I have just read an article that says no follows now leak link juice?
-
I have just been reading a really interesting article about link juice.
The way I read the piece the author was saying that there has been a change in the way link juice is blocked with 'no follows.'
The author seemed to say that there has been a change and now even if you add a 'no follow' onto a page that the page will still send link juice to that page. I may have read this wrong.
I just wanted to check if anyone else had heard this at all?
Many thanks
-
I agree with Mike, this is the article I was going to point you towards.
So in summary: You can stop yourself from passing page rank to another site by adding a nofollow but you cannot save yourself from losing link juice by adding nofollow. This has been the case for several years already (If you go on what Google is saying).
-
Hi Oliver,
In the research I have done on this subject, between 2005 and 2009 the NoFollow directive was used to preserve link juice and keep it from passing through to the particular link. This would allow you to reallocate that link juice to other, more important links on your page. It was mainly developed to discourage comment posters from spamming sites with misc. links; however, web masters soon figured that you could "link sculpt" your site... more or less hoarding your link juice and only pushing it through to your really important pages... making them rank higher.
In 2009 things changes. Matt Cutts commented on the subject saying, "So what happens when you have a page with “ten PageRank points” and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? Let’s leave aside the decay factor to focus on the core part of the question. Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn’t count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each." - more or less stating that link juice is discarded and not reallocated.
Matt Cutts also says, "Nofollow links definitely don’t pass PageRank." - So while the PageRank flows through the link, it is discarded, and is not passed to the linked to page.
"The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results." - Matt Cutts
I don't know if the subject of the article you were reading was about sculpting your site, but depending on who you talk to, there are many other tactics that can give you a higher ROI.
I hope this helps answer your question.
Mike
-
While there has been extensive debate to the value of 'nofollow' it's best not to get caught up in the nitty-gritty of it all. Here's the mantra I follow when dealing with links:
1. Ask yourself does your reader REALLY need this link. When in doubt, go without! Conserve your link juice as much as possible but put the user first.
2. Is this the right place for the link - remember links placed higher on a page and in mainstream content react differently that footer or sidelinks.
3. Is this an authority site? If yes I won't nofollow it, I encourage Google to know I'm linking to high-end authority. Otherwise, I'll nofollow the site.
Last but not least consider that either nofollow plugs a page leak or it doesn't, but it certainly doesn't penalize you - so wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry and use it anyways?
-
Hi Oliver,
No Follow links do not leak link juice but there is a new concept in SEO called co-citation. Basically Google and other search engines are using mentions (semantics) http://moz.com/blog/prediction-anchor-text-is-dying-and-will-be-replaced-by-cocitation-whiteboard-friday to determine how to rank your website. I suspect this is Google's effort to try and reduce spam and the linkbuilding business. The more mentions you get the better your website will rank and especially if the website has authority
Thanks
Carla
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
-
Gained a number of new 'do-follow' links - Good or Bad?
So, my client's site is on a subdomain of the parent site and there were a number of links previously pointing to the subdomain site from the main site which were all no-follow so were purely for referral/traffic benefits. Around the end of February, the main site changed all the links to 'do-follow'. Is this likely to have caused the decline we've recently seen in organic traffic to the site and a drop in rankings? I'm curious as to how that could have affected the site as we didn't know and have only just found out about it but I'm not sure how to show that it's led to a decline. Any help is appreciated!
Link Building | | soapmed1 -
Should I ask sites that link to me to update links that redirect?
I have found some links to my site that go through a single 301 redirect to get to my site. Should I contact these websites to ask them to update the link, or is that not worth the time?
Link Building | | RCF0 -
The No of Sites linking to www.apollopowersystems.com is 50 as per Alexa, but Moz shows that the no of sites linking is 23\. The no has increased in Alexa but in Moz the no is 23 since 3 months. Why is this Difference?
Hi There, As I am new to SEO, so the problem that I am listing below may seem very naive. Please help me out. Please explain me the difference between the no of backlinks of the website, www.apollopowersystems.com as per the websites below. The nos are completely different as per the websites below: As per www.moz.com the no is 23 As per www.ahrefs.com the no currently is 586 As per www.alexa.com the no is 50 Please tell me why these nos are different. Looking forward to hear from you at the earliest. Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | KDKini0 -
Link building
I keep sending personal emails to website asking for a link form them but every one says no how do other website get so many links to there website whats the best software to use
Link Building | | homesandindustrial0 -
Old links
I am looking to remove some old directory links that now look spammy. Some years ago the site was redesigned. The links are all to the old pages url, which is 301 redirected to the new. If we remove the 301 and let the page 404, will that suffice in Googles eyes?
Link Building | | cottamg0 -
How to beat This with Links?
Hello, So i am trying to beat this website gujratdetectives.com/ with a new website which has no backlinks as of now.
Link Building | | hardik_hrc
Now, I checked in open explorer that this site has many moderate level links. No high authority links but the problem is these links they all have title as the search keyword "detective in Gujarat" so maybe this is why this site rests on the top of this search keyword. So if building authority links into a different domain(Not detective related) with very high PR but WITHOUT title of relevancy. Anchor text would be the keyword but not the title of page. So the question is will those authority sites beat this gujratdetectives.com/ ???0 -
Does Link Juice Flow From Banner Ads.
Hi Guys I have been checking out a couple of my competitors and noticed that in site explorer there were sites that were passing what I would consider strong amounts of link juice for their banner adverts. I checked the anchor text which was always (Img ALT) Also the links are follow and placed on the home page too. So I wondered how google view this Im sure adverts were supposed to be no follow and if so then do you think there is a benefit from me taking one of these banner adverts to increase the level of link juice passing to my site.
Link Building | | RankStealer0 -
Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating. As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
Link Building | | joshuaopinion1