rel="nofollow"
Today's big story is preventing comment spam with rel="nofollow". Color me sceptical. As I noted in fighting comment spam, I found that link moderation was an ineffective counter-measure – the spam-master just continued to bludgeon me with linkless comments. To the best of my knowledge, my comment link blacklist has been the most effective weapon in my anti-spam arsenal.
I suspect that the cost of spam is so low that the spam-masters will continue to cast a wide net – spamming promiscuously in search of unprotected targets. And that it will take years of punishing and closing down those unprotected targets before rel="nofollow" finally ends comment spam.
20 Jan: The nofollow Silver Lining.
RSS ≠ eMail
It is just coincidence that RSS has risen to prominence just as email has started to buckle under the weight of spam. But that coincidence has lead many to advocate RSS as a replacement for email. I think that shows a lack of understanding about what RSS is and isn’t.
- RSS is a transient representation of permanent content
- RSS is broadcast not narrowcast
- RSS is read differently than email
Part of a series inspired by my contribution to Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS.