How effective are nofollow links today (2013) ?
-
Hi,
We had a question about the effectiveness of nofollow today. Nofollowing some links on pages was to make sure pagerank flows to content which is most relevant and useful to visitors on the site.
Looking at the 2009 article, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow, it seems that adding the meta tag nofollow would no longer help us in ensuring this goal. We had a couple of questions:
1. Do you think Google today only passes pagerank to dofollow links
2. Are sites today using iframes/javascript to make sure googlebot passes pagerank to only relevant pages
3. Any other best practice you would suggestThanks
-
+1 to avoiding iframes altogether
-
Er... sorry if I wasn't clear. IFrames may or may not pass PageRank, but I would hardly ever recommend using them if you want to control your SEO variables.
Best practices would be to make the majority of your links followed, and consolidate lessor important links.
-
Thank you guys!
So the best practice would be to use iFrame in order to improve the PR juice flow to followed links? Like Jesse and the article said, the number of links is what is calculated for distributing the PR juice regardless of the nofollow tag? That's just so weird...
Thanks again!
-
bah! thanks Cyrus. I missed that announcement. Makes sense!
Can't say I blame them either. But... bummer
-
Jesse,
Just this week, Squidoo announced they are now making all external links "nofollow".
http://hq.squidoo.com/squid-news/changing-link-status-on-squidoo/
Links to squidoo.com will still be followed (internal links)
OSE is based on data a few weeks old. The changes on Squidoo.com will be updated in a few weeks.
-
Okay I don't know what to believe anymore. I just added a Squidoo page and a few links on there, the source reads nofollow on all even though I completed all necessary fields in the Squidoo guide but still it's showing up on OSE as a followed link..
wtf
-
This is a complex issue, but let me share with you:
- What we know to be true &
- What most consider best practices
1. Google has stated many times in the past that nofollow link pass neither PageRank nor anchor text.
2. That said, many SEOs believe nofollow links do play some roll in search engine rankings, although the relationship is elusive and difficult to define. The 2011 SEOmoz Ranking Factors did show a correlation between nofollow links and higher rankings (but now I'm getting off topic)
3. Most good SEOs believe that PageRank sculpting either doesn't work, or is generally such a low ROI activity that it isn't worth it. (However, not everyone holds this opinion)
4. Google is getting better at parsing javascript links (although we don't know what kind of link signals are passed through them) and there is even evidence that Google passes link signals through iframes, but again we can't quantify what signals/how much.
**5. Best Practices - **Generally, you don't want too many links on a page, and you want your important links in prominent places.
If you have too many links that you don't want followed, you should consider consolidating them into a single link. For example, you can put your Contact, Privacy, Info and FAQ into a single link/landing page that leads to a better experience for users and search engines.
See this article by Rand on link consolidation. It's also from 2009, but just as relevant today: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-consolidation-the-new-pagerank-sculpting
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
no it won't make a difference to followed links all it will do is not follow or pass juice to links you chose to nofollow.
google does not parse or split up link juice it either passes on or doesn't.
-
1. Google stated it repeatedly and sticks to its decission: nofollow links are meant to tell crawlers not to follow the links. They don't pass pagerank and they won't influence your SERP rankings directly. Nevertheless, most nofollow links (comments, mentions etc) are great techniques for networking. Even if they won't have any impact on your SEO campaign, later on they can help you build partnerships, friendships and, eventually, they can lead to some pretty powerful dofollow links as well.
-
The article from 2009 points out that nofollow links will be ignored concerning the PR juice flow. To clarify the question - if we use nofollow on some of our links will we get more of the PR juice to the followed links?
Thanks for your comment!
-
It seems to me like you are suggesting that your PR can be spread out thin by too many followed links from your subdomain... I don't think this is true.
1.) Google does not follow nofollow links..
2.) iframes and javascript are concoctions of the devil himself.
3.) build links from high DA sites organically. Make sure they're relevant.
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 using non-https links (not pages) impact or penalise the website rankings?
Hi community, We have couple of pages where we we have given non-https (http) hyperlinks by mistake. They will redirect to http links anyway. Does using these http links on page hurt any rankings? Thansk
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How to you get a company details to appear on the right side of google searches? For example is you type dr martens in google , the search page shows links and then a snippet of the company on the right. Thank you.
For example is you type dr martens in google , the search page shows links and then a snippet of the company on the right. Thank you. https://www.google.com/search?q=dr+martens&oq=dr+martens&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2176j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
Algorithm Updates | | vijayvasu0 -
Optimized site-wide internal links in footer - a problem?
Hello all - I am looking at a website with 8 heavily keyword optimized site-wide links in the footer. Yes, there are only 8 but it looks a bit spammy and I'm tempted to remove them. I imagine there's some possibility of a Google penalty too? What would your advice be? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
How Does Google Treat External Links to URLs with # Anchors?
Here are two URLs to explain this example: **Original URL: **example.com/1/ **URL that points to anchor within the webpage above: **example.com/1/#anchor Does Google treat these two URLs as separate entities or the same? For example, does an external link to the anchor URL pass full PageRank value to the original URL? How does Google handle this? Is there anything negative about this situation? Are there any risks associated with links to the anchor URL? Finally, is it more valuable for an external link to point to the URL without an anchor?
Algorithm Updates | | SAMarketing0 -
Linking to authority / competitor website!? Yes or No?
Here is the dilema .... People say, don't be afraid to link to authority website! What if an authority website in particular niche is actually competing with you in the Search, but you do have a review profile there? Is it ok to link to that profile ? Should I include a no follow tag ? Another case : some other authority high ranked website competing in search with mine directly has a profile page for my company, but this authority website has blocked Google bot to crawl the profile page all the reviews there !? Can I still link to that page and will this be appreciated by Google ? Am I passing PR and link juice from my website to those direct comeptitors / authority websites ?
Algorithm Updates | | montauto0 -
Too Many Non-Niche-Specific Links?
Something just occurred to me today. I work in-house for an embroidered patch company, but I respond to a lot of HARO queries about Marketing, SEO, SEM, Web Design, ect. So, we have a lot of links from these types of sites. Additionally, I have done guest blogs on these topics because those are what I'm knowledgeable about. We also have links from customers' personal blogs or websites stating they got their patches from us and are happy, blah, blah, blah. On top of that, we hired someone who ended up getting tons of .edu links by spamming blogs. Oy. I'd estimate only about 10% of our links come from embroidery, sewing, screen printing, promotional products, etc types of sites. I guess it's not really known or documented how much weight Google places on niche-specific links--we just assume that it matters, and I'm sure it does. Our rankings are fine now, but I'm looking for some opinions from other SEOs about how much they think this will matter in the future or how much it matters now. Could this hurt us in the future? .
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Youtube dofollow link to web site
Is there still a dofollow link back from a youtube channel to your web site? I filled in the site url in the profile, which in my understanding used to be the single dofollow link back to your web site. However, when I view the page source for the youtube channel it shows up as a nofollow link. Also, in OSE the link does not appear. Has this changed or am I just not doing this correctly?
Algorithm Updates | | uwaim20120