Matt Cutts says a small majority of the web is nofollowed (which is confirmed by Linkscape data). He doesn’t say that a huge majority of the social web is dofollowed. I firmly believe it isn’t. And since Google loves editorial links, they should love the good social links – forums, blogs, voting site comments, etc.

So why is so much of the social web still nofollowed? In theory, it helps us webmasters to rank better when we link out. It helps our social contributors receive link love. It’s great for Google in general.

Oh, right… SPAM. The applications that auto-spam WordPress blogs and Pligg, and the SEnuke’s of the world. There’s plenty of them. So, Google gave us the nofollow microformat to let us help them keep the web clean(er). But is slapping an automatic “nofollow” script really that helpful?

It’s a social web. I believe it’s our responsibility as good, contributing webmasters to monitor our user-generated links. If you’d like, put up rules about what you’ll accept and don’t accept (for example, no business names in the anchor text, or no links to product sites, etc). Make these rules simple and visible. Then, routinely prune anything that fails to meet the criteria. It’s a little extra work, but it’s worth it if you love your site.

I’m a dofollow SEO blog, and though Akismet (in WordPress) catches most my obvious automated spam, I still routinely go through my comments and make edits to rule breakers. Oh well. Clearly most don’t see it my way.

But as Google grows into a more contextual, learning machine, I think these nofollows are going to be a hindrance. I have heard of the tests that claim Google may be opting to follow certain links that are marked nofollow when it suits their needs,
but I haven’t seen it yet in my tests. As Google’s algorithm gets better, and they start to better understand what they read, while simultaneously finding other ways to defend against spam, I’m sure they’re going to start hopping the nofollow fence more often.

When I say “makes SEO easier,” I don’t just mean performing SEO, but also living as an SEO.

A few years ago I wrote a post about how great Firefox was for SEO. Oh, I was such a fanboy. Especially due to the huge amout of Greasemonkey scripts I was finding.  This is in the early days of extending browsers, mind you.

But since January of 2009, Firefox started to get slower, and Chrome started to get less buggy.  I’m not sure when I made the switch, but Chrome is my BOC (browser of choice).  I really love how the extensions run independently of the browser.  Smart move – my RAM thanks you.  Plus, most of the time they update on their own and don’t even bother you unless something is new or notable.

There’s still a few occasions where I have to fire up Firefox.  It’s so clunky and slow now, I sort of dread it.  I’m still a fan of SEObook’s rank checker (though I do have SEO Serp installed into Chrome).

So here’s 10 SEO chrome extensions I’m running (in the order they appear on my toolbar).  Granted, some aren’t necessarily all about SEO, but provides productivity nonetheless.

1. Chromed Bird – I loved TweetDeck, and still use it on my iPhone, but other than posting to Facebook at the same time, Chromed Bird does everything Tweetdeck does for me.  Partitions my conversations, searches, and manages my lists.  Whenever someone tweets something in my list (like SEO for example), a little box pops up at the bottom of my browser with the tweet.  I never miss what my favorite SEOs have to say – helps me stay up with SEO news, especially since I can’t find the time to hit Google Reader every day.
2. Webpage Screenshot – Though Google built one that seems very robust, I’m still partial to the Webpage Screenshot extension.  Let’s me edit and save a shot as JPG or PNG (which I love, because I hate JPG compression!!!).  I can choose from the usual options – full page or visible screenshot.  Then, a new tab will open with an editor.  Very similar to Snagit.  I use Webpage Screenshot all the time to record before and after SEO work.
3. Google Mail Checker Plus - Won’t go into much detail here… it’s a Gmail previewer/bookmark.
4. Google Reader Notifier – Like the Google Mail Checker Plus above, it lets me know what articles I have left to read, and simply opens up a Google Reader tab.  It maxes out at 1,000 which is where I’m always at.  Again… I just can’t get caught up on my newsreader.
5. SEO Site Tools – Love this one.  First off, it’s my PageRank snapshot of choice (right there on the magnifying glass icon).  But clicking this gives you a drop down with a lot of cool pieces of information.  External page data, social media stats, page terms, page elements, server info, and suggestions.  There are a lot of free sites that give you this same, mostly fluff data, but it’s nice having it on the fly.  Especially when trying to figure out answers to client questions.
6. Meta SEO Inspector – Like this one too.  It stays open in the bottom right, and gives you meta and head data.  Nice if you’re running through a bunch of pages.  It gives quick warnings as well.  Helpful.
7. SEO Chrome Mozbar – When SEOmoz turned off their agency machine, and went exclusively into software/appware, they really kicked it up.  If you’re finding their suite useful, you’ll find this extension useful too.
8. Firebug is one of my go-to tools.  Unfortunately, at this point, the version they built for Chrome (called “lite”) isn’t quite as robust as the Firefox version.  I still flip to Firefox’s Firebug most of the time, but since I always have Chrome open, there are occasions I know I can get away without leaving my browser.  I expect this to grow, and can’t wait until it does.  With Firebug I can inspect (and edit) code without having to boot up Dreamweaver.  I like that.
9. Web Developer is another must have in Firefox, that has recently been ported over to chrome.  Pretty sure I use this every day.  Want to see what a site looks like without Javascript, or CSS?  Want to get deeper into the spider’s eye view of the world?  This is the tool you need.  Need to resize, validate, or highlight sections of your site?  You got it.  A lot you can do, and really essential for web designers/developers, but since SEO gets technical, it’s great for us too.
10. Note Anywhere is a great extension that allows you to tag pages with a big, yellow stick-em.  Why is this good for SEO?  Well, if you’ve optimized a page and want to make note of it for the next time you browse that page, stick a note on it.  My desk is full of sticky notes – now, so are my clients’ pages.

10 SEO Chrome Extensions