (hidden or white text),... and I don't know how many users edit the whole document instead of only a section...
    • MikeWeller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"Here's my idea: if a link survives in the page after 5 different users edited it, the nofollow should be removed from the link. And new and anonymous users don't count. Maybe that wouldn't work though. I only just thought of that idea."

      It's a good idea, but probably non-trivial to implement.
    • Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"not clearly good news. while it stops some spamming, it also stops legitimate scoring.
      e.g. if your site is linked as a source on many wikipedia articles, it loses scoring, while it _deserves_ it."

      True; however, if it's good, it'll likely be reputable outside of the domains of Wikipedia, so hopefully the very negatively affected truly "good" sites from this will be few, and it will then really be about time to find ways of gaining recognition in other means than an encyclopedia in that case.
    • transeunte, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Is Wikipedia spamming done by "robots"? If so, wouldn't this be an appropriate scenario for those annoying CAPTCHAS? (if they're not already there, that is)
    • etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3This is good. Next step - make all inbound links TO Wikipedia NOFOLLOW as well, so they don't show up for every single search I perform. The thing about Wikipedia is they demand all appropriate information be posted on Wiki, not linked to from Wiki. Wikipedia is decidedly (and likely necessarily) anti-social when it comes to SERPS.
    • Jamie314, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6What broken system? Google already ignores nofollow tags for all intents and purposes.

      "In early 2005 Google announced that hyperlinks with rel="nofollow" attribute[2] would not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index.[3]"
      Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow#rel.3D.22nofollow.22
    • Asianne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@daxsymbiont By legitimate scoring, I'm guessing you are speaking in terms of Google's Pagerank - If I recall correctly per Matt Cutts, "No Follow links will still be found and spidered, but no page rank will be assigned. "

      My main problem with all the spam issues that popular websites are experiencing, is that the main fault belongs to Google. In fact, Google has many quotes in the blogoshpere about how links on Wikipedia and Digg can assist your ranking. Unfortunately, those quotes have been pushed out into the Search Engine Marketing industry, and once one of the bigger companies get wind of that tip and push it out - many smaller guys tend to follow and spam the system until it gets to a point such as this.
    • morcheeba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4whoops.
    • Negyxo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ daxsymbiont

      Not all people cited as sources of credible information should be on wikipedia for various reasons. On one my sites i used some info from wikipedia for some info.. then a couple months went by and i noticed that i was getting traffic from wikipedia. Obviously i was confused, so i went on wiki and after a little research found that someone cited the info that i used from wikipedia to cite another similar article on wikipedia! I'm sure this has happened to other people.
    • 08x359, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Jamie314

      I think you don't understand. They are saying that if you are linked to with nofollow it won't affect your rankings - for better OR worse. Whereas if you are linked without nofollow it will generally help you out.
      Not that they ignore nofollow itself, but that they ignore links with nofollow on them.
  • pittfall, on 10/12/2007, -17/+10Great news for users, bad news for spammers.
    • phjr, on 10/12/2007, -9/+62Bad news for legitimate sites being linked to from Wikipedia.
    • geekchic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Sort of. I have a few (legit) inbound links from Wiki, and get quite a bit of traffic from them. However, when you calculate the outbound page rank benefit, it is actually quite tiny.

      Traffic will not be affected - and the SEO impact would be negligable for legit websites.

      Only spammers trying to get a short term hit to their sites will suffer.
    • bioskope, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27@phjr

      Since when were legit sites counting on wikipedia to get them hits? They dont pay wikipedia for advertising now, do they? So it was a free ride while it was present, nothing more nothing less
    • JRPereira, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3While it's hard to be 100% sure, from what I've seen, geekchic is right. Usually all you can get by exploiting the search engines is a small amount of time higher on the rankings before you drop back to the bottom.
    • ScottWoodard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I'd bet that this slows down spammers as much one beat cop with a whistle could slow down a 10 lane highway. Sure it might remove some of the incentive but how many blogs with rel=nofollow for comments are still attacked daily by comment spammers?
    • vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@"Bad news for legitimate sites being linked to from Wikipedia."

      What? Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia of knowledge for research and personal knowledge growth and not an aid to get your page a better page rank with Google. Just because you are linked on several pages on Wiki doesn't mean you deserve a better page rank with google.

      Wiki is a research tool and if someone needs to go to your site they can just do it from Wiki rather than Google. Otherwise you are just gaming Wiki like you would a Livejournal or Blogspot site.
    • bradleyland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You guys are missing the point. The point is not "advertising", the point is having access to effective searches. If a page is linked to in a Wikipedia, then it should receive credit for that link. The page is clearly linked to becaue it contains pertinent information on the subject, making it suitable for high ranking. That's the whole concept of PageRank to begin with.
    • JordanRL, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm not sure I like this. Wikipedia is an aggregate of data. The theory is that the summary of a subject is compiled from more complete sources, and those sources are provided so that you may see the more complete picture.

      But people link Wikipedia, if for nothing else, ease of use, which means that Wikipedia steals additional PageRank from any source to which they linked to, even before the NOFOLLOW attribute was added. This makes spam less effective, but it does so by stealing the prominence and legitimacy of many other sites.

      I do so hate spam however. I spend hours cleaning it up at work.
  • KineticFlow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow
    • trypnotic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Looks like someone hasn't updated that page yet... here's an excerpt:

      In particular, on the English Wikipedia, after a discussion, it was decided not to use rel="nofollow" in articles and to use a URL blacklist instead. In this way, Wikipedia contributes to the scores of the pages it links to, and expects editors to link to relevant pages. However, Wikipedia does use rel="nofollow" on pages that are not considered to be part of the actual encyclopedia, such as discussion pages, and Wikipedia projects in languages other than English also use it in articles.
    • freff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4update:

      Other sites, such as Wikipedia, use rel="nofollow" on all ordinary external links, but do provide a special shortcut syntax for creating "semi-local" links to a limited number of related or otherwise trusted sites. In the past, Wikipedia has also limited the use of rel="nofollow" to only certain parts of the site, although, as of January 2007, this is no longer the case.
    • JurneyAhed, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I still don't understand what NOFOLLOW is - anyone care to enlighten me?
    • Scarblac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Links of the form <a href="..." rel="nofollow">...</a> aren't followed by search engines and thus aren't useful for link spammers (but also not for legitimate functions).
    • evansls, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16"I still don't understand what NOFOLLOW is - anyone care to enlighten me?"

      Spammers like to link to their spam sites by leaving their links in comments on sites like digg.com, wikipedia.com, blog sites, etc. When they create a link to their website, the text that forms the actual link such as this example "Click to buy legal Pharmaceuticals and Viagra" is crawled and indexed by google. Google uses that linked text to help with page rank, which is key to a site getting listed at the top of search results when someone searches for "Pharmaceuticals" or "Viagra" for example. The more a spammer links their sites to places that can enter comments with my example above, the better spammer sites are listed at the top of search results. The NoFollow attribute is the so called key to stop the falsifying of page rank, by dynamically assigning the new attribute to the link when it is created. The user doesn't add it, the site adds it just like wikipedia is now doing. Unfortunately, this will hurt potential sites that are linking to their site for accuracy from proper page rank.
    • cumbrowski, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"I still don't understand what NOFOLLOW is - anyone care to enlighten me?"

      Yeah, here is the beginning of the whole NOFOLLOW debacle .. started by Google to fight Blog SPAM. It did not work out I might add. It then started to take new spins and created more problems and mistrust than the problem it was supposed to help solving.

      Original Post to NOFOLLOW at the Google Blog from 2005
      http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html
  • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Self contained question / answer:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=why%20wikipedia%20should%20use%20nofollow&hl=en
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2They asked the community, not the millions of people who occasionally link to them, or who have to struggle through Wikipedia stubs or redirects full of scientific jargon just to get a simple answer.

      An average Joe searching for the word bigamist isn't going to understand the page on polygamy that holds the first spot, almost devoid of easy explanation. define:bigamist gives a much better result.

      SERPs should employ K.I.S.S sometimes
  • DiggityDooPoo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13Yet again the Spammers have won by denying legitimate sites the rightful benefit from being linked by Wiki
    • quakenul, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6I would rather call it a compromise which also hurts the rightful but it's definitely not a win for spammers
    • dlbear, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3No win, spammers only win when they make sales; fewer eyes, fewer sales.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Oh grow up, most links on Wikipedia should be going to academic resources anyways (research papers, scientific journals, etc), and should not affect your page (which Wikipedia can't verify the quality of anyways, which is enough reason to remove the link). If your site is *so* dependent on Page Rank traffic generated by linking to Wikipedia, it's most likely your page is irrelevant. Else you'd have a higher PR from everyone linking to you saying "hey, this is a good resource" in their blogs and whatnot.

      The real question this article provides is, when will Digg adopt nofollow for user comments?

    • cumbrowski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"Yet again the Spammers have won by denying legitimate sites the rightful benefit from being linked by Wiki "

      More like the 2nd point in round 1 of the match. So the SE's better change strategy quickly and start to fight back and knock them K.O. within the next 14 rounds and stop whining about the lost 2 points.
  • daxsymbiont, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3that's not clearly a success. while it stops some spamming, it also stops purely legitimate scoring.

    e.g. if your site is linked as a source on many wikipedia articles, it loses scoring, while it _deserves_ it.
  • clokwise, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Now, when will all DIGG links be NOFOLLOW ???? That would surely cut down the spam here too wouldn't it ??
    • Koray, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2No. Digg comment spam is done for traffic, not for SEO.

      Edit: Eh, got there before me.
    • Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Perhaps They should be no-follow on any comment with a negative rating.
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2They don't need nofollow

      User-agent: * Disallow: /search Disallow: /submit Disallow: /login User-agent: Referrer Karma/2.0 Disallow: /
    • 8177, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5If you want to stop the comment spamming. Keep their bloody comments at -5, and don't reply.
  • cumbrowski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Users are still be able to use the links (and visit the site, enjoy it and recommend it. That is not lost and a very important fact. The ranking "dink" will hopefully only be a temporary one until the SE "fix it".
  • soufulow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Come on, lets face it, if there's no link juices passed and there's nothing we can get from digg, will we have this much of good stories on digg? we probably dont even have that much of writer online that willing to write online.

    Who work for free?
  • brindon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Finally the weird cabal of wiki editors who control their various fiefdoms will have their comeuppance.

    I can't wait to see who abandons their wiki editor post because their little scam is finally up. Why bother checking a page every 12 hours to "revert" the competition from existence when there is no benefit? The user WINS, not loses now that this game is over.

    And for those of you who don't think that is how wiki editors sometimes use their power, I have a series of bridges to sell you.
    • Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3" Why bother checking a page every 12 hours to "revert" the competition from existence when there is no benefit?"

      err, because some editors are passionate about keeping Wikipedia accurate and bias-free?

      Just a thought. And no, I'm not an editor.
    • Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Some editors (more than a few) are interested in keeping WP biased.
      Amazing how good some have become about sneaking around NPOV.
      The conniving capacity of the human brain must be the envy of the rest of the civilized universe.

      Add to that number the number determined to keep it -free of interest-, and the number determined to keep it -objective- (like hah, they know what that means) and you've got a majority.
  • icekin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I actually like the fact that Wikipedia has now taken a neutral position by simply being a source of information and not influencing the ranking of sites they link to for information.
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@icekin

      This will influence the sites they used to link to

      Those sites might have enjoyed a top3 ranking with Wikipedia in 3rd place, and might lose first place because Wikipedia is no longer linking to them - it is a serious issue outside of the Wikipedia editor community
    • Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"and might lose first place because Wikipedia is no longer linking to them"

      Yes, possibly lose places -- but ask yourself: "losing to whom"? So they'll lose places to other sites that have better recognition even outside Wikipedia and thus aren't affected? Wouldn't that possibly be a *good* thing? Or are you saying rank pumping through "External links" sections are automatically better than what the rest of the web thinks?
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That first first position lost to Wikipedia will mean a huge loss in revenue
    • gnosaj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@andybeard
      "That first first position lost to Wikipedia will mean a huge loss in revenue"

      So now I understand why everyone is all up in arms about this one. It's not a philosophical argument, it's not a concern about best practices on the Web, it's all about the money.

      "whine whine PageRank whine whine" translates to "we have staked our income to the semi-opaque machinations to Google, a private company, and are now that Wikipedia seem to be saying 'we really don't care about our PageRank' we are going to lose some serious cash." Well boo hoo you've put your lot in with Google--don't expect Wikipedia to play ball just for your dodgy business plan's sake.

      Because in the end, why would Wikipedia care if they were "nofollowed" from every link to it on the web? Surely what they should care about is creating a useful encyclopedia and not catering to search engines.

      Defending against "link juice" and the like within its content seems to be within this scope, but protecting their PageRank at Google, Inc. in my opinion doesn't. Wikipedia's own search capabilities can always be used when the task is "I'll look it up on Wikipedia".

      So if Wikipedia does become a PageRank "black hole," the rest of the web is free to "nofollow" it in response. Wiki's mission would rest intact, and people could find something else to gripe about.

      One thing to remember in all of this: Google isn't the Internet, and the Internet isn't Google. That's still true, isn't it?
    • gnosaj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@andybeard
      "That first first position lost to Wikipedia will mean a huge loss in revenue"

      So now I understand why everyone is all up in arms about this one. It's not a philosophical argument, it's not a concern about best practices on the Web, it's all about the money.

      "whine whine PageRank whine whine" translates to "we have staked our income to the semi-opaque machinations of Google, a private company, and are now that Wikipedia seem to be saying 'we really don't care about our PageRank' we are going to lose some serious cash." Well boo hoo you've cast your lot with Google--don't expect Wikipedia to play ball just for your dodgy business plan's sake.

      Because in the end, why would Wikipedia care if they were "nofollowed" from every link to it on the web? Surely what they should care about is creating a useful encyclopedia and not catering to search engines.

      Defending against "link juice" and the like within its content seems to be within this scope, but protecting their PageRank at Google, Inc. in my opinion doesn't. Wikipedia's own search capabilities can always be used when the task is "I'll look it up on Wikipedia".

      So if Wikipedia does become a PageRank "black hole," the rest of the web is free to "nofollow" it in response. Wiki's mission would rest intact, and people could find something else to gripe about.

      One thing to remember in all of this: Google isn't the Internet, and the Internet isn't Google. That's still true, isn't it?
    • gnosaj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@gnosaj (duplicate comment)

      (oops, please disregard the dupe. Digg/Ajax/user error)
    • AndyBeard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@gnosaj

      Your arguments would be valid if nofollow wasn't something contrived by the search engines as a way of differentiating between the validity of links, and if links were not used heavily as part of attribution, and determining the original source.

      Websites that create good original content have a right to make money from it if they wish in whatever way they determine. In some cases they are kind enough to use some kind of "free to use" license, as long as they receive propper credit.
      By using nofollow, the attribution chain is broken

      If Wikipedia really want to make a change, they should use nofollow on all internal links. That way each page will only be judged on its own merit.
  • reticulate, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Encyclopedia Dramatica is better anyway.
  • jtrost, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4This really helps no one. Spam is usually promptly removed from articles, so all this is doing is stopping search engines from creating better results.
  • JoeCotellese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5So why doesn't the Wikipedia follow it's own article suggestion? It could turn on nofollow for new links and turn them off after the link has been in the system for a few months.
  • AceTracer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Talk about a lose/lose situation. This won't stop spam, but it will harm legitimate sites that won't get ranked now as related links to their respective subjects.
  • diggfinity, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8On a side note, can submitters please try harder to remember simple grammar such as "TOO" vs. "TO" and "THEIR" vs. "THEY'RE" vs. "THERE".

    /grammar-Nazi
  • ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1To bad the good?
  • jstohler, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1This sucks for everyone who wasted long hours becoming a trusted moderator just so they could insert links to their favorite sites. I.E., me.
  • Frozenball, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3This doesn't help at all. 90% blogs *does* have nofollow, but still they get spam.
  • seanieb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I bet that Google will over look the no follow tags for Wikipedia, the links that it contains are too valuable to Google's formulation of page rank. Wikipedia is far better than DMOZ or some of the other human maintained directory's for linking to authority pages. I still think DMOZ (when its working) is a great project.

    But I also think that Google wouldn't make this fact public (that they still use the links from wikipedia).
  • Lionstone, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3I am sick of seeing Wikipedia ALWAYS up around the top results for ANY keywword and their page is lame and inaccurate.
    I would rather see Wikipedia just go away.

    Find some REAL facts: http://www.britannica.com/
    • RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That's funny... I usually google for a phrase and add "wikipedia" into my search terms so that the first link that comes up IS wikipedia.
  • 5xSTUN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think it's a mistake for a legitimate site operator to rely on Wikipedia for search engine ranking in the first place.

    At the same time, spammers are really fouling things up by forcing sites to use NOFOLLOW.

    Like the vikings in the Monty Python skit, the spam is burying legitimate information under a deafening chorus of pointless nonsense.

    We need Terry Jones to bang a spoon on the counter and yell, "Shut up! Shut up, bloody vikings!"
    • memoBug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2>Google would not modify their algorithm for specific site...

      I don't know why not: Google had no trouble modifying their algorithm for a specific COUNTRY!

      /donogoogle
  • trichnosis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0that means so many people will their strongest backlinks
  • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2too harsh. Some more subtle modification of the pagerank algorithm for Wikipedia and other Wiki projects would be better.
  • nils, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is actually bad news because the current search engine tech relies - at least in part - on using links to score a site/document. Legitimate ressources should have normal non-nofollow links. If everybody started to use nofollow, then that part of Google's technology will break down. I can see how, for example, popular blogs may wish to follow this example. Even on legit links - so they do not increase the google rank of what they might view as competition.
  • garyh84, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5So now Wikipedia steals information from websites without giving 'back' to them.

    Now what would happen if every website that links to Wikipedia put 'nofollow'?
  • cosmotic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It will be another year before spammers even notice their wiki spam isnt affecting the world.

    There should be a tag for "count this negitively against a site" so spammers actually hurt themselves. Obviously this would need to be thought out a little more, it would kill sites that are linked to.
  • 2tec, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Good intentions, bad results. A knee jerk reaction to a nonexistent problem. There's just nothing like throwing out the baby with bath water. Let's not attack spammers directly, lets just cripple one of the best web sites. Typical Small and fearful think from frightened minds. In my humble opinion, this is causing just as much and perhaps more damage than the problem it purports to resolve. Not only that, speaking of spam, thanks for linking to your own site. How wonderfully ethical and informative you are. I bet someone is feeling real proud of themselves, aren't they? Personally, I think it's a crying shame..
  • m3rcenary, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1About damn time. I'm sure Digg will have this soon as well.
  • Loudtyper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Someone made a good point on the searchenginewatch page.

    Just make links no follow (60 days/90 days etc) for a certain amount of time - if no one deletes them - then they are there for a purpose.



  • jmaynardg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The advertising on that blog makes my brain hurt.
  • ReyBrujo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A couple of replies

    "If so, wouldn't this be an appropriate scenario for those annoying CAPTCHAS?"
    A mathematical equation is shown whenever you try to insert a link to some smaller Wikipedias (latin, in example). Bots can solve math equations with little problem. Captchas have been discussed, but with over 30,000 edits per day, generating them would drain CPU resources and bandwidth like mad.

    This is a temporary measure. Our spam channel (found at Freenode, #wikipedia-spam-t) discovered there is a certain spam tournament, where the one who gets his domain to rank the highest would get a prize. This measure has been taken because it has been demonstrated that the smaller Wikipedias were being targetted, and with less contributors, they are in as much danger as the English Wikipedia. The announcement is at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/061137.html

    Of course, people will complain, but it is one of the multiple measures that are being studied in the WikiProject Spam. As stated by others before, this has been studied and rejected in the past, but the situation right now have forced us to do this in order to protect not only the English, but also the smaller Wikipedias.
  • ruds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0With a million nofollows, wouldn't Google someday hold wikipedia as less of an authority site? Someday perhaps when the wikiasari project gets going? Just a thought.
  • perrym, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1umm shouldnt spam links be removed off wiki pages by editors anyway?

    how about wiki sort out some of their ***** admins first:
    http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054956.html
  • Madbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some day in the not too distant future searching will be useless because everyones going to be using these nofollow links except the spammers... therefor all the legit links will be nofollow therefore not indexed... shame. I can understand the decision, but think it's a bad move. A better solution is needed, i don't know what though... prevention is better than cure or something along those lines ^_^
  • mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Backlinks aren't that important. I've had sites with PRs of 3 and 4 with few or no backlinks.
    • cumbrowski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1they are important, but not everything.. I am sure that Google etc. are now working on a way to filter out good links from bad links at wikipedia and disregard the nofollow attribute for those links and give the site that is being linked to credit. :)
  • scezda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To WP admins :
    Just stop polluting search engines with thousands of "stubs" doorway pages, ans maybe people will take you more seriously when you are talking about "SEO spammers".

    Pillaging other websites and not giving your source the full credit (with a real link) is an unethical practice.

    The fact is you are trying to manipulate your PageRank and therefore your rankings in Google. Blaming others for what you are doing yourselves is a poor excuse...
  • juzzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2
    This situation is absurd. Wikipedia has overstepped the mark.

    Before now:
    • 'link spammers' (or their spam links anyway) were dealt with by the moderators, contributors and vandalism bots, and
    • genuine links of value (which remained after moderation) duely provided link credit to the linked site, AND value to the wikipedia reader

    Yes, I have, from time to time, placed commercial links in Wikipedia articles, but ONLY if they genuinely provide value - so far, none of my links have been removed by the community concerned.

    Wikipedia .. get a grip!

  • rick63, on 11/23/2007, -0/+0http://www.skytabs.com
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