The question I seem to be getting a lot is what is the point of Trackback Spider if most blogs now use the rel=”nofollow” tag?

And I would have to respond some blogs do use the nofollow tag, but even the ones that use it still may not be using it for trackback links.

But who’s to say that links with the “nofollow” tag aren’t at all valuable. From my experience they are.

Also keep in mind that the “nofollow” attribute is still relatively new and not all blog owners keep their blog updated to the latest and greatest software. From my research this is the case more times than not. So there is still plenty of opportunity to get links from blogs.

I recently read a great post about the “nofollow” tag over at Search Engine Journal.

Basically they polled some search engines about how they deal with the “nofollow” attribute. What they found was that even though Google will absolutely ignore these links. Yahoo still uses these links for indexing and Ask.com’s spiders will totally ignore the attribute.

The bottom line is that Trackback Spider allows you to either ignore the “nofollow” attribute or to eliminate any blog with the “nofollow” attribute. I have done tests searching with and without and it really has not made a significant difference in the total links I can find.

And most importantly even with the “nofollow” tag you can still receive traffic from these links. So there is still an inherent value in a relevant link to your site.

Trackback Spider goes LIVE Tuesday May 29th 2007 at 1200 CST. The best way to stay informed is by joining our announcement list…see the opt-in box in the upper right hand sidebar. If you haven’t already joined our announcement list and gotten a copy of the report Underground Link Building Volume 1, just enter your name and email to the right and press “submit”.

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Cheers,
Jared