NOFOLLOW in Forum Topic External Links?
-
We run a busy aviation website, with lots of members who post external links within our forum. Currently, we implement NOFOLLOW tags on all external links or links to external sites not in our domain portfolio.
Would we benefit from removing the NOFOLLOW attribute? Would we benefit from keeping it?
Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
-
I have a blog that gets about six to ten posts per day. Each of those posts has a link to another website. All of these links are do-follow. I do that because the sites that I am linking to are all very high quality and have better content for that subject that I have on my site.
I believe that when you are "linking up" to sites better than yours for a topic that the outgoing links are valuable.
However, I also believe that if you are "linking down" to trash sites and pages of unrelated content then the links can harm your site.
I would never give control of outgoing links on my site to strangers and even when my employees post content I always review the target of every outgoing link myself.
-
Thank you for your responses guys.
I was also asking if there would be any SEO benefit of "DO-FOLLOWING" the links? I.E. Google noticing that the page content doesn't include any NOFOLLOW links?
Most, if not all of the links are to legitamate aviation related websites.
-
Agree with Scott. Almost every forum I've seen that allows followed external links gets spammed so you'll need a strategy to combat that. If the links provide value I'm not sure if following/no-following will make much difference to community behaviour, but they might encourage the more seo-savvy users to post links (and of course, attract the spammers).
At the simplest level you could try requiring javascript from posters, but I suspect you'll need something a bit more sophisticated. There are forum posting and blog commenting tools that try and solve captchas so ultimately, i suspect there will be little alternative but to manually moderate the forum.
-
Are these links going to other great sources of aviation content... or are they simply people linking to personal websites, websites who pay them to grub links, and websites who paid somebody who paid these people to grub links on your site?
My question is... are these people turning your site into a linkfarm? If they are then you better keep the nofollow or heavily moderate.
If you remove the nofollow and word gets out that you have a "do follow" forum then that could be like painting a target on your own behind.
-
The nofollow attribute was created to help discourage spam.
If people post a ton of unrelated links that provide little or no benefit to the page I would leave the nofollows there. But if the links provide value it might be a good idea to allow them to be followed.
Just remember there's a large number of spammers out there that are looking for places to post followed links. Your spam might increase dramatically overnight.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does Navigation Bar have an effect on the link juice and the number of internal links?
Hi Moz community, I am getting the "Avoid Too Many Internal Links" error from Moz for most of my pages and Google declared the max number as 100 internal links. However, most of my pages can't have internal links less than 100, since it is a commercial website and there are many categories that I have to show to my visitors by using the drop down navigation bar. Without counting the links in the navigation bar, the number of internal links is below 100. I am wondering if the navigation bar links affect the link juice and counted as internal links by Google. The Same question also applies to the links in the footer. Additionally, how about the products? I have hundreds of products in the category pages and even though I use pagination I still have many links in the category pages (probably more than 100 without even counting the navigation bar links). Does Google count the product links as internal links and how about the effect on the link juice? Here is the website if you want to take a look: http://www.goldstore.com.tr Thank you for your answers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onurcan-ikiz0 -
Too many on page links
Hi I know previously it was recommended to stick to under 100 links on the page, but I've run a crawl and mine are over this now with 130+ How important is this now? I've read a few articles to say it's not as crucial as before. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Social Links through Link Shortners. Does it count?
We use link shortner services like Bitly, Goo.gl, etc. Does the post used while making use of such link shortner services counts as a social signal. Or should we post the complete website url pointing to each page while posting on social sites. Secondly, should we write a new description while posting on Social sites or just copy paste a few lines of original posts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
First Link on Page Still Only Link on Page?
Bruce Clay and others did some research and found that the first link on the page is the most important and what is accredited as the link. Any other links on the page mean nothing. Is this still true? And in that case, on an ecommerce site with category links in the top navigation (which is high on the code), is it not useful to link to categories in the content of the page? Because the category is already linked to on that page. Thank you, Tyler
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
Wikipedia links - any value?
Hello everyone. We recently posted some of our research to Wikipedia as references in the "External Links" section. Our research is rigorous and has been referenced by a number of universities and libraries (an example: https://www.harborcompliance.com/information/company-suffixes.php). Anyway, I'm wondering if these Wikipedia links have any value beyond of course adding to the Wiki page's information. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Harbor_Compliance0 -
How quickly should you aquire links?
Hi Guys, How often should you aquire links without getting into trouble with Goolge? Should you aqure a linka day? Or a link every 2 days? What should it be? Thanks guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Is this splitting my authority or link juice?
Hi Using seomoz i am getting told that a 302 temporary redirect is occurring on some of my pages for instance. http://www.eco-environments.co.uk/solar-power/ Then redirects here http://www.eco-environments.co.uk/solar-power/default.phuse is this splitting my page authority because of the temporary redirect? I just want to make sure i have fully understood what's happening before i go to the company who designed and developed our site as i am convinced this is hurting my rankings. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nickhoyle10 -
Can I reduce number of on page links by just adding "no follow" tags to duplicate links
Our site works on templates and we essentially have a link pointing to the same place 3 times on most pages. The links are images not text. We are over 100 links on our on page attributes, and ranking fairly well for key SERPS our core pages are optimized for. I am thinking I should engage in some on-page link juice sculpting and add some "no follow" tags to 2 of the 3 repeated links. Although that being said the Moz's on page optimizer is not saying I have link cannibalization. Any thoughts guys? Hope this scenario makes sense.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robertrRSwalters0