An excellent discussion of this new tag and how it works can be found at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728

Google announced new tag in a 1/18/2005 post to their own blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/

And Microsoft added their support to new tag in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/18/nofollow_tags.aspx

At first blush, anything that can help cut down comment spam that most bloggers are daily subjected to would seem to be a good thing. It can be pretty upsetting to access your blog in morning and find 50 junk comments with links to casino, adult, and pharmacy sites. If your blog has any PageRank, you can expect to find more of this garbage polluting your site every day. Fighting spread of comment spam has become a necessity.

But after first cheering proactiveness of search engines, many bloggers have stepped back and taken a closer look and they don't like what they see. You can read a sampling of their thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forum: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3797

Brian Turner's incisive article "New Nofollow Tag Cheers Bloggers but Fails Blogs" discusses some of potential abuses of new nofollow tag: http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2005/01/new_nofollow_ta.html

And Jim Pryke's article "Bloggers Cheer Google As Their Search Rankings Plummet" makes it very clear that not only will this NOT stop comment spam. But it will actually hurt bloggers as a community: http://netinstitute.com/archives/2005/01/20/bloggers-cheer-google-as-their-search-rankings-plummet

For an hilarious take on new tag and how it will get abused, be sure to take a look at Link Condom: http://www.linkcondom.com

I have to agree with these bloggers that nofollow tag won't even put a dent in problem of comment spam. You have to realize that comment spammers who cause most problems are ones who use automated bots to spread their spam onto every blog they find. The fact that they find a blog using nofollow tag won't stop bot from posting. If you have a popular blog, you'll still wake up every morning to find 50 casino/pharmacy/adult ads on your blog. You'll still have to spend time deleting those posts to clean up your blog.

You see, problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage. Whether links pass PR or not isn't big issue for bloggers. It's time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and detraction to their sites. The nofollow tag won't do a thing about that problem. You'll still have problems, even if you use tag.

Think about this: how effective have email filters been in stopping email spam? As most of us know, they've hardly done any good at all. Email spam becomes a bigger problem every day. Spammers really don't care if some of their emails are blocked. They just send more of it to compensate. The same will be true of automated comment spam bots.

The fact of matter is, there are already much better tools in most blogging software to fight comment spam AND save time and effort of blogger at same time. There are already a number of plugins for WordPress, Moveable Type, and other blogs. There will undoubtedly be more in future. These tools are already more effective at fighting comment spam than this nofollow tag will ever be.

You could just open a game and start playing, but you could do as I do! I open a multi window browser, start a few traffic exchange programs, one of them with a solitaire game (while surfing) and start gaining credits so my pages will be displayed in those programs as well.

What I am doing is using pay per click (they pay with credit points) programs to be able to promote my sites and offers. You have to keep page you are viewing active for 20 or 30 seconds and can go on to next page. Most programs have a 2:1 or 3:2 conversion rate, meaning that for each 1 1/2 or 2 pages you see from other members, you may show yours 1 time. Pay per click, banner exchanges and impressions, start page programs, there are a lot of ways you can promote your site and/or offers.

Personally I really like these exchanges. I see other websites and in addition to earning free traffic, I get ideas for my website, I find all kinds of free stuff, I see all latest offers and sometimes I find a program that I really like and join. And as I said before, I play a game of solitaire while surfing for hits.

You are doing your things, doing business, chatting or who knows what you are doing. And at same time you have some traffic exchanges programs running. People like to know some SECRETS, here is one: most people do not really want to surf for hits. I did not, most likely you don't either, BUT people who really surf (if even only 1 hour daily) are greatly rewarded. I receive several times a week 50 or 250 free hits from trafficswarm, 200 free banner displays from one of other), 200 from webbizinsiders etc. etc.

As a lot of people are lazy, when they have some money, they buy. The traffic exchange programs have to reward people who actually surf and they do! If I would have to pay all free traffic I get with surfing one hour a day, I would have to pay about 15 dollars a day. Not much, but remember, I run these programs with a multi page browser, I play my games and at same time I do my things on internet! Do not underestimate this! When you are starting, this can be one of biggest resources you can find!

How to use traffic exchanges Join some programs, submit your url's and start surfing. It's that easy. Most programs offer a starting bonus, so you start with some credits. Some programs give you credits when you use them as your start page, each time you open your browser, you get credit points. Most programs let you introduce more than 1 url and let you choose from categories where you want to surf and where you want to display your url's.

There are people who join autosurf programs. You start program, it surfs pages and you can go watch tv or play with kids. I do not like this. It's cheating and other people using these programs do not look at your site either, so why do it at all? Well, maybe these people just do it to increase their traffic stats and rankings. I could imagine that. Some of these programs give you 2,000 or more credits just to join them and that is a nice (temporary) boost of traffic to your site. Nobody looks at it, but you got your traffic.