Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does the ratio of external nofollow links to external "do follow" links matter in terms of SERPs ranking?
-
My site has an external link nofollow:dofollow ratio of approximately 1:1
That is, there are about as many nofollow external links as "do follow" external links.
I have an impression that the ratio of no-follow to "do follow" links is a factor in the way that our website shows up in SERPs.
I have the impression from reading a variety of sources, and from looking at Seomoz, that calculate "trust" factors as if they mattered (in SERPs), that seem to value a relatively low nofollow:dofollow ratio.
Am I correct about that?
Thanks,
TimPS - I don't know whether or not this matters, but our website is at: www.trustworthycare.com - Tim
-
No problem,
I'm more than glad to help. Enjoy your weekend.
-
Interestingly, there's a strong correlation between the number of nofollowed links to a domain and higher rankings, although the correlation isn't as high as with the number of followed links to a domain.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-1
Most well ranking websites have a natural amount of nofollowed links, but I've never seen any evidence that a 50/50 ratio would either harm or benefit you.
Regardless, you want to keep working to build good, mostly followed links. If you continue to do this, you should be in good hands.
-
Joel - Thank you for taking time to respond to my question. I appreciate your help!
Is anyone else interested in offering their input?
Thanks,
Tim
-
There are no concrete rules when it comes to ratio of no follow / do follow but a rule of thumb is that you should have an 80/20 ratio of do follow versus no follow.
It would be suspicious if you only had do follow but wouldn't look right if you only had no follow.
As you already know, do follow links hold a lot of value. No follow links just gives the impression that your link building is natural.
That being said I would't remove the no follow links to get a better ratio. Just make sure your link building strategy focuses on natural white hat strategies
Hope this helps.
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
-
Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne
Link Building | | NCOREGSEO0 -
More than one link on an external website
Just wanted to clarify my understanding of this... I'm of the understanding that if an external site has more than one link going to your site, then it is only the one link that passes value. If this is the case.... Which is the link that passes value (i.e the first link established or the link that, all factors being considered, is the most valuable for passing authority?) If a second link established on an external website comes from and goes to a different webpage than the first (and is done for the purposes of targeting and boosting a different keyword category/theme), is this then a beneficial practice? If multiple links on an external website all serve to generate solid referral traffic, will this boost rankings, and thereby be a sound practice? Thanks in advance for your help in clarifying this for me!
Link Building | | Gavo0 -
Drop in Rankings After Removing Links
So I removed some links to a particular homepage for one of the sites we own, this page had A LOT of links pointing to it using exact match anchors. And for the most part the links were coming from low quality pages/content. After removing a good chunk of them I noticed are rankings went down from around 8-9th two weeks ago to 21 as of today. Has anyone else had a problem like this before? I'm thinking about restoring some of these links now to see if I can recover some of that. Any thoughts on doing this? Thanks
Link Building | | ThridHour0 -
Should I disavow nofollow links?
I've found a bunch of nofollow links with the help of Link Detox. Now, should I disavow such links (after contacating site owner directly and unsuccessfuly) or i can just filter my nofollow links and handle dofollow ones only?
Link Building | | VinceWicks0 -
Link Detox and Link Removal
I have a question about which links to remove after running a link detox from Link Research Tools. First a little back story. I had had an SEO company link building for one of the websites I own. But I have recently stopped working with them. In the last month my rankings have near dropped off the charts. I have just recently gotten access to Google webmaster tools and noticed an unnatural link warning from back in March. So yesterday I ran link detox and it reported 19 toxic links, 120 suspicious links, and 24 healthy links. It's rather obvious that I should remove all of the toxic links. They all from sites that have been deindexed by google. But my question is a about the suspicious links. What should my criteria be for removing them? Am I better off removing them all and leaving my site with only 24 healthy links or should I personally comb through them and remove only the worst of the worst so that I leave my site with a few more links? I'd really like to get the site ready to resubmit to google as soon as I can. Thoughts? yyCOf.png
Link Building | | CobraJones950 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1 -
How can I check a website to see if it is "nofollow"?
I'm a little new to SEO, so maybe this is obvious to some . . . I'm attempting to build backlinks by submitting articles, posting on forums etc. I just wrote my forst article for ezine and submitted it. I was feeling pretty good about myself until I mentioned it to someone trying to sell me their SEO services and he said that ezine articles are considered "nofollow" on all their links. Well, that was pretty frustrating to hear! It got me wondering, how many of these other sites have all their posts and blogs listed as "nofollow"? Is there a way for me to figure it out ahead of time? Obviously, there are only so many hours in the day and I would rather focus on posting on sites that will actually help me build backlinks! Thanks for your help in advance!
Link Building | | damon12120
