wheel - 7:58 pm on Feb 19, 2009 (gmt 0)

but this isn't like nofollow.

It's exactly like nofollow. Nofollow was for your benefit too. As tedster pointed out in another thread to debunk conspiracy theories :) there's old threads around here where people used to talk about how great nofollow would cut out spam. When was the last time someone mentioned spam and nofollow in the same breath? Nofollow is discussed primarily around paid links and pr sculpting now.

I appreciate I sound like tfh guy and appreciate there's some validity to that perception. But I disagree that this tag can't be distorted exactly like nofollow was. The initial characteristics are identical.

In any event, I seem to be able to rank without using any of this stuff, even on sites that have all sorts of potential canonical issues and duplicate content.