Nofollow all outgoing links?
-
If nofollow keeps link juice from leaking from a site, why not use nofollow on all external links? What would be the benefit of an external link that does not use nofollow? Best, Christopher
-
all links.
1st is best and descreses as you go along
The position of the link also counts. SEOMoz did some tests on this, (i think it was SEOMoz) footer does not give much juice, sides a bit better, head and body were the best.
-
Regarding the first link on the page carrying the most weight, are you referring to external links, or both internal and external links? Does Google know how to separate all the links in the menu from the rest of the page?
Best,
Christopher -
You should always link out in my opinion and SEOMoz’s also as it states in the on-page report.
Matt cutt has said that it can be beneficial to link to relevant sites, but there is also another reason.
The Google page rank algo, does not award page rank to what is called hanging pages, that is a page on your website that has a link to it but does not link back when it is calculating pagerank for your site. If your whole site does not link back, to the internet then maybe it is seen as a hanging website in the bigger picture.
I assume that linking out give you some sort of juice for relevance and authority of the linked-to page, this may be better than the juice you lose.Another idea is to make sure you have plenty of links to your own site on the page also, so that you are only giving away a small slice. you may notice that article sites do this, they have maybe 200 links to their own site, and one to yours. Also the first link in a page carries the most weight
-
If nofollow keeps link juice from leaking from a site, why not use nofollow on all external links?
An excellent question Christopher. The responses which come to mind are:
1. Some external pages are under your control and you will directly benefit from link juice flowing to them. Your social account pages (facebook, twitter, etc.), company profile pages (linkedin, etc.) or other author pages.
2. Some external links are to partner sites who may not appreciate a nofollow link or could take offense as nofollow links are generally to untrusted sites.
3. There is always the "do onto others as you would have done to you" idea. Along these links you can generate goodwill.
4. Sometimes it is required. You may be presenting an image, video or excerpt from another site. In order to use the content a followed link could be required.
5. It's often the right thing to do. If a site is worthy of mentioning, they are often worthy of being linked to as well.
I imagine a percentage of people read reasons # 1 - 5 and are still of the mindset to nofollow most external links. Well reason #6 will probably convince most of those site owners otherwise.
6. All else aside, you should be clear you are not "saving" link juice for your site by nofollowing external links. The way link juice flows on a page is the value will flow to every link on the page whether it is followed or not. The difference is, the juice to a followed link flows through to the target, where the link juice to a nofollowed link simply "evaporates".
Using a simple example lets say your page has 100 links and all of which are followed. Each link will receive 1% of the page's PR value (I don't wish to complicate this example with a dampening factor, let's keep to simple math).
Using the same example of a page with 100 links but this time let's assume 10 of the links are nofollowed. Each of the 90 followed links would still receive 1% of the page's link juice. Many people assume 100/90 followed links = 1.1 so each link would receive 1.1% and that is not the case. One good aspect of this method is it prevents most site owners from simply nofollowing all external links in the manner you are asking about.
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
-
Solve "Too many links on page"
Hello, I own a Opencart site with a lot of products , I am getting this error in the campaign report, how can I fix it? Read other members replys but I dont understand how .. I would appreacite if you could explain it easy because my native language is spanish and my english is really poor I am really happy of find this site, incredible quality, thank you very much!
On-Page Optimization | | matiw0 -
Are there to many internal links here?
This is our main Motorcycle Parts page. In my opinion there are to many links on this page. They have put links to all the top brands after products. Do you think having all these links could be hurting our rankings/ ability for google to crawl the site efficiently? The links are good for navigation, I just think there are way to many there like over 200. Here is the page you can see what i am talking about http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/s/49/61/Motorcycle-Parts
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
Which pages on my site should I back link to
The majority of the back links I have been creating link directly to our home page and to the store page. Is this the best approach or should I be trying to spread the links throughout our site to include product categories and subcategories etc?
On-Page Optimization | | Hardley0 -
Are menu links considered spammy?
Hi, I'm wondering if having a footer menu with keyword links is considered spam? It makes sense to me to have your keywords and links to relevant pages on each page. Thanks 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | Memoz0 -
Blocking Google seeing outbound links?
Apart from rewriting the outbound url to look like a folder 'abc.co.uk/out/link1' and blocking the folder 'out' in the robots.txt file, along with also nofollowing the links as well, is there anything else you can do?
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Why DoFollow & NoFollow Attributes on Same Internal Text Links?
I want to know that, why SEOmoz have defined DoFollow & NoFollow attributes on same internal text links? Please, find out attachment to know more. Left bar have On-Page / Site Optimization link with dofollow attribute but, right section have nofollow. So, why should they have apply on DoFollow or NoFollow attribute on same text links? 6806571615_138b8765fd_b.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
100 links on one page
we're recommended 100 links or less on one page. is the 100 links including header and footer links?
On-Page Optimization | | jallenyang0 -
Too many On-Page Links on a WP based Website
Hi, I've already browsed through various of the Q&As on the "too many On-Page links" issue, but I would really need some advice concerning a WP Site with a dropdown navigation. As outlined in the on-page report, every site has about 180 outgoing links, which pretty much is the number of site featured in the navigation. Even though the 100 link limit is somewhat outdated I'm still worried about the distribution of linkjuice from the starting page and how Google perceives the importance of the various pages. Would it make sense to adapt the structure of the navigation, so that the starting page only links to the 5 category pages and the category pages only link to the detail pages they contain? The site has good rankings for several pages and I assume that Google can tell that the large number of links is caused by the navigation. But with every page having appr. 180 links it may be difficult for Google to tell, which of those pages are the most important regarding internal link structure... Looking foward to your opinion and insights! Cheers, Chris
On-Page Optimization | | adwordize0