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.
Links to Social Media accounts, rel=nofollow/follow and rel=me
-
Hi guys,
I just saw this rel="me" attribute and I can't find any reputable recent (within last year) information. I never heard of this and wonder if it's any beneficial in any way.
At the same time, should I use nofollow or follow on links from website to social accounts? I've heard different opinions but, again, no recent relevant and trustworthy information.
Please, kick me into right direction. However, when kicking, please give me some proof, rather than thoughts
Thanks!
-
I'd recommend linking to all your own properties using rel="me". You can see the tag in common usage on Twitter and Instagram profiles, where the user's website link is tagged using rel="me". You can basically connect up all your online properties as belonging to the same person/brand/entity - and who wouldn't want that. You're indicating to Google that all those webpages are related to you. By linking to your social profiles from your website using rel="me", you're confirming that those profiles are officially yours.
-
Now, what's about rel="me"?
Anybody has any insight?
-
Good article, but as you said, statements sometimes conflicting and self-contradicting. I guess the best way is to test and see what works and what doesn't.
-
Thanks! I'll look into it tomorrow.
-
You might be interested by this article from Marie Haynes on footer links (follow or not follow) which gives a recap of the (sometimes conflicting) statements from Google regarding footer links- and some advice on how to deal with it.
It's a pretty long article - but worthwhile reading; Marie is also member of Moz & specialised in link penalties & unnatural links.Dirk
-
Thanks.
What about too many follow links from the same website?
Example: as a webdesign company we have a backlink from every client's footer. So, we used to have them all follow, therefore from large ecommerce websites we were getting 10k+ follow links. We decided to try to do all those links nofollow. Pretty much next week we saw significant enough jump in rankings.
There are lots of articles/discussions about topical relevance of follow interlinked websites as well.
What's your take on this?
-
Basically nofollow links should be used for
- links to site with untrusted content
- paid links
You could use nofollow as well for crawl prioritisation (not leading Google bot to pages on your site that can't or shouldn't be indexed like loginpages) -although this is not the recommended usage (according to Google: "a solid information architecture is likely to be a far more productive use of resources than focusing on crawl prioritization via nofollowed links".
Source: Google
For links to Facebook you have the choice - a big chunk is not being indexed by Google (source: https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt?_rdr=p) - so you could put the links nofollow (but you could leave them follow as well). For the other ones - it could be interesting to have links to your Instagram / Twitter account to push these as well.
I would just keep all these links follow. It will certainly not hurt you.Dirk
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
-
Google Indexed Images: Website Vs Social Media
I use Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram to post images that are already featured on my website. I have been following a routine of uploading the images to these social media platforms only after I can see Google has indexed the image from my original site. My website is ecommerce and the product images drive sales more than any other factor. The thinking behind my method was that when these images are posted on Pinterest, Twitter and the various Instagram crawler sites (I realise Instagram images aren’t indexed directly), Google would recognise that the image was already attributed to my website. The ‘duplicate’ image would not therefore be indexed and the originally uploaded website image would remain in ‘Google Images’. After completing various searches and reviewing other Q&A’s on Moz, it seems as though this is in no way guaranteed and images reposted on social media platforms may still replace the already indexed image from the website. I am assuming this is because Google views these platforms as more authoritative than mine. I usually change the image by adding logos, text, backgrounds, borders etc before posting on Pinterest and this seems to have worked most of the time (both the original and ‘amended for Pinterest’ versions are often indexed) but images posted on other platforms are usually identical. Does it make sense to continue with my method or am I shooting myself in the foot by reposting these images on social media at all? I obviously want customers searching for products, who then click on an image, to be directed to my site rather than one of my social media pages or worse, an image reposting site. Additionally, If I post images on social media before they are uploaded to my website (for example to tease a product launch), would Google likely class these images as the ‘original’ and therefore be less likely to index the website version of the image once it is uploaded? Any thoughts are appreciated.
Social Media | | g3mmab2 -
Facebook.com / referral - What is it?
Hi Moz community! Coming to you today to ask a two fold question about a mysterious source/medium combination and also social medium data in general. First question relates to the attached image named 'Facebook Referral.' We've made sure to apply correct tags to all of our campaigns, both organic and paid, and are having a difficult time figuring out where this source/medium comes from which is a bit troubling as it actually has pulled in some revenue over the past couple of months The second question is around general Facebook data. Our Facebook business manager is vastly over reporting clicks to landing pages. For instance, we saw about 1,700 clicks to site as reported by Facebook business manager, whereas Google Analytics only registered about 950. I know data between the two channels rarely lines up perfectly, but this seems like a rather wide variance. Can someone help me to understand this, and let me know if there is anyway to reduce the occurrence of one or both of the issues we're facing. Thanks! referral.PNG
Social Media | | amichaels0 -
Yoast Social Accounts URL Section
Hi When you click: Social within Yoast plugin it defaults to 'Account' tab and displays a list of fields to enter your social media account urls. Sentence above list says: "To inform Google about your social profiles, we need to know their URLs. For each, pick the main account associated with this site and please enter them below" What does that mean exactly and does it effect links on the site etc or literally is just Yoast telling G ? Also if you have sub sites for different language versions (WP on Multi User setup), which in turn have their own language specific social media account versions , should you enter those urls in the sub site language version own Yoast plugin fields OR , as per "...pick the main account associated with this site and please enter them below" use the primary social account and not the language specific social account or just leave them blank ? Many Thanks Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Facebook Page - About/Description/General About/Mission - Questions
Hi, Im just setting up a FB fan page for a client How terrible is it to use clients websites home page descriptive copy as the Facebook page long description ? Language is in Turkish which i don't speak so i'm not able to edit a new version of it just for FB and no budget to hire Turkish speaker to come up with something. So was going to copy & paste but that would be duplicate with HP obviously. How important is it to fill in 'Mission Statement' & 'General About' ? Especially if long description likely to already include that info ? I think long descrip is important for FB pages on seo etc etc but a good one eliminates importance of 'Mission' & 'General About', or is it still advisable to fill these in or are they just extra boxes for flexibility ? I take it when it comes to securing a vanity url (once we hit 25+ fans) for a foreign language version FB page it should ideally be brand name (which includes a keyword) in the local/target language ? The page name is already the brand name in English but since contains keyword is it best to rename into local target language similarly to the url for consistency and local targeting or better to keep one in Turkish and one in English ? Many Thanks Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Hootsuite Vs Sprout Social for social media management
Can you please tell me if hoot suite or sprout social is a better option when it comes ot managing social media? Corn
Social Media | | netlover0 -
UK home improvement - building links or social shares?
Hi We are a regional UK installer of double glazing windows, doors and conservatories and I am looking to build the amount of quality links to the website to help improve our search position - 1st page for keywords such as conservatories, double glazing, pvc doors, pvc windows, composite doors What is the best approach to do this? Search for double glazing inurl:forum pvc doors inurl:forum and locate forums, but what is the best approach answer questions with the web address in the signature of the post? Looking at the major national players in opensite explorer such as anglianhome.co.uk
Social Media | | ocelot
safestyle-windows.co.uk
greenwayupvc.com
everest.co.uk
valuedoorsuk.co.uk
yaledoor.co.uk/ Their backlink profiles look quite spammy? as they mostly point to web directories So is there a gap that I can take advantage of? We have little budget for sponsored articles on sites like what anglian have been doing looking at the backlinks but are there any other articles that I could write for our site that would help improve quality links to the site for keywords such as conservatories, double glazing, pvc doors, pvc windows, composite doors Same with their social profiles they seem quite poor, what would be the best approach on Facebook and Twitter to attract local followers - the majority of social followers I have seen have been fellow marketers or rival companies on the follower lists of twitter Many Thanks0 -
Myth or Fact: Social Media Dashboards Bad for SEO?
I want to start using HootSuite to pre-schedule Facebook/Twitter updates, but am plagued by nagging concerns because I have heard that HootSuite may impact SEO in a negative way. Is this truth or bull? If it i true, how so, specifically? And can anything be done to mitigate the negative SEO factors? Also, does anyone prefer another dashboard over HootSuite? Thanks in advance for your inputs!
Social Media | | 406lucy0 -
"Mister Wong" DoFollow Social Bookmarking Backlinks
Has anyone had any experience with the DoFollow social bookmarking tool "Mister Wong". Is it worth the fee for DoFollow links? Is this site subject to Google Panda penalties or others for essentially selling dofollow links? Is social bookmarking as a whole worth the time and effort? Does anyone have any alternative sites or strategies for acquiring a high volume of dofollow backlinks?
Social Media | | BethA0