Is it still considered reciprocal linking if one of the links has a nofollow tag?
-
I have a popular website in which I include nofollow links to many local businesses, like restaurants and retailers. Many of the businesses are local startups that are more focused on word of mouth and often have no idea what SEO is. Seeing as I am already mentioning them on my website and my readers are finding them via the links, I want to reach out to these businesses to see me if they might give me a link since I have been linking to them for years.
My question is: If these business owners decide to link to my wesbite and they give me a 'followed' link, will this look like reciprocal linking in the eyes of search engines? In other words, does the nofollow tag I put on my links to other businesses negate the reciprocal link penalty since both parties are not benefiting from a link juice exchange?
-
Don't stress on this.
Say you write an article about a business/product or two. One of them catches wind and references that article in an article or a news page. Do you see a reason for penalization?
This kind of thing happens all the time and it is fine. So unless you are trying to catch a case of Artificial Growth Syndrome by manipulating recips you've got nothing to worry about.
In your specific case, make sure you are not creating a significant percentage of your total incoming links in this manner since you are actively pursuing. Maybe create a badge/seal of approval in this case. As Seen on etc. Then instead of emailing begging for a link you can email and let them know they have been reviewed and deemed worthy of your approval
-
I will say 'definitely yes'
Reciprocal links has been dead long way back - as been considered an artificial strategy to build the PR / Authority of site. Its been rather considered as spam and are flooded across net suggesting to go away from this strategy.
the best way if to link is to have nofollow attribute in your passing link. This will ensure that other site pass on authority to yours, without any paid or value consideration from your site.
-
would it be a good idea to do a no follow link on the website as then this would be seen as not exchanging links
-
I can refer a quote - probably can be helpful to you
Q: People are all about links but then there's a concern about linking to bad neighborhoods. How do you identify bad neighborhoods? Should you nofollow them or stay away totally?
Matt Cutt Response: Use your gut. Trading links is natural and it's natural to have reciprocal links. At some level, natural reciprocal links happen, but if you do it way too often, it looks artificial. My advice is to go with your gut and if you're worried, you can use nofollow.
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
-
Inbound links with malicious anchor text. Negative seo attack
Hi, What to do with more than 300 links with a malicious anchor text that has nothing to do with my content. I am disavowing those links for the last 5 years. Some of them are directed to URLs that have been changed more than 8 years ago. How can I block this malicious behavior? Thanks in advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Arlinaite470 -
Hide keyword tag or not?
We have a mandatory keyword tag field in our cms page templates, which we have to keep
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AMurelli
as our internal search facility bases queries on the keywords we use. Should we hide the keywords from the search
engines, as I read that Bing uses it as a spam signal? Or do we just need to stick to best practise ensuring the keywords match the keywords found in the body content? Many thanks for any help. Sophie0 -
Is there any reason to Nofollow Internal Links or XML Sitemap?
I am viewing a new client's site and they have the following nofollow(S) on their site homepage. Is there a reason for this? Also, they people who originally built their site have a footer link on every page to their company (I guess to promote their work). They didn't "nofollow" that link lol... What are the thoughts on footer links? About Us Privacy Policy Customer Service Shipping & Returns Blog Contact Us Site Map Thanks James Chronicle
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Bot or Virus Creating Bad Links?
Hey Everyone, We are getting ready to engage a client for some potential marketing/SEO so in preparing for this have ran the site through OpenSiteExplorer. The site is relatively new and there are only two links under the inbound links section. They are relevant and add value, no issues there. Here is where it get strange. When I look under the 'Just Discovered' section there are many (hundreds) new links going back about a month. Virtually all of them have the anchor text 'Louis Vuitton outlet'. Now the client swears he has not engaged anyone for black hat SEO, so wondering who could possibly be creating these links. They do sell some Louis Vuitton items on the site, so I'm wondering if it is possible that some spam bot has picked up the site and began to spam the web with links to the clients site. So far today, 50 or so new links have been created with said anchor text and the clients root URL all on very poor quality, some foreign blog sites. Would like to find out why this is happening and put a stop to it for obvious reasons. Has anyone experienced something similar? Could this be a bot? Or maybe someone with an axe to grind against the client? Anyone could be doing this on their own, but just seems strange for it to be happening to a new site that does not even rank highly at the moment. Any advice or info is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Whebb0 -
Secretly back-linking from whitelabel product
Lets say a company (provider.com) offers a whitelabel solution which enables each client to have all of the content on their own domain (product.client.com), with no branding by the content provider. Now lets say that client.com is a site with a lot of authority, and to promote the launch of product.client.com, they put a lot of links from their main site to the subdomain. This can be very valuable link juice, and provider.com would like to be able to take advantage. The problem is, that client.com wouldn't like it if provider.com put in links on their whitelabel site. Suppose the following: All pages on product.client.com start to have a rel="canonical" link to themselves, with a get variable (e.g. product.client.com/page.htm -> product.client.com/page.html?show_extra_link=true) When the page is visited with the extra get parameter "show_extra_link" a link appears in the footer that points to provider.com My question is, would this have the same effect for provider.com as placing a link on the non-canonical version of the pages on the whitelabel site would?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seoczar0 -
White Papers! Is this still good for SEO
Does publishing a white paper good for SEO? We are trying to decide to publish one or not for the purpose of SEO. If it will not help, we will spend money for other things.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
Link Building: Location-specific pages
Hi! I've technically been a member for a few years, but just recently decided to go Pro (and I gotta say, I'm glad I did!). Anyway, as I've been researching and analyzing, one thing I noticed a competitor is doing is creating location-specific pages. For example, they've created a page that has a URL similar to this: www.theirdomain.com/seattle-keyword-phrase They have a few of these for specific cities. They rank well for the city-keyword combo in most cases. Each city-specific page looks the same and the content is close to being the same except that they drop in the "seattle keyword phrase" bit here and there. I noticed that they link to these pages from their site map page, which, if I were to guess, is how SEs are getting to those pages. I've seen this done before on other sites outside my industry too. So my question is, is this good practice or is it something that should be avoided?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AngieHerrera0 -
Why are these sites so high with poor relevant links...
Hello, Keyword: TV Stands. I have been researching competitors for a client and we seem to be unable to understand why certains pages are ranking on page 1 of Google UK for keyword TV Stands. eg: http://www.furnitureinfashion.net/plasma-TV-stand.html (Google UK 8 - TV Stands) http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999542/Nr.99.aspx (Google UK 9 - TV Stands) The furniture in fashion has links from sites like: http://www.ummah.com/forum/ and http://www.muslimco.com/ which is totaly irrelevant to the site. Any ideas on other things as the tesco.com site does not have direct links to it. Cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JohnW-UK0