Today I received an email from Wikitravel with the title An important announcement from Wikitravel.org re SEO. It read as follows…

As from April 12th 2010, all links placed at Wikitravel.org are marked as no follow.

This action has been taken after a long debate in the community, and is designed to lessen the volume of links placed at the site purely for the purpose of search engine optimisation. Dealing with the volume of edits driven by placement of such links, has caused strain on the volunteer team who keep Wikitravel in order. This left us with little choice other than to make the site far less attractive for SEO purposes.
Wikitravel.org has always embraced the business community and will continue to do so. We welcome hotel, restaurant and other travel related listings (see: http://wikitravel.org/en/Welcome,_business_owners ), that are added for the benefit of travellers. There is no change to this policy, other than the action taken to discourage SEO-driven placements.

We would be very grateful if you circulated the news of this development throughout your organisation, and amongst your clients if appropriate.

Best regards

The Wikitravel Administration Team
http://www.wikitravel.org

Well, there you have it. The great unwashed SEO masses have ruined yet another wonderful source of SEO due to the basic tragedy of the commons problem. Although this pales next to things like Global Warming, it is yet another reminder of how the humans are likely doomed.