Jan 21 2007

All Wikipedia Links Are Now NOFOLLOW

I blogged about the Wikipedia Issues with SPAM and the discussions about the use of NOFOLLOW for ALL external Links from Wikipedia.Â It was done, finally.

As of now are all outbound links from the english Wikipedia Site using the NOFOLLOW attribute, no exceptions.

No matter where you place it, Article Page, Talk Page, User Page, Project Page, whatever. No Link will get any credit at the major search engines.

This will not eliminate SPAM at Wikipedia, but it will over time certainly reduce it a bit. Especially the spam of invisible pages that have virtually no traffic but at least some PageRank is now virtually a waste of time for any spammer.

Spamming of areas with traffic was futile already without the NOFOLLOW attribute in place, since Editors remove the SPAM within hours or even minutes after it happened.

There were numerous detailed discussions about the PROs and CONs of the use of NOFOLLOW. I was personally a supporter of this since I started editing at Wikipedia.

Update 1: Wikipedia Mailing List Message about the official decision by Jimbo Wales (Wikipedia Co-Founder)Â

Update 2: ThereÂ seems to be some need to explain what NOFOLLOW is and where it comes from. It was started by Google to fight Blog SPAM. It did not work out I might add. It then started to take new spins and created more problems and mistrust than the problem it was supposed to help solving.

See the Original Post to NOFOLLOW at the Google Blog from 2005

Carsten Cumbrowski

Written By:

Carsten Cumbrowski

Carsten Cumbrowski has years of experience in Affiliate Marketing and knows both sides of the business as the Affiliate and Affiliate Manager. Carsten has over 10 years experience in Web Development and 20 years in programming and computers in general. He has a personal Internet Marketing Resources site at Cumbrowski.com. To learn more about Carsten, check out the "About Page" at his web site. For additional contact options see this page.

More Posts By CarstenCumbrowski

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phonecreditcardprocessing

You have to use no follow to prevent PR leakage and to preserve the integrity of the site.
Web Development Proposal

So everyone on Wiki, regardless of contributing legitimate value, gets labeled as a possible spammer? I think this says more about Wiki's inability to effectively deal with spam than anything.
avsa

Good work my friend.Number 5 going to a great blog thank you master continuous tracking.
WebHeadFred

I don't blame them, an encyclopedia should be about accurate unbiased information, not a yellow pages of sorts. Kudos Wiki!
erken rezervasyon

Thanks for the information, as for the reasons why they did this it was clearly a business decision that worked for them.
Online MLM Explosion

I never thought that wikipedia will do this...
anyways good blog post..search engine journal is one the best blog that I've ever found in the topic of SEO..

I always look forward to your articles..
Beyond Content

If you're adding links to any site without any intent to create value then don't start crying about it. Concentrate on making a kick-ass site instead of trying to cheat the system.
Melayu Boleh

Interesting. I thought it has always been do follow links
melayu boleh

hmm know i know it that all wikipedia links are Nofollow
Mona Vie Gant

Yah man, I just signed up at Wikipedia for the first time today, and was going to a talk page to ask contributors if the news release on my site was worthy of being added to the references list for a page. Part of my reason for bothering with it was in hopes that I might get a valuable link out of the deal, in addition to possibly some traffic. Are there any compelling reasons to attempt getting links from Wikipedia? Do no-followed links carry authority? even though they don't pass reputation?
Royancy

well no comment about that,
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that is realy good news.
fd

yes, i know.thanks http://www.crazypurchase.com
aşk

I think it is ridiculous that Wikipedia did this. I never knew this before. Anyway, thanks Carsten for sharing this great information..
nike dunk

another great posting. lol
State of Bolivian

So many people here are missing the point. Wikipedia wants their cake and to eat it too here. They want ALL of their inbound links to give them page credibility, yet want to discount all of their outbound links so NONE of the outbound links give any credit to anyone else.

Here is an example. Wikipedia has 2 lines on subject X and then a link to website Y, which has 500 pages on this subject. A million people a day click on the wiki page, find the link and realize the second page is a better resource. But since Google allows for this blind No Follow, all of that real relevance on the subject continues to go to Wikipedia and then die in their dead end of programming.

Site Y is the real relevant location that should be #1 in the rankings, but since Wiki controls the outbound link pop - Site Y never gets where it needs to in the rankings. There is no way anyone can condone this with a straight face. People are NOT getting the most relevant results and lots of worthy sites are on page 2 and beyond.
Tampa Consultant

Page Rank is slightly over-rated anyway, sites can easily rank #1 even with a page rank of 0 or 1, so no-follow isn't an end all.
LC

No worries on the nofollow - I just made it here from Wikipedia. Matt Cutt just announced PageRank evaportion per site sculpting. Is this a big WOO! HOO! or not?
EP

I think that good for wikipedia use NoFollow, furthermore wikipedia is a very good website and informative, so people will stay go there to get information
Tania

many people misuse wikipedia for their own purpose. that's why wikipedia admin change the attributes
Melayu Boleh Online

There are many information in wikipedia...hope there will be no people misused it after this :-)
European Cruises

Didn't know wikipedia was nofollow gues it would be otherwise it would be spammed the hell out of lol
Bruce Clay S E O

Thanks for the information, as for the reasons why they did this it was clearly a business decision that worked for them.
Australia Optimisation

makese sense - surprised how long it took to implement
Tatil otelleri

Number 10 going to a great blog thank you master continuous tracking
Melayu Boleh

really? I never know this before.. I have link on wikipedia.. huh..
Scott Galvin

I can understand why Wikipedia would introduce nofollow, but it is unfortunate that quality sites that link out will not get any credit for the link. The real problem is page ranking and placing importance to a site that has more more/better links then another site. It's a system that is doomed to fail.
Fighter Planes

i thought wiki was always nofollow anyways u learn something new everyday lol
MotorcycleBatteris

I think it is ridiculous that Wikipedia did this. I never knew this before. Anyway, thanks Carsten for sharing this great information..
Melayu Boleh

Wikipedia is full of infor mation thank for the post
Thomas

Wikipedia is a great projekt for making Information available. That alone should be profit enough for everyone.
MARIO

We're looking for a reciprocal link to our website
Al Jones

Wow! never knew this happened!
thanks for the post...
Adam

Good to know I always thought it counts for the search engines.
Blackpool

found this on google great article, good read
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