I’m seeing an added “nofollow” attribute on links to client applications on Twitter right now, as shown in the screen-shot below. At first, the attribute seemed to come and go (it disappeared and reappeared by reloading the page), and even on the same page, sometimes it was not present on every link, as documented by this other screen-shot. Weird.
A screen-shot showing nofollowed links on Twitter
Before today, registering your own app and tweeting through that was a nice way to add a personalized, search engine-friendly “from {Your site name here}” link to your tweets and get some PageRank from Twitter. For WordPress users, the Tweetable plugin did the trick, while non-bloggers could use a PHP script or roll their own. But those efforts will be vain if Twitter decides to nofollow all outgoing links to client apps.
Experiment, glitch, or spam-prevention tactic (what else)?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m going to go with spam protection as I have seen people manipulate the “sent from” text. Good move on the part of twitter.
Pardon my french, but it’s BS, every time a one these high powered sites get a bunch of followers all they turn around and do is slap a nofollow tag on everyones links. People need to stop linking to these sites, it’s funny because they want us to help them become popular but don’t want to give anything in return. That is why I never waste my time with social bookmark sites, it’s just one big fraud to get people to visit their site. If you want long term results then don’t waste your time with these sites, you will only get disappointed in the long run. Stick with web directories and your normal links exchanges, they still work wonders behind the scenes.
No official confirmation from Twitter (yet?), but it seems that nofollow is there to stay. There’s some discussion going on at Dave Naylor’s.
Roy Morejon, yes, of course it’s intended to discourage people from registering client apps solely for SEO purposes. Too bad it won’t do anything to prevent Twitter’s true plague, real-time spam.
Marlin, I believe the value of Twitter and social media goes well beyond the link juice you can suck from them…
Thanks for letting me know about the inaccurate description I made about your plugin, I appreciate it.
Also interesting post, something to think about for future tweets.
Paul.
Hi there Everfluxx, I’m just a regular asshole who does link spamming for a living: I dropped this comment on your blog just to link to 360gome dot com. My IP address is 66.154.127.66 and my feet smell badly. Greetings from Canada!