?replytocom= links should have rel=nofollow

[joliss]

Since Wordpress 3.1 I've been getting lots of hits from crawlers that end like "/?replytocom=72". That's unnecessary network overhead and probably bad for SEO.

I would suggest that the rel='nofollow' attribute should be set on the replytocom links in wp-includes/comment-template.php.

[solarissmoke]

This was changed in #10550. There is a lengthy discussion on the SEO implications there.

rel="canonical" should be preventing duplicate indexing - but i do agree that it is unnecessary overhead.

​filosofo's comment on #10550 may offer a better solution.

[scribu]

Closing as duplicate of #10550. Please continue the discussion over there.