Search Engines Try To Block Blog 'Comment Spam'

"Key search engine companies Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) MSN and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) as well as Weblog tool provider Six Apart have united to stop "comment spam," but one search engine expert does not think the effort will slow the practice.

Most bloggers allow reader responses to entries. This also opens the door to spammers, who use automated programs to post links to their own Web sites in the comments sections of blogs. The links, and the words within them, have some effect on the spammers' site ranking within search engines.

The measure announced late yesterday supports an HTML tag called "nofollow." When attached to the end of the spammed hyperlink, it signals search engine crawlers to ignore that link. The goal is to take away the incentive for posting such links.

The tags would be added automatically to posts through updated blogging software. If you don't want the tag there, you would have to remove it manually.

"It may help," Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, told TechNewsWorld. "It isn't going to stop comment spam. What it may do is make it a little less attractive. It's not a magic bullet."

It sure cannot hurt things.