cygweb

I read about this as well. I cannot imagine a true commenter being upset with the "nofollow" tag. Although I give any commenter to my site the option of including a URL, this in no way should be expected to be an endorsement to the commenter, it is a courtesy of those who run the site. This tag is win, win, you can include your site url if others decide to click on it, but it cannot be used as a sort of Google bomb so to speak.

Yeah, but it doesn't help with the problem of the spam showing up in the first place. Google seems to believe that comment spam is centered around improving a search engine rank, but it could just as easily be advertising...

A well-placed robots.txt file would accomplish the same thing without requiring a rewrite of the blog software. For those of us who roll our own sites, that's an option.

I agree that this won't show immediate benefits. I've deleted hundreds of comment/trackback spams over the last few weeks, and only one or two ever made it past MT-Blacklist. Comment spam is still too easy for spammers to automate (at least, against the default settings of the major packages). There's probably going to have to be more than just Google juice to lose to really make an impact.

I don't want it to seem like I think this will end comment spam, but part of what made this event "major" was that it was so widely supported.

A lot of the idea behind comment spam is search engine rank however. So I think it will help. But I do agree with what Don says, some of it just the same spam they try to place in your inbox.

This is not a needed option for me, because I do not get comment spam. But if the spammers put an effort into getting me, they could. So anything that keeps them thinking on the big market end, keeps them from worrying about getting past methods such as mine.

If I had to delete comments constantly, I would probably be tempted to require registration to comment or disable commenting altogether.

MT-Blacklist seems to be working pretty well. I've allowed anyone to post without moderation now and MTB seems to pick up all of the comment spam without a flaw. It even moderates a few comments that are on old posts (which I simply approve).

This seems like double protection. MT-Blacklist as the first action, and the "nofollow" as a backup. Either way, not comment spammer is getting anything from commenting on my site. Just a big fat mark on my whiteboard at home for the people that I hate. ** insert evil laughter **