Yahoo Pipes jeopardizes the integrity of the Internet

Update: This post, initially titled "No more nofollow-insane at Google Reader", then updated as "(No) more nofollow-insane at Google Reader", accused Google Reader of inserting nofollow crap. I apologize for my lazy and faulty bug report. Read the comments.

I fell in love with Yahoo pipes because that tool allowed me to funnel the tidbits contained in a shitload of noise into a more or less clear signal. Instead of checking hundreds of blog feeds, search query feeds and whatever else, I was able to feed my preferred reader with actual payload extracted from vast loads of paydirt digged from lots of sources.

Now that I've learned that Yahoo pipes is evil I guess I must code the filters myself. Nofollow insane is not acceptable. Nofollow madness jeopardizes the integrity of the Internet which is based on free linkage. I don't need no stinking link condoms sneakily forced by nice looking tools utilizing nifty round corners. I'll be way happier with a crappy and uncomfortable PHP hack feeded with OPML files and conditions pulled from a manually edited MySQL table.

Here is the evidence right from the Yahoo pipe output:<item><br /><title>XML sitemap auto-discovery</title><br />-<br /> <link><br />https://www.blogger.com/atom/14517520/117630008750052998<br /></link><br />-<br /> <description><br /><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/">Vanessa Fox</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/04/whats-new-with-sitemapsorg.html">makes the news</a>: In addition to <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/google-sitemaps.htm">sitemap</a> submissions you can add this line to your <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/article.htm?node=140&page=46">robots.txt</a> file:<br /><pre>Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml</pre><br />Google, Yahoo, MSN and <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://sebastianx.blogspot.com/atom.xml">Ask</a> (<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://blog.ask.com/2007/04/sitemaps_autodi.html">new on board</a>) then should fetch and parse the XML sitemap automatically. Next week or so the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://sebastianx.blogspot.com/2006/02/googles-cool-robotstxt-validator.html">cool robots.txt validator</a> will get an update too.<br /><br /><b>Question: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://sebastianx.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-xml-sitemap-autodiscovery-for.html">Is XML Sitemap Autodiscovery for Everyone?</a></b><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:78%;">Tags: <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Search+Engine+Optimization">Search Engine Optimization</a> (<a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/SEO">SEO</a>) <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Google">Google</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/sitemaps">Sitemaps</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/robots.txt">robots.txt</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Yahoo+search">Yahoo</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/MSN+search">MSN</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="TEXT-DECORATION:none;" target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Ask+search">Ask</a> </span><br /></description><br />-<br /> <guid isPermaLink="false"><br />tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14517520.post-117630008750052998<br /></guid><br /><pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:01:27 -0700</pubDate><br /></item>
Also, abusing my links with target="_blank" is not nice.

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Initial post and its first update:

I'm glad Google has removed the auto-nofollow on links in blog posts. When I add a feed I trust its linkage and I don't need no stinking condoms on pages nobody except me can see unless I share them. Thanks!

Update - Nick Baum, can you hear me?

It seems the nofollow-madness is not yet completely buried. Here is a post of mine and what Google Reader shows me when I add my blog's feed:

And here is the same post filtered thru a Yahoo pipe:

So please tell me: why does Google auto-nofollow a link to Vanessa Fox when she gets linked via Yahoo, and uncondomizes the link from Google's very own blogspot dot dom? Curious ...

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