PR Block

Reduces the incentive for comment spam.

Contents

zem_prblock is a Textpattern plugin that reduces the incentive for comment spam by blocking PageRank on outgoing links. It also allows attributes such as class and target to be selectively applied to links to external web sites.

Comment spam is usually motivated by web site owners trying to improve their ranking in Google search results. They do this by including links to their web site in comments submitted to many different blogs. Google interprets these links as meaning that the spammer’s web site is very popular.

zem_prblock works by ensuring that Google ignores links to external web sites. It offers two different methods: javascript redirection, and the rumoured-soon-to-be-announced just-announced rel=nofollow technique. The plugin only effects links within a predefined block, and skips local, relative and ‘mailto:’ links.

Download the current version: zem_prblock-0.1.txt
View the online docs: PR Block documentation

You can see a demonstration of the plugin on Threshold State’s comment pages, for example in the comments below this article. External links all have rel="nofollow" and target="_blank" attributes (applied automatically by zem_prblock), and are displayed with a different underline style to internal links.


18 January 2005, 07:06 by Alex ·

I’m impressed this plugin sold so fast, since comment spam is not a problem right now on TXP sites. Dean should probably include this in the default TXP install, as it would probably discourage spammers from eventually targeting TXP sites in the first place.

— ramanan    Jan 19, 12:47 am    #

Exactly – now is the right time to implement this kind of measure, before the spammers target Textpattern. That way there’s a fair chance they’ll turn their attention elsewhere.

Once they get started, they’ll be inclined to keep going, even if their success rate is reduced to near zero.

— Alex    Jan 19, 03:09 am    #

You should post this in the Forum, see what people think. I’ll try this out on my site shortly. Six Apart’s just posted an article on this very topic.

— ramanan    Jan 19, 05:44 am    #

Once again, thanks Alex… and whoever our anonymous benefactor is.

— Alan    Jan 19, 02:35 pm    #

Uhh, am I missing something? I don’t see a link on this page or the documentation page to actually download this plug-in. Is it still available?

— Erik    Apr 10, 11:47 am    #

Download link fixed, sorry about that.

— Alex    Apr 14, 10:11 am    #

As target is deprecated in the newer doctypes (except for use in a frameset), its use may break validation.

That said this is a nice plugin.

— WD Milner    Jun 24, 04:58 am    #

Commenting is closed for this article.