What type of links should be followed and nofollowed internally?
-
We have submitted our sitemap.xml to search engines so now that they have that should we use a nofollow attribute on the sitemap.html? Do we even need a sitemap.html?
For other links on the site such as:
Contact us
About Us
Locations
and other phrases that we are not trying to rank for should we set these to nofollow?
-
Not necessarily. Yes, you shouldn't automatically nofollow every external link; however, nofollowed external links versus followed external links have to be treated differently.
Especially in cases of online journalism and blogging, it's not unheard of to link to a site that might be unsavory. Using a nofollow in that case (where otherwise, external links are usually followed) would clue crawlers in that "this site might be bad, don't ding us for it".
If 95% of your external links are spam/porn, and you nofollow one of those links, then, yes, you should expect to get smacked down. But, when you have a slightly shady in-context link that's nofollowed, and plenty of other good links that are followed, it's not going to be an issue.
-
Good point
-
If you are writing an article on spam or malware, you may want to link to such a site, but not be associated with it.
-
Hi Donnie,
One of the occasions when you should use nofollow is paid links.
If you are offering sponsored links to you partners, Google demands that you nofollow those links.
Cornel
-
"The only time you should use a no-follow is when you are linking to a external site that has a bad reputation, suchas a porn site or spam site, that you do not want to be associated with."
In which case, you shouldn't be linking to those sites anyway.
the 'nofollow' attribute was created many years ago to be used within comment systems, and not within a website link structure.
In my opinion, I fail to see any time in which you feel you should be adding nofollow to any external link. If you are linking to an external site, it should ONLY be to a site that is relevant to your site and of a reputable nature. Adding nofollow to that seems redundant.
If you add nofollow to all your outgoing links, I could only imagine that Googlebot starts thinking, "why are these guys adding all these links to sites they don't trust?"
-
You should not use no-follow in internal links at all. you would simply be robbing yourself of link juice.
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
The only time you should use a no-follow is when you are linking to a external site that has a bad reputation, such as a porn site or spam site, that you do not want to be associated with.
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
-
When domain a buys domain b (whose links direct to c), does domain a has links redirecting to domain c ?
Hi, I really need to know what happens when a company or domain (a) acquires another company with domain (b) with its links pointing to yet another location (c). Does company a then have redirects to c?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Yeshourun0 -
Benefit of internal link in content
Hi, Is there a real benefit to having internal links in content other than at the bottom of a page for example and not surrounded by content. Would the benefit be 1 to 10 or 1 to 1.5 ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Linking to External Websites?
Is it good to link external websites from every page. Since, the on-page grader shows there should be one link pointing to an external source. I have a website that can point to an external website from every page using the brand name of the specific site like deal sites do have. Is it worth having external link on every page, of-course with a no-follow tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Anchor text diversity for internal links?
Should I be worried about anchor text diversity for my internal links? It seems like I should be ok but I just wanted to double check... you know how google can be
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenyonManu3-SEOSEM0 -
What's the best internal linking strategy for articles and on-site resources?
We recently added an education center to our site with articles and information about our products and industry. What is the best way to link to and from that content? There are two options I'm considering: Link to articles from category and subcategory pages under a section called "related articles" and link back to these category and subcategory pages from the articles: category page <<--------->> education center article education center article <<---------->> subcategory page Only link from the articles to the category and subcategory pages: education center article ---------->> category page education center article ---------->> subcategory page Would #1 dilute the SEO value of the category and subcategory pages? I want to offer shoppers links to more information if they need it, but this may also take them away from the products. Has anyone tested this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Easy way to get some do-follow links for a new site
I am launching a new website and when I search for "list of do-follow websites" I find lots of people posting their list. Rather than individually sign up for hundreds of sites for one link at a time, is there a tool that can automate this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
If google ignores links from "spammy" link directories ...
Then why does SEO moz have this list: http://www.seomoz.org/dp/seo-directory ?? Included in that list are some pretty spammy looking sites such as: <colgroup><col width="345"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg
| http://www.site-sift.com/ |
| http://www.2yi.net/ |
| http://www.sevenseek.com/ |
| http://greenstalk.com/ |
| http://anthonyparsons.com/ |
| http://www.rakcha.com/ |
| http://www.goguides.org/ |
| http://gosearchbusiness.com/ |
| http://funender.com/free_link_directory/ |
| http://www.joeant.com/ |
| http://www.browse8.com/ |
| http://linkopedia.com/ |
| http://kwika.org/ |
| http://tygo.com/ |
| http://netzoning.com/ |
| http://goongee.com/ |
| http://bigall.com/ |
| http://www.incrawler.com/ |
| http://rubberstamped.org/ |
| http://lookforth.com/ |
| http://worldsiteindex.com/ |
| http://linksgiving.com/ |
| http://azoos.com/ |
| http://www.uncoverthenet.com/ |
| http://ewilla.com/ |0 -
Reciprocal Links and nofollow/noindex/robots.txt
Hypothetical Situations: You get a guest post on another blog and it offers a great link back to your website. You want to tell your readers about it, but linking the post will turn that link into a reciprocal link instead of a one way link, which presumably has more value. Should you nofollow your link to the guest post? My intuition here, and the answer that I expect, is that if it's good for users, the link belongs there, and as such there is no trouble with linking to the post. Is this the right way to think about it? Would grey hats agree? You're working for a small local business and you want to explore some reciprocal link opportunities with other companies in your niche using a "links" page you created on your domain. You decide to get sneaky and either noindex your links page, block the links page with robots.txt, or nofollow the links on the page. What is the best practice? My intuition here, and the answer that I expect, is that this would be a sneaky practice, and could lead to bad blood with the people you're exchanging links with. Would these tactics even be effective in turning a reciprocal link into a one-way link if you could overlook the potential immorality of the practice? Would grey hats agree?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AnthonyMangia0
