# Rel=nofollow or akismet **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 9, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rel-nofollow-or-akismet/102031 "2006-08-09T12:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kulpreet_S)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rel-nofollow-or-akismet/102031/1 "2006-08-09T12:58:32Z")
Hi guys, My site ( [http://shunya.in](http://shunya.in) ) recently started receiving some spam and I had ignored the issue till it became a problem, and I guess it is becoming a problem now. I looked around on suggested ways to address the problem and found two systems - CAPTCH and Akismet. I consider both of them in this email along with the reasons why I am debating using neither of them. Then I ask for your advice. CAPTCHA ( [http://dev.2750flesk.com/validates\_captcha/](http://dev.2750flesk.com/validates_captcha/) ) will keep bots out, but what if some rascals are posting comments just to get a high google page rank. I think these guys are manually posting the “anonymous comments”. So CAPTCHA wont solve my problem. Akismet ( [http://akismet.com/](http://akismet.com/) ) will solve my problem if their spam detector is good. I am close to using it, but wanted to get your opinion about it. Has anyone used it? Is it as good as they want us to believe. Now I propose an alternative solution - What if I put “rel-nofollow” in all links that are submitted via comments, and say I will do so right next to the comment form. Thus telling spammers, “you are welcome to post spam, but it will not help your cause.” Will it discourage spammers. What do you think? I have used the same solution on my webalizer info page ([shunya.in is available for purchase - Sedo.com](http://en.shunya.in/webalizer/index.html)), which is public. I has started getting “referral spam”, and in response I stopped posting “referrer” part of the webalizer results. Seems to have drastically reduced referral spam. -kp – Home is where .emacs is ---
**Author:** ![Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kulpreet_S)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 3:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rel-nofollow-or-akismet/102031/2 "2006-08-09T15:07:42Z")
Hi there, On 8/9/06, Kulpreet S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Now I propose an alternative solution - > > What if I put “rel-nofollow” in all links that are submitted via comments, and > say I will do so right next to the comment form. Thus telling spammers, “you > are welcome to post spam, but it will not help your cause.” Will it > discourage spammers. What do you think? I don’t think spammers actually read your page. So no it won’t stop them… A _good_ CAPTCHA should do the trick. It’s what MSN/Google etc use. Eaden ---
**Author:** ![Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kulpreet_S)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rel-nofollow-or-akismet/102031/3 "2006-08-15T14:19:29Z")
On 09/08/06, Kulpreet S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > CAPTCHA ( [http://dev.2750flesk.com/validates\_captcha/](http://dev.2750flesk.com/validates_captcha/) ) will keep bots > out, > but what if some rascals are posting comments just to get a high google > page > rank. I think these guys are manually posting the “anonymous comments”. So > CAPTCHA wont solve my problem. I doubt anyone is manually posting spam, but I’d be interested in finding out what you base your claim on. What if I put “rel-nofollow” in all links that are submitted via comments, > and > say I will do so right next to the comment form. Thus telling spammers, > “you > are welcome to post spam, but it will not help your cause.” Will it > discourage spammers. What do you think? rel=nofollow hasn’t worked. If anything, my blogspam increased since adding it. It stopped almost completely, when I put in CAPTCHA. YMMV though. ---
**Author:** ![Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kulpreet\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kulpreet_S)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rel-nofollow-or-akismet/102031/4 "2006-08-15T14:19:59Z")
On Monday 14 August 2006 03:35, Hasan D. wrote: > I doubt anyone is manually posting spam, but I’d be interested in finding > out what you base your claim on. Yup. I was wrong. The rascal is using scripts, what was I thinking? 🙂 > it. It stopped almost completely, when I put in CAPTCHA. YMMV though. > Well I now have rel=nofollow _and_ Akismet. Akismet is giving brilliant performance, got one “escaped spam” in almost a week. And the response times are low enough to be non-intrusive. I just hope their systems scale well in future with increasing user base and potential attacks by spammers. -kp > – > Cheers, > Hasan D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) – Home is where .emacs is