Sphinn.com has added the nofollow tag to external links today.

I'm disappointed. Is that really necessary?

People in this community put so much effort into writing good content and obsessively tracking their industry and community so why should the newest site, which is itself the ultimate-community builder, deny link value to those who contribute to it?

I'll be honest, I never participated in the nofollow debate. I didn't feel it affected me as I don't participate in link-bombing, spamming, excessive commenting, or even buying links... so I'm no authority on this subject.

But I do feel strongly that to continue to build a community you have to be willing to give a little back. Why not give a little link value?

Seriously. Does it do harm to Sphinn to link out? Does it really keep spammers away? No.

Sphinn has yet to be abused to my knowledge. But if it was to be abused, wouldn't the community be able to police the website (maybe via an altered form of 'bury') better than a nofollow tag anyway?

So what the nF?

Posted 8/17/2007 - 12:44 AM