Stupidity 2.0: Wikipedia adds nofollow to links
January 26th, 2007 by Stefan JuhlI honestly think that adding the rel=”nofollow” attribtue to links on Wikipedia is one of the most stupid moves I’ve seen in a while. It makes me question if they understand communities and spam. Taking an action against links like they’ve done might have a much bigger impact than they can imagine - and it ain’t in a good way!
The nofollow attribute is ridicules and always have been. It was made to combat comment spamming yet there’s no signs of it ever having had any effect. And Google’s ongoing crusade against spammy and paid links haven’t made nofollow less ridicules. But I won’t go further into that since this is about Wikipedia and there’s no chance I can match graywolf’s great post about nofollow and Google.
So how can Wikipedia’s move cause them damage..?
- Decrease in contribution
Removal of incentives to contribute often cause large decrease in contributers and their amount of contribution. I’ve contributed to Wikipedia both by adding to existing articles and by adding new articles. Yes, I did that because I could add links to my sites, but the articles was correct and served the spirit of Wikipedia. Now, I don’t have that incentive anymore so it’s unlikely that I’ll continue to contribute. - Losing top contributers
It isn’t just small time contributors like me who contributes to Wikipedia because of the links. From reliable sources, I’ve heard of several top contributers mainly doing a lot of work because of the link benefits. By being friends with admins and contributing a lot they could get away with inserting (relevant) links in prominent places on pages with high pagerank. - Decrease in objectivity
With fewer people contributing there’s a risk of decreasing objectivity, since the main motive to contribute become expressing ones beliefs. Also, losing top contributers would mean fewer people to overlook additions and changes for their correctness, and there’ll be fewer people to moderate the questionable contributions. - Loss of credibility
Adding nofollow to links can be considered as Wikipedia not trusting its own sources. Many of these so called “spam links” are actually the sources for the articles, and yes the author might have added the information for link popularity reasons. So with Wikipedia not trusting the sources and with the risk of decreased objectivity, how can we trust the information on Wikipedia? - Increase in dirty spam
Removing the incentive of gaining link popularity from Wikipedia doesn’t remove all incentives to spam the articles with links. Wikipedia has so much traffic that it is worth it to spam them just for the sake of getting a share of their traffic. So this could mean that we’ll see less “relevant spam” but way more dirty and irrelevant spam.
Well, time will tell whether this is a smart or stupid move by Wikipedia. As you probably figured out, I think it’s really really stupid. But, I’ll just go somewhere else and contribute to gain links. Bye bye Wikipedia!
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Posted in Link Building / Bait, Social Media |
January 26th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
You mentioned that you’ll go somewhere else to contribute and gain links, Squidoo by any chance ?
January 26th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
squidoo’s dead.
January 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I think this is an example of a few bad apples spoiling it for the rest of us.
Like you I contributed to Wikipedia and the quid pro quo was the odd relevant link. I was more opportunist than spammer.
It seems to me that Wikipedia is on the downslope. I feel this way because the “insider” community is starting to exclude “outsiders” and as you point out this leads to a decrease in objectivity.
Crowd sourcing works when it maintains objectivity. Lose the objectivity and you end up with a mob and mobs have never created value.
January 27th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Stefan,
Since you’re anti-nofollow, will you be removing it from the comments section of your blog? Just curious
January 27th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[…] Nachdem en.wikipedia.org in den letzten Tagen wegen des Nofollow Atributs bereits in diversen Blogs unter Beschuss geraten war, scheint es jetzt auch bei de.wikipedia.org zu brodeln. […]
January 27th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Ian, it isn’t squidoo I have in mind. I’m messing around with a couple of other sites which I believe provide more link value than squidoo.
brem, squidoo isn’t exactly dead - it’s quite good for parasite SEO among other things.
John, right on! That’s probably also why we see those vertical “wikipedia’s” and direct wikipedia competitors beginning to rise. The “outsiders” decides to go somewhere else..
Marios, hehe yeah, it’s a bit absurd that I “preach” something without following it myself.. I actually do plan on removing the nofollow, since I believe it will increase comments, if I make readers aware of it. But I’ve got lots of stuff I want to do with this blog (and especially the comment section) yet I just haven’t got around prioritizing it over my money making projects.
January 28th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Yourf logic of how this will lead to more spam links on wiki with less active quality members sounds like solid logic. Perhaps you should name this as a syndrome that happens on quality sites that begind their demise?
January 30th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I’m amazed I found this thread because I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
There definitely seems to be an elitist attitude coming from within WikiPedia to disclude links to relevant resources submitted by the very people that build the site.
I have had my own website - indierockcafe.com removed from relevant categories over and over. They said it was because I had ads on my site. Yeah, I have some Google Ads and made about $9 in two months. AND, many of the sites that they do include as external links are linked to some of the biggest music money makers online who definitely profit from Wikipedia’s editors who place them as external links and a one-man publishing blog gets pulled for having some Google Ads.
I hope this is an issue that gets more bloggers enraged, especially after they have spent so much time on their own relevant and legit site, AND have also contributed content over the years to Wikipedia.
It may very well become an implosion. I say they really re-look at their relationship with their community and those who are just plain old spammers. We know the difference.
Phil at IRC
* links removed *
January 30th, 2007 at 11:45 am
i’m sorry, i’m not spamming.
I just wanted to ask Stefan if he had a list of other sites to contribute to? That would be great!
Thanks
February 11th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Of course, the Search Engines can do anything they want with the nofollow link information, such as note the anchor text and URI and use the anchor text as an off-page factor in ranking whatever is at the URI. Or they can ignore it. It just won’t follow the link to find more links.
February 11th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Now this is something unpleasant. I didn’t think about getting a link there since I cannot dedicate too much time on writing a decent article for wikipedia standard. But this rel=”nofollow” on links is a huge punch in the face of people who CONTRIBUTE on that thing. I own many forums .. never had this wild idea to hamper my member’s promotion. In the end they’re the ones keeping the project alive. Sad.