Techcrunch unfolds the latest controversy that has started since the announcement of Wikipedia that all outbound links from the online encyclopedia would include the nofollow tag.

The report said:
The nofollow tag on a link is said to prevent link spamming since some search engines (Google among them) do not count links containing the tag towards any weighing of the destination page. What this means is that a link from Wikipedia will no longer boost the position of a page in search results, the intention being that this will deter spammers from sneaking links onto Wikipedia."

In Febuary of 2005 the Wikipedia community voted in favor (by a vote of 61% to 39%) of removing the nofollow tags, but this outcome was overruled by Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, earlier this year. It seems that while the nofollow tag is added to the standard outbound links, it isn't applied to inter-wiki links, including links to Wikia, Wikipedia's for-profit spin off.

The result: wikis included on the white list are granted outbound links that do not contain the "nofollow" tag. These sites benefit directly by receiving higher search engine placements, which is equivalent to additional traffic and authority. Many direct competitors to Wikia, such as Wetpaint, are not included in the white list as of today.

To provide an even playing field, Wikipedia should include the nofollow tag for links to all other wikis using the Wikimedia platform.