Rogers Cadenhead hits the nail on the head with his post about the doomed "nofollow" attribute. My prediction is a little different. Within about nine months Google and others will quietly determine that it has done more to hurt their databases and will quietly stop using it.

The problem is that the nofollow attribute won't stop the spam bots from polluting websites aplenty. There are plenty of ways to increase search engine placement that aren't comment spam. On the other hand nofollow will provide ways to prevent your link to a site from casting a popularity "vote" for the site but it won't stop the spam.

Nofollow was put together quickly with a few bloggers and software companies being given advanced notice but there was not a vetting that allowed developers to put their heads together and hash it out. Many people are frustrated by the process because they have to deal with attitudes that really are not helpful and their frustration is understandable but closing the process to outsiders is not the answer.