Are no follows leaking link juice?
-
Recently, in a discussion on resources pages EGOL informed me that just because I had no followed the links on my my resource page, I was still leaking link juice. He mentioned that this was a recent change in Google policy.
This was quite a surprise. I have done a couple of searches on this recent change but have not found any information. Am I simply the last one on the planet to learn this and this change is widely known and understood? If so, does that mean honest resource pages (I have two such pages) that are there to help visitors are negatively impacting the site - at least in terms of SEO? If they are leaking link juice is it comparable to a followed link or a smaller amount that has less impact?
-
You've got it right. The example is a bit simplistic as not all links on a page are going to pass the same amount of link juice, but otherwise it sounds like you get it.
-
Okay, so I think I get it. The page has a fixed amount of juice divided equally among the links. Even if I nofollow some outbound links this does not preserve more link juice for the resources page or other dofollow outbound links. The juice essentially evaporates with the nofollows? Do I have it right and is this widely agreed upon among SEOs?
-
Nofollows burn link juice. If you nofollow a link, it won't pass link juice to that page, but as a result it doesn't pass more link juice to other pages linked to from that page.
Here's an example. Suppose on your resources page, you have 6 units of link juice to pass to other pages. You have 3 outbound links with no nofollows. Each page receives 2 units of link juice. Now suppose you nofollow one of the links. The page that links to now gets no link juice as you'd expect. However, the other two pages linked to still only receive 2 units of link juice. If the 6 units total were divided between the two links, then each would receive 3, but that's not how nofollow works now.
Without a really good reason, I wouldn't nofollow internal links, and use nofollows for situations like keeping link spam down in user generated content.
-
Well as far as I know nofollow does not pass any PR juice. And please check this post -
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
In general, we don't follow them. **This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. **
I hope you have got your answer.
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
-
Follow no-index
I have a question about the right way to not index pages: With a canonical or follow no-index. First we have a blog page: **Blogpage **
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
URL: /blog/
index follow Page 2 blog:
URL: /blog?=p2
index follow
rel="prev" /blog/
el="next" ?=p3 Nothing strange here i guess. But we also have other pages with chance on duplicate content: /SEO-category/
/SEO-category/view-more/ Because i don't want the "view-more" items to be indexed i want to set it on: follow no-index (follow to reach pages). But now the "view-more" also have pagination. What is the best way? Option 1:
/SEO-category/view-more/
Follow no-index /SEO-category/view-more?=p2
Follow no-index
rel="prev" /view-more/
el="next" ?=p3 Option 2: /SEO-category/view-more/
Canonical: /SEO-category/ /SEO-category/view-more?=p2
rel="prev" /view-more/
el="next" ?=p3 Option 3: Other suggests? Thanks!0 -
Are links still considered reciprocal if the link from one website is rel="nofollow" and the other isnt ?
Im working on a site that has some press coverage due in the next couple of days from quite a big site in the niche. The press outlet has requested that we link back to the content they post about us, they said the link can be rel="nofollow" if we'd prefer. Id really like to get the full benefit of the link back to our website, obviously if i did a straight link back to the 3rd party press site the links would be reciprocal and cancel each other out in terms of "link juice", but i was wandering if we make our link back to the 3rd party rel="nofollow" will we still get the full benefit of their link to us in terms of link juice ? ie. having the link back to them, but nofollow wouldn't been seen as a reciprocal link. ? (Obviously either way there is still benefit of having the link even if it reciprocal as it will send traffic to our site, but just no "link juice") Note - Ive used the phrase"Link Juice" for lack of a better term, any ideas on how else to refer to this ?
Technical SEO | | Sam-P1 -
How to Break Up a Page with Too Many Links
My client has a live page with 100+ links subdivided into 10 categories that each have great potential keyword targeting opportunities. I'd like to improve this page and my intuition is to split it into 11 pages, one page with links to all the others and a bit of content about each. Here's an example of the potential IA: Dog Rescue Groups
Technical SEO | | elenarox
Golden Retriever Rescue - description
Poodle Rescue - description
Cocker Spaniel Rescue - description
Poodle Rescue - description
Labrador Retriever Rescue - description
etc. --------- Golden Retriever Rescue
Link 1 - description
Link 2 - description
Link 3 - description Is this a good idea and will I see a big traffic drop overall at first? Also, these are all internal links, not external.0 -
Bad link profile?
Hi Mozzers! We have recently been handed this client due to the former SEO company building up a bad link profile, which resulted in the site dropping off the search results all together. Forcing them to get a new domain. This happened in July last year and we are unsure whether it would be wise to submit a reconsideration request and then 301 their old sites pages to the new domain. Basically I'm asking whether you can spot any spammy links being built in their profile. Here is the old domain: http://www.claimssolicitors.co.uk/ It would be great if you could help me out! 🙂 Thanks
Technical SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
My seo company has a footer link that links to my site by keyword will this effect my rankings
My old SEo company has a footer link by keyword to my site so it acts like a site wide link will this effect my rankings. My site was in the top 5 for many keywords now page 2 and 3 so I am trying to see what has effected it as we havent changed what we do
Technical SEO | | Casefun0 -
Mini site links?
Can anyone point me to information about the "mini" site links on the Google search results or tell me how to get them set up? These aren't the full site links that show 3 by 3 under the first listing but small text links that appear for certain results. (See attached image for reference.) Are these something that can controlled/requested? NAj6E.png
Technical SEO | | DVanSchepen0 -
InSite Linking Best Practices
When creating links within your website, is it bad to have a anchor text link pointing back to the same page? Say the page the homepage is optimized for "credit cards". If I have a "credit cards" anchor text link on the page the link points to, is that bad practice? Secondly, if it's better to put that link on a different page, wouldn't I be placing a keyword that's optimized for a different page on the wrong page? (hopefully I'm making sense) Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Understanding No Follow
We manage a couple of sites with 100s of pages... Most of the sites have content that is not helpful as landing pages but obviously has relevent content related to our desired search terms. Some of links go off site to another domain. I am trying to understand the issue of "link juice" and if I gain it or lose it by putting "nofollow" designation on some of the page links. Specifically, do I increase the value of my pages if I put no follow tags on lower tier links off of these pages. Here is a page in question - http://www.vahmarketing.com/product/ductless-hoods Is there a best practice or SEO rule for using "no follow"? Thanks, Bob Nance
Technical SEO | | impressem0