File Formats Blog

Google has proposed a new use for the rel attribute of the <a> tag. The rel attribute is an advisory one; the new nofollow value (which can be combined with other values in a space-separated list) will tell search engines not to give any weight to the link when determining the popularity of the linked site. Google recommends this for use in blog comments, as a way of discouraging "comment spam" aimed at inflating the popularity of a site. (Doing this will also reduce the value of links in legitimate comments, though.) It can also be used in other situations where third parties can add links. For example:
<a href="www.example.com/makemoneyfast" rel="nofollow">

Sites which allow commenters to add HTML will have to go in and change any <a> tags in the comment, automatically adding rel="nofollow" to these elements.

Best of all, Google's proposal doesn't even violate existing DTD's.

# posted by Gary McGath @ 10:34 AM