Why is almost every popular website flagged NoFollow lately?

[Nytol]

Where did this fad come from?

If everyone were to use NoFollow there would be no more websites made. The net would die, held to ransom by the Alexa top 100.

Do you think it is maybe a conspiracy to corner the market by the big boys, who are trying making sure nobody else can take a slice of the pie?

They blame it, on spam but I feel that is an invalid excuse because it's similar to a government raising a terror alert as an excuse to remove civil liberties. Null and void!

I think it kills the legitimate little guys trying to climb that ladder who are doing the right thing and delivering great, unique content.

Oh well. Please explain the positives to me. Thanks. :)

[AirForceOne]

Hi,

I think they might want to keep PR juices for their own blogs via making them nofollowed. But, I also think nofollowed back links with correct anchor text would still be useful for SERP purpose, especially from niche relative blogs.

all the best,

[shaniadavid]

Yes i agree.. Google has started giving importance to NO Follow links but they should be relevant to your domain...

[Dani]

There are two reasons why we nofollow our forum posts. The first is to combat spam. Hopefully fewer spammers will want to post on DaniWeb since they are nofollowed. The second is because we are constantly being told by Google that the "right" and "ethical" and "best SEO practice" is to nofollow links that the website owner cannot personally vouch for (aka any user-generated content), and to not nofollow all other links. Therefore, we employ this policy in that we nofollow member posts but we do not nofollow links within our editorial content.

[mushget]

the spam is the reason.