Richard’s Ramblings

The Remove Nofollow plugin for WordPress removes the “nofollow” attribute value from all links left within comments, and can optionally remove “nofollow” from comment authors’ links as well.

Requirements

The Remove Nofollow plugin was developed and tested with WordPress v2.3.1 and tested on WordPress MU v1.3.0. It also works perfectly with the current 2.6.2 version, and is expected to work just fine on any subsequent versions. Based on some function changes incorporated into v2.3.0 (and MU v1.3.0), the plugin might not work with any earlier versions, and has not been tested on earlier platforms.

No other plugins are required. It is not necessary to edit your templates. While it has options, the most commonly expected usage is turned on by default after activation, and you are not required to configure the plugin after activation.

Installation

WordPress (standard)

1. Copy the remove-nofollow.php file into the /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
2. Activate the plugin in the WordPress Plugin Admin panel.
3. Installation complete!

WordPress MU

1. Copy the remove-nofollow.php file into the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. While the plugin works well with WordPress MU on a per-blog basis, it can not be activated across all blogs by installing it into the /wp-content/mu-plugins/ folder. Sorry!
2. Installation complete!

Usage

Once activated, a new “Remove Nofollow” item will appear on the Settings menu in your WordPress Admin panels. The configuration page is visible only to users with the Administrator role.

On it there are two options:

• Remove “nofollow” attributes from comments. Selecting this will remove the attribute values from all links within the body of comments. On by default.
• Remove “nofollow” attributes from comment author’s links. Selecting this will remove the attribute values from links to the authors’ websites, not from the body of comments. Some WordPress themes may not display the comment author’s website, therefore this plugin may have no effect. Off by default.

The Long Story

There is a lot of debate currently around the use of the “nofollow” attribute value within links, most of it centering around Google (the inventors of the tag) and the impact on Google page ranking. The original idea was to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, and if you reliably and frequently moderate your comments that pass Akismet’s spam detection, your blog should be fairly spam-free.

My blog is spam-free. And since I am not in the business of creating or enabling spam comment farms, I decided to remove the attribute value to enable one-way or potentially two-way linking to those websites that I feel that warrant links. Google be dámnëd!

Having made the decision, I searched for just the right plugin. Sure, there are several similar plugins out there (such as NoFollow Free and Nofollow Case by Case), but I wanted something really simple that had no bells and whistles. Thus, the Remove Nofollow plugin was born one rainy evening. If you want selective or reciprocal removal, or want anything else beyond just removing the attribute value, use one of the other plugins instead. I have no plans to complicate this plugin.

The plugin is recommended for use only on blogs on which all comments are moderated and therefore with no comment spam, otherwise your search engine ranking may be adversely affected.

Revision History

This plugin is provided as-is, without any warranty of any kind, express, implied or otherwise, including without limitation, any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall I be liable for any special, incidental, consequential or indirect damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of; use, data or profits, whether or not advised of the possibility of damage, and on any theory of liability, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this plugin.