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  4. Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

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Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

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  • Jeepster
    Jeepster last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 2:04 PM

    I've written a guest blog post for a site. In the link back to my site they've put a rel="follow" attribute. Is that valid HTML?

    I've Googled it but the answers are inconclusive, to say the least.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • irvingw
      irvingw @SVmedia last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 4:58 PM Feb 15, 2013, 4:58 PM

      I don't think so either, but you never know. Simple enough test to run to see if Google recognizes a "follow" or "dofollow" tag, simple enough test to run that's for sure. If it is hardcoded in the link code it will override any external nofollow tag.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Jeepster
        Jeepster @CMC-SD last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 4:57 PM Feb 15, 2013, 4:57 PM

        Hi, what I meant was whether I should be looking for robot txt at the top of the page or somesuch

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Jeepster
          Jeepster @irvingw last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 4:55 PM Feb 15, 2013, 4:55 PM

          Hi Irvnig

          Thanks for the response but the issue of adding tags doesn't apply as it's not my site.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • CMC-SD
            CMC-SD @Jeepster last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 4:47 PM Feb 15, 2013, 4:47 PM

            AFAIK, there is no way to "sneakily" no-follow a link. You no-follow a link by adding rel=nofollow. If rel=nofollow isn't there, the link is followed.

            Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Feb 15, 2013, 4:57 PM Reply Quote 0
            • irvingw
              irvingw @Jeepster last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 4:37 PM Feb 15, 2013, 4:37 PM

              test it to see if for some reason it is recognized, just for fun.

              if something on a site is nofollowed by default and doesn't show up in the source code of that link (meaning it is declared in another piece of code), add a rel="follow" and a rel="dofollow" tag and see if it overrides the nofollow by using a firefox plugin tool that highlights nofollow links for you (you should already have this installed if you are an SEO)

              Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Feb 15, 2013, 4:55 PM Reply Quote 0
              • Jeepster
                Jeepster last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 3:29 PM Feb 15, 2013, 3:29 PM

                The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                Yep, that's what I've read as well.

                Now he's changed it to rel="dofollow"  (no, me neither) -- which strikes me as even more gobbledegook.

                Obviously I'm going to ask him to leave out the attribute altogether. But what other attributes should I be looking for on the page source (CTRL+U) to ensure he hasn't sneakily no-followed all the links on the page?

                irvingw CMC-SD 2 Replies Last reply Feb 15, 2013, 4:47 PM Reply Quote 0
                • SVmedia
                  SVmedia last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 3:22 PM Feb 15, 2013, 3:04 PM

                  GoogleBot does obey the rel="nofollow" attribute.. as for rel="follow" - I don't think so.  The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                  irvingw 1 Reply Last reply Feb 15, 2013, 4:58 PM Reply Quote 2
                  • STL
                    STL Subscriber last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 2:33 PM Feb 15, 2013, 2:33 PM

                    It's a way of controlling the link power from a site. They're passing on the link juice to you.

                    If you want the search engines to see that link on the external blog, then what they have done is a good thing. They could have also just left that parameter out altogether.

                    People can put rel="nofollow". This means "don't pass link juice". You could interpret it as a directive to the world that whilst you are providing the link to the site, you don't endorse it.

                    From Google:

                    "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link."

                    http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569

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