Google, Submission AdSense and NoFollow Letdown

John Battelle is reporting on his blog that word has leaked about a possible new API from Google that would allow sites to distribute AdSense earnings to individual members based on submissions or participation. From the article: "To toss a bit of cold water here, however, I've never seen UGC sites as the least bit driven by money. They are driven by pride, the desire to be first, reputation, whuffie. But dollars? That often screws it all up. I guess we'll get to see soon enough..." Relatedly many users are calling the 'nofollow' tag "Google's embarrassing mistake". Justin Mason is just one of many to take a look at the current status of nofollow and what may still be in store for that particular tool.

Comments

Re:Nofollow - useful idea, applied incorrectly

[TubeSteak]

What nofollow could have been useful for is a simple "I don't endorse this link" statement so that you can link to sites you dislike without adding to their fame. But applying it to all user-supplied links in blog comments, slashdot threads, wiki pages, etc. diluted its meaning, and as a result, diluted its usefulness.

From the comments of TFA:

pudge said,
May 31, 2006 @ 4:54 pm

I implmented nofollow for Slashdot. And I did it not primarily to reduce comment spam which our moderation system and other tools handle pretty well already, as Slashdot gets very littler comment spam but to reduce the effects of comment spam on search engines. If you post with a comment bonus (which you can get with high karma), you get no nofollow attribute, because we figure, chances are, your links will be useful to the search engines.

I didn't know that about the SlashCode, but it makes sense.

The type of person who blasts multiple sites with automated software isn't likely to spend time building up karma on (multiple) Slashdot accounts for his SpamBot to burn.