Stop Spammers with rel=nofollow in URLs!

In the first cooperative move for nearly ten years, the major search engines have unveiled a new indexing command for web authors that they all recognize, one that they hope will help reduce the link and comment spam that plagues many web sites....due to removing the point of doing it in the first place.

The new "nofollow" attribute that can be associated with links was originated as an idea by Google in late 2004 and MSN and Yahoo, as well as major blogging vendors have jumped onboard.

The Nofollow Attribute

The new attribute is called "nofollow" with rel="nofollow" being the format inserted within an anchor tag.
When added to any link, it will effectively serve as a flag to tell the search engines that the link has not been explictly approved by the site owner, and therefore "not follow" it, or not use the referring page's (on your site) Page Rank in any way.

For example, this is how the HTML markup for an ordinary link might look:

<a href="http://www.somedomain.com/page.html">My forums are the best lol lol lol click here!!</a>

This is how the link would look after the nofollow attribute has been added, with the attribute portion shown in bold

<a href="http://www.somedomain.com/page.html" rel="nofollow">My forums are the best lol lol lol click here!!</a>

This would also be acceptable, as order of elements within the anchor tag makes no difference:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.site.com/page.html" >Visit My Page</a>

Once added, the search engines supporting the attribute will understand that the link has not been approved in some way by the site owner.

Think of it as a way to flag to them, "I didn't post this link -- someone else did."

Originally Posted by Alkatraz

If Google sees nofollow as part of a link, it will:

1. NOT follow through to that page.
2. NOT count the link in calculating PageRank link popularity scores.
3. NOT count the anchor text in determining what terms the page being linked to is relevant for.

The site that is being linked to will gain nothing from the link, so the whole point of doing it in the first place is removed.

WHAT WILL THIS DO, IN ESSENCE?

This will affect URLs in posts, as well as signatures...anything that goes through the bbcodeparse function as far as I can tell/guess, and will work recursively, or whatever the word is that means 'it will affect all existing posts and signatures'...or it did for me anyway.

Update:

Thanks to Michael Morris and natez0rz for pointing out that using the $post global would be a much better idea.

To change the conditional number of posts, alter

PHP Code:

OR $post['posts'] > 50) 


to whatever you like.

It should work with all vB 3.0.x versions, but was tested on 3.0.6.

File to modify: 1

1/ Open your includes/functions_bbcodeparse.php file

Find:

PHP Code:

if ($type == 'url')
    {
        // standard URL hyperlink
        return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
    }
    else
    {
        // email hyperlink (mailto:) 


Replace with:

PHP Code:

        if ($type == 'url')
    {
        global $post;

if (is_member_of($post, 6) //Admins are exempt
OR is_member_of($post, 5) //Mods are exempt
OR is_member_of($post, 7) //SuperMods are exempt
OR $post['posts'] > 50) // People with over 50 posts are exempt
    {
    // standard URL hyperlink
    return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
    }
    else
    {
     return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
    }
    }
   else
    {
        // email hyperlink (mailto:) 


2/ Save and Upload.

3/ Relax, safe in the knowledge that spammers linking from your site are doing so for no reason whatsoever.

4/ Edit: exclude staff usergroups and members with over 50 posts.

[kaotic]

Very interesting. Thanks for the news and the modification instructions.

[yoyoyoyo]

excellent, thanks!

[alkatraz]

it will serve as a flag that the link has not been explicitly approved by the site owner.

what's the advantage with this?

edit: found this which explains it all
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728

If Google sees nofollow as part of a link, it will:

1. NOT follow through to that page.
2. NOT count the link in calculating PageRank link popularity scores.
3. NOT count the anchor text in determining what terms the page being linked to is relevant for.

thx for the hack, sounds like it could be useful

[kall]

Originally Posted by alkatraz

what's the advantage with this?

edit: found this which explains it all
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728


thx for the hack, sounds like it could be useful

The idea is that if there is no point in spamming their links, the spammers will stop spamming their links.

[Oblivion Knight]

Nice little mod this, thank you..

[reteep]

Very interesting! Thanks!

[kall]

Originally Posted by Oblivion Knight

Nice little mod this, thank you..

The process of this mod went like this:

1. I read about it on slashdot
2. I search for it here
3. I open includes/functions_bbcodeparse.php and insert a very small amount of data
4. I astound myself by discovering it works
5. I upload it to this thread.



A nice easy install for something that took about 10 minutes from conception to release.

[j_86]

Nice hack

[neocorteqz]

thanks.

one small question.

How do we verify it's working?