"I might be being a bit blond here, but why even the need to have "rel=nofollow" at all?
It is supposed to be there to stop automatic and commercial links polluting search engine rankings." ** Sorry I meant within the BBC related links section specifically. My bad for not making it clear. Exactly Brian, I think we are on the same page ... my point is why does the BBC need to make use of JavaScript, or NoFollow tags for links to "key" sites related to the story in hand? End-user generated content is a different matter ... Gavin Pearce | Web Developer | TBS The Columbia Centre, Market Street, Bracknell, RG12 1JG, United Kingdom Direct: +44 (0) 1344 403488 | Office: +44 (0) 1344 306011 | Fax: +44 (0) 1344 427138 MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Yahoo: pearce.gavin http://www.tbs.uk.com TBS is a trading name of Technology Services International Limited. Registered in England, company number 2079459. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 04 November 2008 10:12 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] "Greedy BBC Blocks External Links" 2008/11/4 Gavin Pearce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I might be being a bit blond here, but why even the need to have "rel=nofollow" at all? It is supposed to be there to stop automatic and commercial links polluting search engine rankings. I can understand on "user" generated content, but when it's a link to a relevant and respected website on the topic in hand, than that isn't a good or valid reason to use the "nofollow" syntax. In fact as stated already, that's a large part in how the big search engines work. Google isn't likely to start penalising the BBC site as it's no doubt on a "respected site" / "white list" somewhere else within the Google system... But that isn't, to be fair, the issue. The issue is that even if the BBC decides to link to an external site, if it uses either the methods described, a visiting user will get there, but a search engine will dismiss it. Incoming links are useful for SEO and to have them turned off from the BBC is a big problem. Last time I had a link from a major BBC page to my site, my usual traffic (and ad revenue) tripled for three days. But the link did not boost any search engine ratings. Gavin Pearce | Web Developer | TBS The Columbia Centre, Market Street, Bracknell, RG12 1JG, United Kingdom Direct: +44 (0) 1344 403488 | Office: +44 (0) 1344 306011 | Fax: +44 (0) 1344 427138 MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Yahoo: pearce.gavin http://www.tbs.uk.com TBS is a trading name of Technology Services International Limited. Registered in England, company number 2079459. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Martin Belam Sent: 04 November 2008 09:36 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] "Greedy BBC Blocks External Links" I don't think it is "evil", and as I've pointed out on their blog and on Sphinn, since Patrick at Blogstorm himself applies "nofollow" to all outbound links it is a little rich to be complaining that the BBC doesn't provide 'trusted' links. Interesting point about how Google can be expected to run a trusted link based algorithm in the future, but lets not forget it was the search engines that concocted "nofollow" themselves, and Google is these days notorious for penalising sites in the rankings that it 'believes' are displaying paid links that are not clearly marked as advertising. I've blogged a little about the Blogstorm post as well - http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2008/11/bbc_news_clumsy_linking.php cheers, martin - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ This message has been scanned for viruses by Viatel MailControl - http://viatel.mailcontrol.com/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 This message has been scanned for viruses by Viatel MailControl <http://viatel.mailcontrol.com/> , a service from Viatel <http://www.viatel.com/> .
