Joeychgo
07-20-2006, 02:19 AM
I thought about bringing this up after running across a post on vB.com
use of nofollow-- either tone down, or allow disabling (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=189613)
The intention of the NoFollow tag was for the nofollow tag to be placed on links NOT placed by the webmaster.
i.e. Signature links, in post links, comments on blogs, etc.
The purpose of nofollow is to prevent spam, not control where a SE applies PR to on your site.
vBulletin, strangely, does not apply the nofollow tag to signature links or post links plased by users. It does use the nofollow tag for things like sendmessage.php and links to member profiles.
So, vBulletin is using the tag incorrectly. Its not applying the tag where is was intended to be applied, and is applying it where it was not intended. The complete reverse of how it should be.
Q: What types of links should get this attribute?
A: We encourage you to use the rel="nofollow" attribute anywhere that users can add links by themselves, including within comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists. Comment areas receive the most attention, but securing every location where someone can add a link is the way to keep spammers at bay.
Preveting Comment Spam (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html) (Google Blog)
Kall has a hack to place the nofollow on links in posts that he released at vb.org.
Apply "rel=nofollow" attribute to all parsed URLs (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93780)
--
I take a slightly different approach.
First, see my earlier thread: Disable Viewing Signatures for Guests (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133) - This takes on even more importance with vB 3.6 because 3.6 permits users to upload signature images, so applying that simple template edit also saves you bandwidth since guests and Search Engines dont have to render sig images because they dont see the signatures, only logged in users see them.
Second - you can edit one PHP file and apply a nofollow tag to all links placed in threads by users.
in /includes/class_bbcode.php find:
// standard URL hyperlink
return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
and replace it with:
// standard URL hyperlink
return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
Personally, I would remove many of the nofollow tags vBulletin places around the forum. (I havent done that on this forum since it makes upgrades a pita and with the new versions coming fast, no sense making extra work)
Hopefully, Jelsoft will smarten up and apply the tags appropriately in the future sometime.
use of nofollow-- either tone down, or allow disabling (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=189613)
The intention of the NoFollow tag was for the nofollow tag to be placed on links NOT placed by the webmaster.
i.e. Signature links, in post links, comments on blogs, etc.
The purpose of nofollow is to prevent spam, not control where a SE applies PR to on your site.
vBulletin, strangely, does not apply the nofollow tag to signature links or post links plased by users. It does use the nofollow tag for things like sendmessage.php and links to member profiles.
So, vBulletin is using the tag incorrectly. Its not applying the tag where is was intended to be applied, and is applying it where it was not intended. The complete reverse of how it should be.
Q: What types of links should get this attribute?
A: We encourage you to use the rel="nofollow" attribute anywhere that users can add links by themselves, including within comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists. Comment areas receive the most attention, but securing every location where someone can add a link is the way to keep spammers at bay.
Preveting Comment Spam (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html) (Google Blog)
Kall has a hack to place the nofollow on links in posts that he released at vb.org.
Apply "rel=nofollow" attribute to all parsed URLs (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93780)
--
I take a slightly different approach.
First, see my earlier thread: Disable Viewing Signatures for Guests (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133) - This takes on even more importance with vB 3.6 because 3.6 permits users to upload signature images, so applying that simple template edit also saves you bandwidth since guests and Search Engines dont have to render sig images because they dont see the signatures, only logged in users see them.
Second - you can edit one PHP file and apply a nofollow tag to all links placed in threads by users.
in /includes/class_bbcode.php find:
// standard URL hyperlink
return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
and replace it with:
// standard URL hyperlink
return "<a href=\"$rightlink\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">$text</a>";
Personally, I would remove many of the nofollow tags vBulletin places around the forum. (I havent done that on this forum since it makes upgrades a pita and with the new versions coming fast, no sense making extra work)
Hopefully, Jelsoft will smarten up and apply the tags appropriately in the future sometime.