Remove nofollow on links at a certain age [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Remove nofollow on links deemed reputable

I propose that after a certain amount of time has passed since the last edit on a question or post, that all links within that post should no longer be flagged with rel="nofollow". Here is my reasoning:

1. The web is built on creating meaningful links. There are literally hundreds of thousands of really good answers on Stack Overflow pointing to lots of great information elsewhere on the web. By blocking crawlers from following these links, those pages (with useful info on them) are not getting the google juice they deserve, and the web as a whole suffers.

2. The community is very active at self-policing. It would be unthinkable that a question or answer which has spam links in it would survive for 5 minutes, let alone whatever the time limit would be on nofollow.

I can however see a downside - users would have extra motive to link to their own websites or blogs in answers. I could see that this might lead to a bit of resentment from other users who might question your reasons - you already feel slightly guilty doing the occasional self-plug...

Perhaps instead of a time limit, it might be a certain number of votes, or the reputation of the user, or whatever combination of these things isn't too complicated.

Update: this proposal was tested and the data so far is pointing to it resulting in a fairly severe drop in organic web traffic for Server Fault. Therefore, we are declining this proposal indefinitely as too risky.

Answer 1

URGENT UPDATE

We were seeing a significant drop in Google (organic) traffic for Server Fault after instituting this "follow links if enough upvotes post-edit or post-create" policy.

We traced it back to what we currently think are a string of posts on Server Fault that got nofollow removed through "trust", but were being interpreted by Google as link farms or spammy pages. Examples:

• How to remove IIS/ASP.NET Response Headers
• hardware recommendations for a DIY storage system based on ZFS
• How do you secure your mobile computers?
• HP Proliant DL380 G4 - Can this server still perform in 2011?
• How to troubleshoot Windows? Post your checklist

So, for the record, we're not 100% sure, but this is the only thing we've changed -- and the evidence is fairly damning so far, though not quite conclusive. I had many reservations about risk in doing this at all, so the idea of following any links is going away for the forseeable future until we rule out other possibilities.

Back to the old safe, sane, policy that I advocated from the first day this came up: no external links are followed.*

Sorry.

-- Jeff Atwood

_{* Except for the URL field on your user profile, which at 2k rep follows. This isn't new but I wanted to be clear it isn't going away.}

Stack Overflow is driven by incoming links—ranking SO results high in Google is crucial—and it is those incoming links that bring people to the site.

We really should take your comment about "not getting the Google juice they deserve" to heart. Stack Overflow is about making the Internet a better place and giving back.

rel="nofollow" serves a purpose but, perhaps, there is some criteria that can determine when a post surpasses the potential for wide-spread abuse and can be placed in the "giving back" column. Some combination of:

• Time
• Voting
• Reputation (i.e. trust)
• User History (i.e. tracking tendency for a user to link to the same domain)

I'm not pretending to know the criteria, or even if there is a criteria. But agree with the principle of your request, though.

Answer 2

In addition to Robert's excellent points, I want to point out that StackOverflow's reputation system was built with Google's Page Rank in mind - your value is based on what others say about you.

Taking out nofollow will result in additional spam, but I believe that SO's userbase and community moderators are vigilant enough (and numerous enough!) that such spam will be dealt with automatically and easily.

Not only will Stackoverflow be giving to those sites that provide quality programming information, but Stackoverflow itself will benefit to a small degree as quality outbound links do affect one's own pagerank. Pages with no outbound links are leaves on the graph and are actually less connected to the internet and may not be ranked as highly as those that are tightly integrated with both good incoming and good outgoing links.

The nofollow attribute, correctly applied, is a useful tool, but I believe it's not being used correctly here, and the only reason Stackoverflow is abusing it this way is to become a smaller target for spam. The cost is much greater than the benefit, though, so let's either get rid of it, or apply it selectively.

If getting rid of nofollow entirely is out of the question, perhaps rules similar to the following might be implemented:

• Any question or answer with a vote tally of 3 or more should certainly have it removed.
• Question edits which involve link changes should probably reset that and accrue 3 more upvotes prior to being nofollowed again (ie, no one can wiki edit 100 answers that have met the other criteria and get a sudden benefit)
• Users with X reputation have a lower bar (ie, only one or two upvotes required at 10k and 3k reputation to have answers followed)

Answer 3

Here's a recent opinion I came across in a blog post, and I'm tending to mostly agree with it. While the author's point is specifically about askubuntu.com, it's a Stack Exchange platform issue:

• "Ask Ubuntu is an Internet Black Hole"
  http://www.gregboggs.com/ask-ubuntu-is-an-internet-black-hole/

And, case in point: If anybody here upvotes this answer of mine, I (being the "thief" "borrower") will benefit from the reputation awarded (assuming I eventually reach 2000 reputation at meta.SO and earn a do-follow home page link in my profile), while the supporting link above that my argument is based on receives no benefit, under the current model.

So, is there a way we can work in this feature request? A single "do-follow" link to the user profile really is insufficient, considering most answers leverage and link to outside resources, many of which deserve the benefit of a full link.

Answer 4

Jeff, I'm afraid your answer doesn't hold water. Wikipedia's use of the nofollow link is based on greed and selfishness. Mass use of no follow on all external links is unethical and a complete failure to combat spam. Jimmy Wales uses Wikipedia as a spring board to promote his commercial wiki site called Wikia. And, Wales admits the nofollow attribute does little or nothing to combat spam on Wikipedia:

http://andybeard.eu/296/wordpress-founder-admits-nofollow-didnt-work.html

More discussion about why using nofollow makes you a bad Internet citizen:

http://whatjapanthinks.com/wikipedia-nofollow/

Further details on why Wikipedia is unethical and why no one should do follow link to Wikipedia:

http://andybeard.eu/294/wikipedia-nofollow-plugin-wikidigg.html

Stack Exchange has the tools and resources to do better. More importantly Stack Exchange is supposed to care about being a good Internet citizen. Greed is rule on the Internet, and Stack Exchange is free to look out for itself at the expense of others, but it's against the spirit of the Ubuntu code of conduct and no Ubuntu website sponsored by Canonical should operate as an Internet Black hole.

Answer 5

Wikipedia itself nofollows.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

As of 2006, external links on almost all Wikimedia wikis are tagged with rel="nofollow". The sole exception to this was the English Wikipedia, where, as of May 22, 2006, rel="nofollow" was used only on non-article pages (i.e. pages outside the main namespace). See this proposal for the decision to enable nofollow outside articles on the English Wikipedia. In January 20, 2007, [nofollow] was activated in the main namespace at the request of Jimbo Wales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Overflow

View source on the article to see

<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/" class="external free" rel="nofollow">
http://stackoverflow.com/
</a>

Our policy is the same as Wikipedia's. You get a followed link in the "website" field of your user profile at 2000 reputation. Beyond that, everything outside the network is nofollowed as a simple matter of standard policy. Exactly like, and for all the same reasons as, Wikipedia.

UPDATE

We tested this, and the data so far points to a fairly severe organic web search traffic drop on Server Fault as a result. Per my update to Robert's answer, we're abandoning this indefinitely for the sane, simple precedent that Wikipedia set: no followed external links, period.

Answer 6

The issue you bring up is very valid and I'm sad that it has been ignored by Stackoverflow so far. I wrote a long essay about the negative impacts of Stackoverflow abusing nofollow here.

What Stackoverflow is doing is nofollow abuse and they could easily avoid this abuse by using the question's age, number of up votes, and/or the reputation of users.

Answer 7

I think the comparison with wikipedia goes astray here. The big difference being: wikipedia doesn't require attribution with a non-nofollow link.

Let's do a thought experiment. There exists Another Stack Overflow, let's call it AS. Now AS is doing everything exactly the same as Stack Overflow. So in user contributions all links have the nofollow attribute, and if somebody else wants to use the content, they require that there is a link back without the nofollow attribute.

Now a certain user called Joel Atwood has place some perfect text about huskin puppies on AS. It is such a good text, that nobody can even come close to such a good explanation how to treat the puppy's furr, so that it is shining like the sun.

Now on Stack Overflow, there is asked a similar question. Jeff Spolsky sees the question and thinks immediately, Joel's answer from AS would be a great fit here, so he dumps a link. Now somebody starts to complain in the comments; "please, just copy the content from that question and attribute it, the license says that it is possible!". Jeff off course agrees, but... he can't. He has no way to put a link without nofollow to attribute the text of Joel.

See the dilemma?

Now the owners of Stack Overflow and Another Stack Overflow should think. Do they really want to block information sharing between these to sites? Do they want to prevent, that their content is reused on wikipedia (which is now legally impossible)?

Of course they have a point in using the nofollow attribute, but if they want that, wouldn't it be reasonable that they remove that requirement from the attribution rules?