How effective are nofollow links today (2013) ?
-
Hi,
We had a question about the effectiveness of nofollow today. Nofollowing some links on pages was to make sure pagerank flows to content which is most relevant and useful to visitors on the site.
Looking at the 2009 article, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow, it seems that adding the meta tag nofollow would no longer help us in ensuring this goal. We had a couple of questions:
1. Do you think Google today only passes pagerank to dofollow links
2. Are sites today using iframes/javascript to make sure googlebot passes pagerank to only relevant pages
3. Any other best practice you would suggestThanks
-
+1 to avoiding iframes altogether
-
Er... sorry if I wasn't clear. IFrames may or may not pass PageRank, but I would hardly ever recommend using them if you want to control your SEO variables.
Best practices would be to make the majority of your links followed, and consolidate lessor important links.
-
Thank you guys!
So the best practice would be to use iFrame in order to improve the PR juice flow to followed links? Like Jesse and the article said, the number of links is what is calculated for distributing the PR juice regardless of the nofollow tag? That's just so weird...
Thanks again!
-
bah! thanks Cyrus. I missed that announcement. Makes sense!
Can't say I blame them either. But... bummer
-
Jesse,
Just this week, Squidoo announced they are now making all external links "nofollow".
http://hq.squidoo.com/squid-news/changing-link-status-on-squidoo/
Links to squidoo.com will still be followed (internal links)
OSE is based on data a few weeks old. The changes on Squidoo.com will be updated in a few weeks.
-
Okay I don't know what to believe anymore. I just added a Squidoo page and a few links on there, the source reads nofollow on all even though I completed all necessary fields in the Squidoo guide but still it's showing up on OSE as a followed link..
wtf
-
This is a complex issue, but let me share with you:
- What we know to be true &
- What most consider best practices
1. Google has stated many times in the past that nofollow link pass neither PageRank nor anchor text.
2. That said, many SEOs believe nofollow links do play some roll in search engine rankings, although the relationship is elusive and difficult to define. The 2011 SEOmoz Ranking Factors did show a correlation between nofollow links and higher rankings (but now I'm getting off topic)
3. Most good SEOs believe that PageRank sculpting either doesn't work, or is generally such a low ROI activity that it isn't worth it. (However, not everyone holds this opinion)
4. Google is getting better at parsing javascript links (although we don't know what kind of link signals are passed through them) and there is even evidence that Google passes link signals through iframes, but again we can't quantify what signals/how much.
**5. Best Practices - **Generally, you don't want too many links on a page, and you want your important links in prominent places.
If you have too many links that you don't want followed, you should consider consolidating them into a single link. For example, you can put your Contact, Privacy, Info and FAQ into a single link/landing page that leads to a better experience for users and search engines.
See this article by Rand on link consolidation. It's also from 2009, but just as relevant today: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-consolidation-the-new-pagerank-sculpting
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
no it won't make a difference to followed links all it will do is not follow or pass juice to links you chose to nofollow.
google does not parse or split up link juice it either passes on or doesn't.
-
1. Google stated it repeatedly and sticks to its decission: nofollow links are meant to tell crawlers not to follow the links. They don't pass pagerank and they won't influence your SERP rankings directly. Nevertheless, most nofollow links (comments, mentions etc) are great techniques for networking. Even if they won't have any impact on your SEO campaign, later on they can help you build partnerships, friendships and, eventually, they can lead to some pretty powerful dofollow links as well.
-
The article from 2009 points out that nofollow links will be ignored concerning the PR juice flow. To clarify the question - if we use nofollow on some of our links will we get more of the PR juice to the followed links?
Thanks for your comment!
-
It seems to me like you are suggesting that your PR can be spread out thin by too many followed links from your subdomain... I don't think this is true.
1.) Google does not follow nofollow links..
2.) iframes and javascript are concoctions of the devil himself.
3.) build links from high DA sites organically. Make sure they're relevant.
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
-
New Featured Links in Organic Search Results?
Hi guys, I just performed a search and came across something that looks like "featured links" under a regular organic search result (see screenshot). This is the first time I'm seeing this. It looks like a combination of callout and sitelink ad extensions for Google ads. Basically, linked callouts. I went to the landing page to check out the source code and it seems like they are calling it "featured link" in their code. I tried to find more info online but wasn't able to find anything. (I might not be using the correct search terms.) Does anyone know how to take advantage of this? Thanks a lot for your feedback. dJ9dmTr
Algorithm Updates | | HinterP0 -
Domain has been redirected our site; but many incoming links from sub domain. Will this hurts?
Hi all, This is the scenario: Our website is newwebsite.com. Our old website is oldwebsite.com which has been redirected to newwebsite.com (years back). But one of the old website's sub domain has a lot of back links to our current website like: seo.oldwebsite.com to newwebsite.com. Will this scenario hurts with any wrong linking? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Our company is mentioned on some high-traffic, authoritative sites and some of our products are linked as well. If we link to those pages, does it affect our SEO? How can we take advantage of those mentions?
I heard that if you link to another site, when Google indexes your site, they crawl that page that is referenced. By whatever metrics they use, if that site has your name or a link to your site, Google would rank it higher. I am not sure how true that is, but what value does another site mentioned our site have on our SEO?
Algorithm Updates | | JonathonOhayon1 -
AS we using the keyword related to our link but we are not listed in first page of Google search
AS we using the keyword related to our link but we are not listed in first page of Google search, but our competitors using the same keyword , they are listing in first page. how we can short this problem and get into first page on search
Algorithm Updates | | krisanantha0 -
How come google image search doesn't link to the right page?
For one site I work with the images link to the home page of the site rather than the page the image lives on. I think this is hurting my bounce rate quite a bit. Thoughts?
Algorithm Updates | | NetvantageMarketing0 -
How important are links after Panda
I have noticed that the sites in my niche that were at the top of the SERP's are still at the top of the SERP's after panda. I have also heard people theorizing that links are no longer important, its now all about bounce rates, time on site, etc. Is there any consensus about how important links are after Panda? thx Paul
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes1 -
How do these people have so many external back links?
A few of the sites that I 'compete' with have blogger accounts...and according to the research I've done they have over 500 million external, followed, links! These are mom blogs....and they aren't trying to do any SEO. I've noticed that if you are using blogger (as opposed to wordpress) and adding embed youtube videos to your blog you can set it to auto populate to youtube and also get a link in return. From what I can gather this just happens with blogger accounts since bloggers...and youtube...and google are all related. Does that have something to do with the crazy amount of followed external links they are getting? They also have a domain authority of 96 (which is because blogger is a trusted domain.... Is the sub-domain a better number to look at since their blog is a sub domain on blogger? Also, does anyone know who to get the same sort of exposure in youtube as blogger blogs get...or if it's even possible? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | NoahsDad0