Just noticed that links to external sites (e.g., listing website, social sites, etc.) from the listing submission fields as well as any links inserted directly into the listing description are created without “nofollow” link attributes.
This really opens the sites up to heavy spam potential or linking to bad sites in a way that could hurt our sites within search engines, Google specifically.
There are a number of different options here:
1) flow all links through a jump script that can be blocked to search engines
2) automatically add nofollows to all links within the submissions
3) create the ability to automatically strip out links placed within the listing description, ideally configurable based on listing package…maybe free listings have links stripped out, but paid listings links are left (these should still be nofollowed or this really runs risk with Google under “paid-links”)
4) allow listing detail fields (e.g., the website field) to be configurable as followed vs. no-followed based on listing package…personally, while building this feature into GD adds another marketable feature, I wouldn’t recommend anyone using it, at least not without understanding the risks of falling afoul of Google as this would most likely be characterized as paid links and against their terms. Doing so could result in your directory getting filtered and or penalized in Google results.
Having all of these links followable carries potential risk for the site owner. Having all of these links automatically no-followed removes that risk, but may increase the efforts for selling listings for those who are purely looking to secure links to their sites. Given the two challenges, I’d much rather no-follow the links and have to work a little harder to educate customers and show more value in my directory than risk having my domain dampened entirely in the SERPs.
Cheers,
Brian
Paolo 9 years, 10 months ago.
