This does not work. Many spammers are not exactly the most clever folks and often neither check the effectiveness of their links, nor if they are removed within a few hours anyway. Instead they simply send automated tools to your site, which they often do not even create themselves.
In addition to that, there are a couple of reasons more, why spammers sometimes even actively chase nofollow links. For one, many people believe a certain amount of nofollow links is part of a "healthy" link profile: having 99% follow links might be considered a "bad signal" by Google, because nofollow is just so common, you are expected to have many nofollow links.
I will not judge this theory, but the theory does exist and is followed by some people.
Plus, the fact that it seems Google simply started considering nofollow as a kind of hint, not a decision, did not help the spam situation either.
Regarding whether the nofollow helps with at least avoiding the penalty, even if you are still spammed, nobody knows whether this might work. Google is usually uptight about what it does or does not do.
> Plus, the fact that it seems Google simply started considering nofollow as a kind of hint, not a decision, did not help the spam situation either.
When nofollow is used for all user generated content they kind of have to take it as no more than a suggestion. Just ignoring UGC when it comes to ranking would throw away too much of the web.
This suggests spammers care about the quality of the links their bots post rather than the quantity. I suspect that isn't the case. Spam is always worthwhile to post because forum might change to remove the nofollow in future, a forum user might follow a link, and it's not worth the effort bothering to check if a forum is providing 'value' to the network. In other words, it's easier to to spam everyone and hope some of it proves useful.
I think they meant specifically in the context of avoiding being penalised by Google; my admittedly lay understanding is that "nofollow" would've helped here -- the spammers would still spam of course, but the penalty would not be as severe? Or apply at all, perhaps? Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding though
In addition to that, there are a couple of reasons more, why spammers sometimes even actively chase nofollow links. For one, many people believe a certain amount of nofollow links is part of a "healthy" link profile: having 99% follow links might be considered a "bad signal" by Google, because nofollow is just so common, you are expected to have many nofollow links.
I will not judge this theory, but the theory does exist and is followed by some people.
Plus, the fact that it seems Google simply started considering nofollow as a kind of hint, not a decision, did not help the spam situation either.
Regarding whether the nofollow helps with at least avoiding the penalty, even if you are still spammed, nobody knows whether this might work. Google is usually uptight about what it does or does not do.