Digg's A Leader And A 'Nofollower'
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, September 3, 2009
The social site is adding rel="nofollow" to any external link it can't verify or "vouch for." This includes external links from comments, user profiles, and story pages that fall below a certain threshold of popularity.
John Quinn, vice president of engineering at Digg, San Francisco, told the SEO community that Digg had made a few changes that might impact their support to clients, but provided few details. The changes could "reduce the incentive to post spammy content (or link spam) to Digg, while still flowing 'search engine juice' freely to quality content," he wrote on the company's blog.
Digg worked with SEO and search engine marketing (SEM) experts in an effort to support efforts by the company's community of diggers, Quinn says.
Cutts called the move "pretty smart" in a blog posted Wednesday. He gave the idea a nod because "Digg isn't adding nofollow to everything, just the links that they're less sure about."
Google does something similar with Knol, a project by the Mountain View, Calif. search engine that includes user-written articles on a range of topics, Cutts explains. Knol authors receive nofollow links, but as Google gains more trust in authors, it can remove those nofollows.
Some will take a wait-and-see approach. At least one SEO expert thinks it is interesting that Digg took on the role of PageRank arbitrator. Digg just didn't make it clear exactly what links "we're not sure we can vouch for" means, says Marty Weintraub, president and founder of aimClear, a SEO Internet marketing agency in Duluth and Minneapolis, Min.
"What metrics will be used to judge the quality of a post's 'neighborhood?'" he says. "Remember, since the benefit of DoFollow links extend way past transient Digg traffic, rankings and money are on the line. Will there be an appeal process when Digg gets it wrong, in its newly assumed role of noFollow judge, jury and executioner?"
Atlas Web Service proprietor Michael Gray, known to the SEO community as Graywolf, says those who follow the rules of social media should not see much of a change. These marketers, at companies willing to work within the system to earn quality links, are not interested in gaining them from Digg. They are looking for exposure for the article that led people to their Web sites.
Those looking to beat the system just wanted to attract Web engine crawlers that can move up the articles in search engine page rankings. "They do this through lower automated generated terms," he says. "It's not going to rank for incredibly good terms -- mostly junk -- but as long as it makes them enough money to cover the hosting and a little extra, and it all runs in an automated fashion, they're content."
Gray says Digg monitors the editorial content closely. The company's goal is to attract as many advertisers as it can. He says Digg looks for the high-quality content, especially to serve up on the home page.
