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Wikipedia Adds No Follow to Links
netbuzz writes "In an attempt to thwart spammers and search-engine optimization mischief, Wikipedia has begun tagging all external links on its site "nofollow", which renders those links invisible to search engines. Whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or simply unavoidable has become a matter of much debate." This topic has come up before and the community voted to remove nofollow back in 2005. This new round of nofollow comes as a directive from Wikia President, Jimbo Wales.
From TFA:
The situation is a classic tragedy of the commons: does the interest of malificent spammers outweigh Wikipedia's rôle as a semantic mediator between alien but related nodes?
Should Wikipedia transition to leaf from cut-point, it may have significant and unforeseen effects on internet-topology.
"nofollow" only exists because Larry Page and Sergey Brin had a (at the time) brillant idea of ranking webpages according to how many sites linked back to it... and now that method of determining relevance is broken. Prior to this innovation, most search engines relied upon META tags... which also eventually broke. Google is where it is today because they recognized that the web had evolved past META tags (and other techniques of self-describing content).
My point is that the Internet as a whole souldn't be tripping over ourselves because Google's invention too is now obsolete. The "nofollow" attribute is just an ugly hack created to accommodate the frequently-gamed PageRank algorithm. We should instead find new ways to determine relevance. Hey, if your idea is good enough, you might even find yourself a billionaire someday too. Who knows, maybe the next wave will also wash away all those god-forsaken AdSense landing pages and domain squatters (oh please, oh please, oh please...).
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
While I don't necessarily disagree with the reinstatement of Wikipedia's nofollow policy, I do have to say one thing: Jimbo Wales is a tool.
Yesterday, after reading and noting glaring inconsistencies in the Wikipedia articles and talk pages for Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, and Jimbo Wales, as well as Jimbo Wales' user page, I have lost a bit of respect for Wikipedia and a lot more for one of its cofounders. I can't believe he's trying to manipulate his encyclopedia project this way!
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Nofollow doesn't work if you just put the URL directly in the text, and google will treat them more or less as links (to the site at least, though possibly not the path).
The way to fix this is with stable versions -- you don't let search engines see unstable versions at all. But having looked at the craptastic mediawiki codebase, I can sympathize with them not wanting to bother with adding such a major feature.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
This won't solve the problem, since humans may still follow the links, so it's still worthwhile for spammers to have links in Wikipedia. Even if it doesn't up their pagerank, Wikipedia can still serve them as a spam delivery system.
However, it helps Google by not uping spammer's page rank. And less noise in the search results is good for the users of Google.
Loose lips lose spit.
Will Wikipedia face the same fate of the Open Directory Project -- where marketeers have spammed the site to render it useless. Check out the ZDNet post...
If this is of benefit to the search engine operators, then it should be simple enough for the search engine operators to follow or not follow external links from wikipedia, with or without NOFOLLOW. Wikipedia has a high enough profile that search engines already treat it differently from Average John's Incredibly Boring Blog, and they will know if it is of benefit for them to follow those links, without wikipedia putting some policy in place.
I think the article noted that the last time this came up for vote by the community, the community voted it down. I think it also notes that this is something that Jimbo Wales dictated, and not something that went through the normal community approval process.
Why?
Why would Wales simply dictate this change be made?
Because Wikipedia is a source of high-quality links. Editors have increasingly been making sure to put high-quality references in articles, mainly as links to other web sites. A single Wikipedia article can often contain links to the best websites related to that subject.
So ask yourself why would Wales want to make those links private, and no longer harvested by Google.
Is it that hard to figure out?
If you still don't know, then ask yourself what business Wales has announced that he wants to pursue with his new for profit company, Wikia?
Search Engines.
In the words of Paul Harvey, now you know the REST of the story.
Most of the complaints that 'Wikipedia isn't reliable' appear to be complaints that we haven't saved them the trouble of thinking. I have to say: too bad. It's useful or it wouldn't be a top 10 site. But it's just written by people. Keep your wits about you as you would reading any website. We work to keep it useful, but if you see something that strikes you as odd, check the references and check the history and check the talk page.
Wikipedia does not save the reader from having to think.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Wikipedia does plenty to raise the search results of quality sites that are linked to. How? Increasing traffic by people interested in the topic at hand. If the page in question provides meaningful and interesting content, some of those people will link to it. There's no reason the large link count of the site should be wielded by anyone who wants to boost their search rating. I think this is probably the right decision. There's a big difference between not moving robots and not moving people.
Except that it's generally a good idea for individuals to retain their ability to think in all situations.
... is here; they seem to be concerned about a "search engine optimization world championship".
Personally I think we can all do our bit and stop linking to Wikipedia so much, because Google is starting to give the impression that Wikipedia is the fount of all knowledge - to the detriment of pages which contain better information but which don't happen to have WP's massive net presence.
Wouldn't a better approach be to figure out the average longevity of a spam link on the site, and tag links with 'nofollow' for slightly longer than that period of time? After that they can remove the 'nofollow' because, presumably, if it was spam the link would have been removed already.
I think Wikipedia's decision to "no-follow" their links is quite reasonable. The Internet has seen enough of the manipulators and astroturfers who try their best to distract us, and it shows the worthiness of the Wiki leadership that they'd take this step.
The notion that the Internet is going to organically solve such problems smacks of the magic "free-market" economics that are supposed to make the world a paradise, but end up tilting the field in favor of the most powerful. There is no magic that's going to keep the Internet free. If it's going to stay viable it's only going to do so with careful management by some wise and generous souls. I count the Wikifolk as wise and generous, until they do something to warrant a reevaluation.
And I second the emotion that spun has been just such a wise and generous voice here at Slashdot
You are welcome on my lawn.
You might not, but I'd imagine several editors would. You released the images under the GFDL when you uploaded them to Wikipedia. That means they can effectively do whatever they want with them, including removing the advertisement in the caption. Not to be blunt, but if you don't like it, don't upload the images.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs