What are no followed links?

[polyniki]

Hi there,

probably this is so self explaining that I didn't find it described in the tutorial about learning to use PRO or here in Q&Α. But remember, there is no dumb question What are the followed vs no followed links? I understand followed links as backlinks to my site, but what is a no followed link?

Thank you in advance!

[gfiorelli1]

SEOmoz linkscape presents both, that's why you can filter them to see just external nofollowed links or just internal ones.

[polyniki]

thanks, but I am still confused about what the no followed links SEOMOZ talks about are. Are they external backlinks to my site that I submitted to no follow policy directories? Or internal links I put a no follow on? Or both?

[gfiorelli1]

Linkscape doesn't crawl and "index" all the links existing in the web. Just those that they consider having a real value.

If you want to see if you link building in directories is working, I suggest you to use Majestic SEO, that has a larger but less "selected" links' crawling.

[gfiorelli1]

Follow and NoFollow are commands you can give to bots about a link they find in a page:

• follow > follow the link and visit the page linked.
• nofollow > don't follow the link and don't visit the page linked.

Please note that I'm not talking about external site or the same sites, but both.

Then, followed links are likes opened pipes through which a % of link juice of the page where the link is pass to the linked pages. Nofollowed links have that "pipe" closed and do not pass link juice (that evaporates, as stated long time ago by Matt Cutts: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

Related to the SEOmoz tools, for instance with Open Site Explorer you can filter followed links and nofollowed one, and also at the same time "internal links" and "external links".

When an internal link is nofollowed (being links by default followed), that is because of your own decision when creating the internal navigation of the site, and it does not depend by external factors

When an external link is nofollowed, is because the site that links to you maybe use a nofollow policy. That is a classic in blogs'comments.

[polyniki]

Well, I actually searched on the Internet for directory catalogues and submitted my  site on over 100 of them. Now if I type "www.freegamesonline.gr" on Google I find about half of them linking to my site, and Seomoz pro only shows 20 of them, which is rather confusing. Why does this happen?

Also I find my competitors got their links on sites like fcc.gov which seems to contain no links to external sites - i have no idea how on earth they did that - some king of hack? Even more unanswered questions!

Anyway, I will keep exploring seomoz for builgind linking strategies but still I have no clue how to interpret the metrics, I have attached a screenshot again. So what are the no followed links pro reports and how did I manage to do that while my competitors were more clever? It seems so self-explaining but it confuses me. None of the tutorials helped.

pAysC.jpg

[RyanKent]

Great questions.

The response I offered pertained to outbound links from your site to other sites. If you are looking at your SEOmoz PRO tools, I need to ask which tool specifically to understand whether you are looking at outbound links from your site, or other sites linking to you.

For example, your crawl report covers all links that exist on your site. This report would cover your internal links and links you create to other site.

The Open Site Explorer tool shows only inbound links to your site from other sites. Your campaign tool works with both OSE and the crawler.

Many free directories will add your listing as a nofollow'd link, but if you pay them they will then change the link to a follow'd link. This practice is against Google's terms and I strongly recommend you avoid most directories. The overwhelming majority of directories provide no benefit to your site whatsoever. I recall a recent report where someone created 100 directory links and exactly one of them actually registered as having any value.

Many forums and blogs automatically nofollow any user generated content. If a user types a post and says "hey, visit xyz.com, it's a great site" then a nofollow link will be generated to that site.

A huge part of SEO is working to generate followed links. There are many people employed full-time as link builders. It is basically a form of marketing. The more authentic links you earn, the better. The problem is there are so many scams and worthless links it can be challenging to learn the process.

In short, ask yourself if a link looks legitimate. If a real gaming site such as IGN.com provides an honest link to your site saying "hey, we offer pay-to-play games but if you are only interested in free-to-play then visit xyz.com because it is a great site", then that is a good link. Likewise, if you get mentioned by cbs.com or other credible sites, that is great as well.

On the other hand, if a free directory will link to any site "just enter your URL and we will link to you", clearly that type of link farm has no value.

[polyniki]

Thanks Ryan, I now understand what a no followed link is, but how does this apply to my site? I mean are the no followed links mentioned in PRO (followed vs no followed) external backlinks to my site not followed by search engines because, for example, I submitted them to directories that put a no follow on the links? All of my competition seems to have followed links and I have a lot no followed, so I am trying to understand which links are these and what I have done wrong.

[RyanKent]

As a site owner, when you offer a link to another site you are endorsing the site. If I recall, your site is focused on gaming. You may link to ncsoft.com since they create many online games. You also might link to the developer or distributor of many games as well such as lineage2.com. When you create those links, you are encouraging your site's readers to click on those links which can drive traffic to the site. If you leave those as follow links, you are basically saying "this is a good site, feel free to visit them".

Sometimes you are unsure about a site. For example, you may offer a forum on your site where you ask members to "post your favorite sites here". Since anyone can post a link, you don't know if the site they will link to can be trusted. Some people may post links to porn or other bad sites. If you allow those links to be followed, a search engine will believe you approve of the site. If you link to a "bad" site, then you can be penalized. For that reason, it is recommended site owners nofollow any links which they do not trust.