Version: 1.00, by ElfMage
Developer Last Online: Aug 2010
Category: Board Optimization -
Version: 3.6.5
Rating:
Released: 04-20-2007
Last Update: 04-20-2007
Installs: 167
Uses Plugins
No support by the author.
/*================================================= =====================*\
|| NuHIT URLs: Add rel=nofollow and control where links are opened
|| ================================================== =====
|| Brought to you by:
|| nuHIT.com
|| Professional add-ons for vBulletin
\*================================================ ======================*/
Description
This small mod let's you control how URLs should be processed in your forum.
Adding rel="nofollow" to links in your forum will help improve your sites overall pagerank by reducing pagerank leak due to link to external sites added by your members.
This mod lets you do this for all URLs posted by your members.
In addition, you can control whether URLs should open in a new window, or should open in the same window the user is on.
An enjoyable mini-debate to read to be sure. After reading it, it's clear to me a disclaimer should be added to the initial posting.
**Warning - This modification, either by way of direct use or osmosis acts in any manner as to allow the individual user(s) protection from or as an antidote to Unicorns.**
In the universe of pages the page-rank average is a constant: 1, 100 or K....
Incoming links increase your page-rank and all agree... but since average of all page-ranks is a constant, clearly outgoing links will decrease your page-rank.
In the universe of pages the page-rank average is a constant: 1, 100 or K....
Incoming links increase your page-rank and all agree... but since average of all page-ranks is a constant, clearly outgoing links will decrease your page-rank.
That may be true in theory. However, in the real world:
1. how many billions upon billions of pages and links go into that universe of pages?
2. how much influence is 1 link, 100 links, 1000 links, or even 10,000 links going to have on that average?
3. can you point me to a single page, just one, anywhere, where you can discern even a miniscule negative effect of outgoing links?
Hint: The answer to question 3 is "No", just to save you the trouble.
3. can you point me to a single page, just one, anywhere, where you can discern even a miniscule negative effect of outgoing links?
Hint: The answer to question 3 is "No", just to save you the trouble.
As I said, PR bleed/leakage is a myth. Period.
nofollow was a Google creation from early 2005 that was supported by both MSN and Yahoo. It was designed to stop the search bots from following links that weren?t necessarily endorsed by the owner of the site it was on. It had a mixed welcome, but was incorporated by many of the major players in blogging. Google implies this is a link spamming issue mostly relevant to blogs. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/...ment-spam.html
Whether or not having lots of outgoing links to sites with unrelated subject matter is a factor in search results is unknown (for years I have heard links to sites with unrelated subject matter was 'bad'), but from reading around a bit most sites are abandoning the tag. Then again, Wikipedia now uses the rel="nofollow" tags on all outgoing links.
We all have our own SEO theories, but since none of us know the actual algorithms used, no matter what we do we're guessing.
Personally I don't use the tag, but that's just my position.
The rel="nofollow" tag was designed to reduce link spamming, especially blog comment spamming.
It really hasn't been successful in achieving that goal. It never had "reducing PR leak" as a goal because "PR leak" doesn't exist.
I don't have to know the details of Google's algorithms to know that it's a myth. Neither does anyone else.
But all of this is off-topic. My intent was not to initiate a multi-page debate but just to alert the author to the error in the claim he was making for a mod that otherwise may be useful for many forum owners.