Would you "nofollow" links from a column on HuffingtonPost?
-
Hi all,
So, I've read a lot of posts about guest posting being dead, but what about if you have a regular column on a well-regarded site? Stop? Nofollow links?
We have a regular column on the Huffington Post and each piece has historically had at least one link (or more) back to our site. Yes, early on (like last year) we did use optimized anchor text in our links, and then calmed down on that a bit. But regardless, the links have always been relevant to the topic covered, and the topic is always in our niche (namely: budget travel in Europe).
I saw Matt Cutts' recent video in which he recommends using the "nofollow" tag on guest posts when linking to one's own site, and specifically mentions HuffPo. Thus, I'm prepared to go back to my old posts and "nofollow" those links, but I just wanted a sanity check from the fine folks at SEOMoz. Would you go back and nofollow them?
Many thanks!
-
Thanks, Ruth. I think I'll do this -- double check to make sure authorship is correct (which is, quite frankly, not easy to do!) and just take it easy on the links I put back to my site in any upcoming HuffPo columns.
I appreciate the helpful feedback!
-
+1 RB.
RB is a boss.
-
I don't want to advise you to ignore Matt Cutts' advice but honestly in the same situation I'd probably just leave them be. I think Chris' suggestion of making sure you've got authorship set up is a good one. If you want to nofollow your links going forward you should do so, but there are probably better things you could do with your time than go back and change the existing links - especially if your inbound link profile is already pretty diverse and on-topic.
-
Thomas,
I'd cut the followed links back to just a few, make sure the rest are nofollowed, and make sure that you've got your google authorship set up correctly to link back to your profile and that your profile shows you're an author at that domain. Google's already made a decision about those links and how to count them towards sites. I don't think changing the anchor text is a good idea--even if you nofollow them afterwards.
-
Its a tough one, because you know they should be nofollow but they are good links on a good site so you don't want to.
Only you can make that call, but one thing I would do for sure is go back to any of them with anchor text and change them to your brand or your domain.
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
-
Increase of non-relevant back-links drop page ranking?
Hi community, Let's say there is a page with 50 back-links where 40 are non-relevant back-links and only 10 are relevant in-terms of content around the link, etc....Will these non-relevant back-links impact the ranking of the page by diluting the back-link profile? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Where does Google finds "Soft 404" and "Not found" links?
Hi all, We can see very old links or anonymous links of website suddenly listing under soft 404 or 404 in GSW. As per Google, some of them are some script generated ignorable links. Other are actually the ones which were deleted but not redirected. I wonder how Google get these years old links even though there are no source links available for these. These must be fixed even though they are not linked anywhere from our internal or external pages? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Links to category pages unnatural?
If people are linking to your site, it would seem natural that the vast majority of those links would point to the homepage, product page, or a article/content page. Let's say you have 100 links pointing to your site, and 40 of them are pointing to category pages. Would this seem unnatural? Does Google or other search engines have a way of determining this as a factor in ascertaining whether the links are natural or not? Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to the pages that are linked to on your site?
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
Is having an identical title, h1 and url considered "over optimization"? Is it better to vary?
To get some new pages out without over-thinking things, I decided to line up the title tag, h1 tag and URLs of my pages exactly. They are dynamically generated based on the content the user is viewing (internal search results pages) They're not ranking very well at the moment, but there are a number of factors that are likely to blame. But, in particular, does anyone know if varying the text in these elements tends to perform better vs. having them all identical? Has there been any information from Google about this? Most if not all of the "over optimization" content I have seen online pertains to backlinks, not on-page content. It's easy to say, "test it!" And of course, that's just what I'm planning to do. But I thought I would leverage the combined knowledge of this forum to see what information I could obtain first, so I can do some informed testing, as tests can take a while to see results. Thanks 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | ntcma0 -
Are links irrelevant now?
After having one of my sites trashed by penguin, I rebuilt it on a new domain. Pretty much everything was the same except for the look of the site plus I decreased the keyword density and did a few other things to avoid future Penguin penalties. I created a small number of directory links. My site is now maybe 6 months old, doesn't get much traffic, however I wa suprised to see that my main keyword " uncontested divorce lawyer" is now ranking number 1 in google in US ! This despite the EMD update. The domain name is www.uncontesteddivorce-lawyer.com . Like I said I still don't get a lot of traffic on this site. I have another site which until recently was driving over 500 visitors a month, since November it has declined to 350 a month. This site is over 4 years old and was unaffected by all the updates, until recently. It too is an EMD but has more links. Not co complain but can anyone explain the #1 rating? Also it would appear that links are practically irrelevant. I have read and heard that practically no one is linking to content, instead they are sharing, liking, etc. Any comments
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes0 -
Let's talk about link networks
With the recent deindexing of blog/link networks, I was hoping to get the Q&A's take on what defines a link network. Are all link building services using link networks? Would you consider something like: submitedge.com thehoth.com To use link networks? They generate links for you, but most of the time they will do it with "decent" content, on sites like Wordpress, Blogger, Squidoo and other similar sites. I don't think that most of their link sources are owned internally, but I could be wrong. Some of them use profile links to send links to their articles, which is garbage. Would you suggest staying away from services like this all together? I'd say that 90% of the services offered on submitedge might be junk, but a few look useful. I've seen a few people at my company have success with them, but fully understand that it could be short term, and potentially inevitable that those links get deindexed. I'd like to potentially find a good link building service that could bridge the gaps between when I have time to write content and do link building, as I know the engines like to see a steady stream of both. Any thoughts? Any other services you guys have used with some success? I am not looking for sites like fiverr or anything quick/cheap. I'd be willing to spend the appropriate money occasionally when I think I could use a few extra links, but don't think I need a regular link builder (as that's something I like to do). I also don't want to go the route of outright buying links from other websites. Cheers, Vinnie
Algorithm Updates | | vforvinnie2 -
Are you guys finding more No Follows being counted as links?
Wonding if anyone is finding more and more no follows actually being counted as links.
Algorithm Updates | | barrystix30 -
Any way to tell if a link has been devalued?
I have some listings in lawyer directories some of which have very hig PR , links, traffic, etc. For example, www.nolo.com, I know that Google has more or less recently devalued a lot of directory links. I would assume that a monster site like nolo would not be one of those, but does anyone know any way to tell? Paul
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes0