Danny Sullivan has a story about the new attribute which Google, Yahoo and MSN have agreed to implement.

Just a heads up - one more thing to look for when you are exchanging links.

that's an interesting idea

Yes but that will mean the the link text will not count either, but it does give you an easy way to link out to other sites you want to reference, without passing PR, and thus keeping what you have within your site.

i didnt realise PR 'leaked' like that, i just figure you were increasing someone else's PR by linking to them... but I now realise if that were the case, every1 would have a PR of 10 by now!

I thought this new attribute was relating to big companies who supply Blog programs, didnt realise it was for forums, guestbooks e.t.c as well.

I read an article earlier on this subject: -

http://www.sixapart.com/log/2005/01/sup ... _nof.shtml

Thats one of the areas it addresses and it is being supported by Blog software makers so that link spam is cut out in Blog posts, but it works anywhere.

I guess I'll have to start looking for more creative ways to spam links

any plans to implement the new attribute into this forum?

I think it is going to cause major headaches for a lot of webmasters. But in some aspects it will be better. However the sites that should get pr probably won't now. Such as sites you may refrence.

Internal link text doesn't count anyway Mel.

I' haven't decided to use it in the forum, but I'm thinking about it.

A few people have rightly pointed out that it won't do away with comment spam, and the automated comments (and forum registrations) will continue successfully. The reason is that it requires sites to use the "rel" attribute, and a great many blog sites have been abandoned and won't use it. A great many forums won't use it either, but I am sure that many will.

Still, it's a step in the right direction.

I'm not so sure that internal link text doesn't count Phil. I have a good many rankings based on internal anchor text links.

I'd like to examine one of those rankings, Mel.

I have tests that show (prove?) that internal link text doesn't count for rankings when the searchterm isn't present on the target page. I am in the process of testing whether or not internal link text helps the ranking when the phrase is on the target page.

The test is to place a phrase on a page andhave no matching link text at all pointing to it. Then after its ranking for the phrase has stabilised, add some internal link texts to see if it makes a difference. The problem I've had so far is that, just placing one instance of the phrase on the page gets it a #1 ranking, so any link text boost won't show. But I have a reasonably stable ranking now, and if it stays stable today, I'll add the link texts.

Did all the test so far come from the forum or did some of them come from other internal links also?

The links on the front page of this site show what I've said - when the exact phrase is on the target page, the target page ranks; when the exact phrase is not on the target page, the targeted internal link text does not cause it to rank - it's not in the serps at all.

I have a test going on with the internal forum-wide links. It is to see if removing the links changes the ranking of the target page. The test has only just started - a matter of minutes ago.

Any update on the internal anchor text test?

Not yet. The tests are still ongoing but it takes time.