SKATOO Blog - Link Scam

There is a rise in unethical tactics among webmasters. In an effort to improve link popularity for their sites, some are resorting to putting pieces of code within the link that tells the spiders (search engine robots) to not follow and not count the link.

This was originally implemented by Google, MSN and Yahoo in Feb/Mar 2005 as a way of returning power to bloggers so they can link without giving credit. It was to also curb the growth of "blog spam". This is where webmasters post comments in blogs to gain a link to their site, instead of contributing.

Now, webmasters are taking advantage of this to improve the link popularity of their site. By approaching a site for a reciprocal link exchange and placing the link on their site with a rel="no follow" in the href they can basically achieve a one way link to their site. This is because the search engines are ignoring the reciprocal due to the tag.

As a warning, please check the source code of a link when embarking upon a link campaign. Do a find text and search for "no follow". This will highlight both the robots no follow and rel no follow.

Thank you to ebusiness-strategies.co.uk for this find.