SEO Tycoon

**Learning Newbie** · 02-09-2007, 06:22 PM

I'm a little confused. I understand why Wikipedia uses no follow. Anyone can add a link to any page, or even to all of them. But you can't add a link to my bookmarks, and I can't to yours. Their terms of service even go so far as to say I own my bookmarks ( although they give the option to release them under GPL or CC ). Since I'm the only one who can add a link to my bookmarks, it follows that the ones appearing on my page are well considered.

Now of course I realize I could sign up for a throw-away account and bookmark every page on my site. I think I would need a second computer to make a second account ( not because of IP address, but because it installs a browser add-in ). So the potential for spam and abuse is there, but I bet 90 % of the users use the service in good faith. Especially because it's set up really well.

But here is one of my links:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/">Science Friday: Making Science Radioactive</a>

Thoughts?

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-09-2007, 06:47 PM

My only thought is that it makes complete sense.

The problem with social networking sites is that they are way too manipulable by those with selfish intentions. By adding the nofollow attribute to the link, it ensures that those with purely SEO intentions will bother with the site minimally at best.

Unfortunately, the issue here is much deeper and it is link obsession...some people are so obsessed with getting as many links as possible that they forget WHY and HOW they're supposed to get them.

**Learning Newbie** · 02-09-2007, 07:39 PM

We seem to be looking at the same thing ( social bookmark sites ) from two different stand points.

Links are essentially votes, right? It seems that because a delicious or digg bookmark list is so much easier to set up than a blog, or even a paid hosted web site, this is really more democratic. If TV is in the hands of a few corporations, web sites are in the hands of a few thousand smaller companies and individuals. Not having one means being disenfranchised. Being given a page for your bookmarks means being handed a vote.

So even though I do see the ability for ethically-challenged individuals to abuse a delicious page, I think the benefits from getting public reaction instead of only from the chattering classes should outweigh this. Also a dishonest SEO who spends all of his or her time abusing digg, is being distracted from some other black hat activity, so it seems zero-sum?

I agree that collecting links is like a bad fetish for a lot of people. But on the other hand, look at me as an example: I'm learning a little bit about SEO, I have zero links to my site at this point ( it's not indexed, and I don't want it to be until it's ready for launch ), but I bookmarked Science Friday because their podcasts are really interesting. The only way I could benefit from this is if enough people listen to the material and become more educated about science in general. Shouldn't I be able to cast a vote for them without having to own a web site?

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-12-2007, 03:21 AM

You're absolutely right. You should be able to do exactly what you just outlined. I agree with you completely.

Now...here's the problem. Your opinion, my opinion, and $5 amounts to...$5. It has been documented on some pretty significant black, white, grey and "blue" (thank you for the BS euphemism, Danny Sullivan) that the social networking sites ARE highly manipulable and the "chattering classes" (I like that term, by the way!) are the ones that tend to have the most input due to their ability to cast multiple votes for the same site. A few hundred Hotmail accounts, some proxy servers, and a spammer's in business.

Unfortunately for you as an example, your legit intentions get drowned out by the immoral minority. That's what this boils down to. And I don't see anything happening anytime soon in these types of sites that will discourage this sort of thing.

One thing you'll come to learn about SEO is that all the concepts and legit traffic generator concepts that are designed for the masses eventually get abused by the masses.

Articles/article sites? Abused.
Directory sites? Abused.
Social bookmarking/Web 2.0 (I HATE THAT TERM!) sites? Abused.
Blogs? Abused.
Wikipedia and offshoots? Abused.

At some point, this means you're going to have to choose between one of two major ideologies:

1) Build your site with decent content, in a user-friendly manner, and ensure that the visitors that DO come to your site get the maximum possible benefit and that the SEO will come from that (white hat).

2) Build your site and try to take advantage of the manipulability of the various concepts outlined above to position your site in front of as many eyes as possible (grey-to-black hat).

Personally, I'm about option #1. Up to you, though.

**parusa619** · 02-12-2007, 04:56 PM

If you target link-building, it is a bad taste. Sites like del.icio.us, stumble, and wikipedia may bring large amount of traffic

**ForrestCroce** · 02-13-2007, 12:49 AM

I think the idea of websites casting votes for other sites with html code is a metaphor. You hear it a lot because it's a pretty good one, but ultimately the web isn't a democracy.

**trichnosis** · 02-13-2007, 01:31 AM

delicous is using nofollow for a long time . this is not a new news. people are saying that delicous may bring traffic but you must be very lucky to get traffic from delicous

**ForrestCroce** · 02-13-2007, 01:45 AM

And in any case I doubt anybody's delicious page would have any "link juice" to pass on.