JeremyKuo
The proprietary nature of ranking algos will IMHO perpetuate the information asymmetry and thus the need for specialists. I foresee more of a Darwinian outcome.
I blogged about the topic of the alleged case sensitivity on search at:http://tinyurl.com/6jszv6
Exact words from my YSM biz dev rep on Apr 29th by email: "It’s kind of in limbo at the moment", "Since the ambassador program for new members has been temporarily put at a standstill, we can’t make any changes in the system at the time including in the certification pages."
Stigma is all in the semantics.NoFollow "abuse" is only abusive on the premise that PageRank sculpting is bad. Based on a loosely subjective interpretation, the nofollowed destination page can either be construed as 1) a fear-mongered non-trusted page, OR 2) from a practical and usability standpoint as a trusted page that is useful but not mission-critical for what the site visitor is really there for (e.g. the privacy policy can be argued as a legal requisite and a comfort doc, but not mandatory for an informational or sales transaction -- the original intent). Stephan’s example of nofollowing the non keyword-rich anchor text version is right on point too.Similarly, popular use, and perhaps adoption of internal nofollows as a best practice won’t necessarily devalue it’s alleged impact. I think the meta tag analogy is irrelevant. Meta tags were used back in the day as an absolute site ranking mechanism. Internal Pagerank sculpting is firstly a page-relative method to promote designated pages on your site with more impetus.
Story: How the SEO Bubble Will Pop