[3.5.0] Apply rel="nofollow" to Parsed URLs for Certain Users/Groups

In the first cooperative move for nearly ten years, the major search engines have unveiled a new indexing command for web authors that they all recognize, one that they hope will help reduce the link and comment spam that plagues many web sites....due to removing the point of doing it in the first place.

The new "nofollow" attribute that can be associated with links was originated as an idea by Google in late 2004 and MSN and Yahoo, as well as major blogging vendors have jumped onboard.

The Nofollow Attribute

The new attribute is called "nofollow" with rel="nofollow" being the format inserted within an anchor tag.
When added to any link, it will effectively serve as a flag to tell the search engines that the link has not been explictly approved by the site owner, and therefore "not follow" it, or not use the referring page's (on your site) Page Rank in any way.

For example, this is how the HTML markup for an ordinary link might look:

This is how the link would look after the nofollow attribute has been added, with the attribute portion shown in bold

Once added, the search engines supporting the attribute will understand that the link has not been approved by the site owner.

Think of it as a way to flag to them, "I didn't post this link -- someone else did, don't associate me with it."

The site that is being linked to will gain nothing from the link, so the whole point of doing it in the first place is removed.

This will affect URLs in posts, as well as signatures...anything that goes through the bbcodeparse function as far as I can tell/guess, and will work recursively, or whatever the word is that means 'it will affect all existing posts and signatures'...or it did for me anyway.

To change the conditional number of posts, alter to whatever you like.

I can't see how this could be done as a plugin, but if anyone wants to point out how, that would be nicer....YAY Kirby!

Now all you need to do is unzip the attached file, upload the plugin using your Admin CP - Plugin System - Plugin Manager!

Relax, safe in the knowledge that spammers linking from your site are doing so for no reason whatsoever.