I think you’ll find that link is nofollowed. I would recommend installing the Search Status Plugin for Firefox. That will highlight most nofollowed links in pink for you and help you identify where this is being used.

You wrote this:
“Parts of this debate that do make me uncomfortable are whether it is Google’s place to tell sites to conform to nofollow? With their power and influence it seems any suggestion from them is an offer you can’t refuse (as we say in Russia!). It might be more ethical for Google just to go about their business and sites can choose to react or not react to their guidelines or penalties.”

My opinion differs with that as I don’t believe Google is telling a site owner anything, but how to do well in Google if you want indexed and have good positions. They state on their site the guidelines, etc, so it’s very up to each and every owner how they want to proceed. It’s a choice.

I actually think Matt Cutts did Twitter a big favor by alerting them to a loophole that some SEO’s are exploiting. Oh sure; some may actually be good members and post good links, etc, but many others are not at all. Many use multiple profiles with multiple usernames and do so just to game Google. It’s sad stuff, but that’s the state of the SEO industry today. The new social media sites and the loopholes out there are to be abused and exploiting by SEO’s as that is what many have done to many things over the years.

As a site owner; you have to make a choice. You either vet each and every profile that signs up and subjectively award a “good” member with the default of follow, or you do not vet each profile and simply don’t pass juice. If I were the twitter person in charge of things and received the alert from Matt; what would I do?

That’s easy; I would use nofollow. Why would Twitter want to risk their entire site’s outgoing links from counting for anything? They wouldn’t. Google could have easily just discounted EVERY single link, even outgoing links that the owner of twitter posts. At least Google alerted them to a big potential problem.

As far as a user/member owning it’s own content and editorial decisions on someone else’s website? Well gee; that’s just nutty. Sorry. LOL

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

Yes the response from some people was worrying. You’d think Google had just stomped on a major part of their link building strategy. I’ll take the free link ops where offered but they are just toys, not to be taken seriously.

I have some sympathy with the hypocrisy of Twitter canning these links but keeping their application ones live, especially as DaveN points out, they are powering link selling sites. However these link areas are UGC that Twitter, the site owner can not trust. So in my eyes use of nofollow here seems appropriate and within the original aims of the tag. After all, most of us now use nofollow in our comments.

Ownership of the content, as raised by Rae is an interesting angle. I believe she contends that as we produce the content here we should have some rights over editorially placed links but for me, that’s not how sites work. No matter how much I comment on your forum, I will never have editorial control over my material. As a contributor to that platform you have to accept that the owners have ultimate control. If you don’t like that, you don’t put your material there.

However Web 2.0 apps, such as Twitter have pushed for us all to claim our “identities” within their platforms and invest our time into filling them out. Maybe enough has changed for us to reopen this argument about content ownership.

Parts of this debate that do make me uncomfortable are whether it is Google’s place to tell sites to conform to nofollow? With their power and influence it seems any suggestion from them is an offer you can’t refuse (as we say in Russia?). It might be more ethical for Google just to go about their business and sites can choose to react or not react to their guidelines or penalties.

That would also avoid the terrible PR Twitter has got out of this incident. The way things panned out, if looked like Google asked them to jump and they asked how high. There was no communication with their community. Their fans, who are predominately *not* marketers would have agreed to nofollow this anyway, once they explained it was a loophole that was being exploited. Not to have that conversation though seems wrong.

“if your SEO success depends on loopholes in Web 2.0 apps you have bigger problems than Twitter altering their code.”

I do believe that many in this industry only know how to game the system for links. That’s why there is such an outcry when the loopholes are finally closed. The question that these type of SEO’s need to ask themselves is:

“Why would tweeter risk any of there own outgoing links to pass any juice at all when they can simply make sure that all user generated profiles don’t pass the juice?”

Second; why would Twitter want to babysit each and every profile when they know the SEO industry is only participating at their site for the multiple user profiles they can have and the multiple incoming links they can attain? They would rather not have to babysit.

People should be contributing at other sites because they truly want to be helpful and not because of some juice they might attain. Good members get visitors from their profiles anyway if they are indeed good and helpful members.

Well any links within the status messages on Twitter are nofollowed. There have been reports recently that nofollowed links are not totally discredited but even so – it’s not the same as getting a followed link.

However, as I wrote above, some other services will index the link from your feed with the nofollow removed. So it is a form of link building. There is also the traffic of course.

I would consider though how you interact with people in a social media environment like Twitter. You’re essentially an ambassador for your brand. Link in a useful way for your followers, i.e. don’t drop your own URLs on a hourly/daily basis!

Twitter is actually a leading referrer for this blog, so it’s bringing me regular traffic and brand recognition. In the long run that maybe more valuable to you than using the service to drop links.

I would recommend downloading the Search Status Plugin for Firefox. That will highlight most nofollowed links in pink for you and help you identify where this is being used.