a quick note on Wikipedia going nofollow
This is pretty interesting, at least to a web geek like me.
Wikipedia is, basically, configuring itself so that links from Wikipedia to other sites won't be taken considered by search engines.
This is important because search engines use how pages link to each other as one part of their system for figuring out how to rank search results. So, for instance, if Page Foo is linked to by many other pages about a particular topic, then a search engine can guess that Page Foo is is likely to be a good page about that topic, and bump up its rating, especially if the other pages linking to Page Foo are also considered good pages about the topic.
People try to game this system by, for instance, leaving spam comments that link to a page that they want to advertise on Wiki pages or blogs that are considered good by search engines. Wikipedia is, basically, seeking to avoid spam by indicating that none of its links should be considered when evaluating the goodness of other pages, which should make it a much less juicy target for people's spam content.
The downside, though, is that the knowledge aggregating engine that is Wikipedia will no longer be expressing an opinion about the relative goodness of content at other web sites through its links and citations. Helping search engines to organize and rate other content on the web in this way isn't a part of Wikipedia's mission, but this still seems unfortunate to me.
Further, there's something about it that rubs my information-ethics the wrong way. I'll have to think more about exactly why, but I think that there is some failure of reciprocity involved. Wikipedia is getting content and authority from the resources it cites, but it is opting out of recommending them to search engines. I don't know how important this will actually be, but I think I don't like it on principle.
Not that I blame them. Spam is a serious problem. It's a shame that we have to spend so much effort on such pollution.
Wikipedia is, basically, configuring itself so that links from Wikipedia to other sites won't be taken considered by search engines.
This is important because search engines use how pages link to each other as one part of their system for figuring out how to rank search results. So, for instance, if Page Foo is linked to by many other pages about a particular topic, then a search engine can guess that Page Foo is is likely to be a good page about that topic, and bump up its rating, especially if the other pages linking to Page Foo are also considered good pages about the topic.
People try to game this system by, for instance, leaving spam comments that link to a page that they want to advertise on Wiki pages or blogs that are considered good by search engines. Wikipedia is, basically, seeking to avoid spam by indicating that none of its links should be considered when evaluating the goodness of other pages, which should make it a much less juicy target for people's spam content.
The downside, though, is that the knowledge aggregating engine that is Wikipedia will no longer be expressing an opinion about the relative goodness of content at other web sites through its links and citations. Helping search engines to organize and rate other content on the web in this way isn't a part of Wikipedia's mission, but this still seems unfortunate to me.
Further, there's something about it that rubs my information-ethics the wrong way. I'll have to think more about exactly why, but I think that there is some failure of reciprocity involved. Wikipedia is getting content and authority from the resources it cites, but it is opting out of recommending them to search engines. I don't know how important this will actually be, but I think I don't like it on principle.
Not that I blame them. Spam is a serious problem. It's a shame that we have to spend so much effort on such pollution.