Ecomerce: Would 4 link sections leak too much link juice?

[BobGW]

Hello,

In my content management for our ecomerce site, I've found that there are sometimes links to sites in our industry that have "helpful links" sections. Several strong sites link directly to these resource sections. There are 4 different topics that fit this trend in our industry. Would it leak too much link juice to make 4 comprehensive link sections and place a link to them on our "Useful Articles" page?

Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all?

Thanks.

[BobGW]

Awesome Dr. Meyers. You nailed my question. Thanks everyone for your discussion. I get the impression that an article with a bunch of outgoing link is preferred to just a list, but either way it sounds like it won't hurt my site.

Thanks again everyone.

[Dr-Pete]

If I'm understanding correctly (although, I agree with Christopher that I don't think this is what the OP meant), that kind of nofollow generally isn't necessary. Let's say I had a page of "Favorite Articles" on my site, and it was broken into 10 categories. Let's also say that I wanted to include some articles/URLs in multiple categories, such that they were repeated. We have pretty good reason to believe (Bruce Clay did some experiments, I think, and others have verified) that Google ignores the 2nd, 3rd, etc. instance of the same link, including the anchor text. Essentially, they auto-nofollow it, so that you can't use multiple links to skew PR toward one URL.

[Dr-Pete]

You're just talking about links from one page, right (not any kind of cross-site header or sidebar)? In that case, I don't think it's a huge issue. If you link to a ton of sites, then yes, each one of those sites will receive less PR/authority from you, but it shouldn't impact your site at all. If you feel those sections and links are relevant and valuable to your users, then I don't see an issue with it.

The only exception would be a page full of links that you had no control over, like a user-generated resources page. Then, a ton of links to potentially bad sites could harm your site, at large scale. Since this is your resources page, though, I'm assuming you're hand-selecting the sites and they're all reputable and valuable.

[ChristopherGlaeser]

what's your opinion on "Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all?"

My answer to questions like this is: what is most compelling for the user.  In the past I would focus on a wide variety of things including good content, but I've been strongly influenced by fellow MOZ member EGOL and in recent months I've devoted considerable time and money to creating really great content and I have already seen the benefits.  Sure, the articles have internal and external links and I do ensure things like G+ authorship are done correctly and other SEO minutia, but I'm always thinking in terms of usefulness to the reader.

As for specific questions regarding follow and nofollow, some of the things I would use nofollow include paid links, forum/blog comments, and a footer link to another site.  I can't think of a reason I would ever nofollow an unpaid link to a reputable and related site that I included in an article or a page that I wrote.  If I included the link then that means I think it has value for my reader.  And, Google has made it very clear that nofollow does not affect the denominator when dividing the page range among the linked articles, so why discard the page rank?

Good discussion.  Thanks for asking.

Best,
Christopher

[Matt-Williamson]

Yeah I guess so - what's your opinion on "Or should I stick to one comprehensive link section? Or perhaps a small link section? Or none at all?"

Either way Christopher it has been good to share thoughts with you. Hopefully there will be many more times over the coming months and years in the community - that's what makes it so great to be a part of 

[ChristopherGlaeser]

... if I was having numerous links to a site from several pages on mine I would consider adding the nofollow ...

I guess we read the question differently.  I don't think the OP was asking about "numerous links to a site".  I read the question to mean that he was linking to multiple sites.  Here is an excerpt from the question:

I've found that there are sometimes links to sites ...

Perhaps the OP can clarify the question.

Best,
Christopher

[Matt-Williamson]

I appreciate what you are saying but the point I am getting at is that I wouldn't use it for pagerank sculpting (maybe my wording should have been clearer in first place) but if I was having numerous links to a site from several pages on mine I would consider adding the nofollow to all but one of these personally. In a more extreme situation this is sensible if you are linking regularly between two sites that you own (i.e sitewides).  I guess it all depends on context and value..

[ChristopherGlaeser]

You are confusing two issues: a) does nofollow pass page rank to the linked site (answer is no) and b) does nofollow preserve the page rank for the remaining links on the page (answer is no).

Here is another way to say it. When Google first implemented nofollow, they did not include the nofollow links in the denominator when dividing PR among all the links on the page.  Then Google realized that webmasters were using nofollow for unintended reasons (the reason you are still trying to use it).  Google wants you to use nofollow to identify sites for which you can not vouch and for sites that are paying for the link.  Google does not want you to use nofollow for page sculpting.  When Google realized that webmasters were using nofollow for page sculpting, they changed their algorithm.  That was in 2008.  Now, ALL the links on the page, both follow and nofollow, are counted in the denominator when dividing PR among the links.  The PR assigned to follow links is passed on and the PR assigned to nofollow links is discarded.

So, you have two choices.  You can either pass the PR to the other site or you can discard the PR.  Neither of these preserves PR for your site.

Best,
Christopher

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Christopher

I am aware of the post by Matt Cutts and still think it is foolish to cast off nofollow links in this situation personally.

And even that article notes the following:

"[*] Nofollow links definitely don’t pass PageRank. Over the years, I’ve seen a few corner cases where a nofollow link did pass anchortext, normally due to bugs in indexing that we then fixed. The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results."

I remember when I read the article at the time there were a lot of interesting points in the comments on the post and some confusion.

Also have a look here: - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en

"In general, we don't follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web. However, the target pages may still appear in our index if other sites link to them without using nofollow, or if the URLs are submitted to Google in a Sitemap. Also, it's important to note that other search engines may handle nofollow in slightly different ways."

I wouldn't just write of nofollow - Matt was basically saying don't do pagerank sculpting but he still noted the use and value of nofollows in situations where you are linking to sites. Nofollow links still aid search engines and how they run their index on the web..

As with a lot in our game things aren't always cut and dry or should that be "cutts" and dry - see 0:32 here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnVEERmbdpo

If this is the case I also may as well start getting as many paid links from high authority sites and have them all no followed as they will increase pass pagerank, increase my sites authority and in turn search engine rankings then but I won't be in danger of penalties from Google? Google recommends nofollow for a reason with link schemes such as paid advertorials don't you think? Nofollows on such links leave the value to the human but remove the value passed by search engines and in turn prevent you from falling foul of the webmaster guidelines and getting a penalty from Google..

The one thing I think is important and we both agree on is the quality of the sites you link to is important and it is natural to link out to some sites and will aid you.

Regards

Matt

[ChristopherGlaeser]

"There is no hard and fast rule to this, but if you think that 4 links is too much then you may want to consider placing a nofollow on some of the links ..."

Not true.  Changing some of the links to nofollow will not affect the other links on the page.  Google announced this years ago.  See this article Matt Cutts wrote back in 2009 on page sculpting at  http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

The paragraph below is the most relevant:

So what happens when you have a page with “ten PageRank points” and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? Let’s leave aside the decay factor to focus on the core part of the question. Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn’t count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each.

If the links enhance the user experience, then leave them.  If you can vouch for the sites and they are not paid links, then there is likely no need to nofollow.  Also, it is extremely important to understand that Google ranks you based on not only the quality of the sites that link to your site, but also the quality of the sites to which you link.  This is often overlooked or not well understood when site owners focus on trying to keep all the link juice to themselves.  Instead, site owners should focus on creating an awesome site.  If that means directing your users to other sites with awesome content when appropriate, then include the links.

Best,
Christopher

[Matt-Williamson]

I think it is a good thing for a website to have some external links that are pointing to relevant sites that will help your users. There is no hard and fast rule to this, but if you think that 4 links is too much then you may want to consider placing a nofollow on some of the links but I would definitely leave some followed and not worry too much about this.

On a side note if you wanted to link to one site on four parts of your site I would leave one natural and nofollow the other 3 personally.

I wouldn't have a section on my site that is basically a link page to other sites - it would be much more relevant and natural, in my opinion, to link to the relevant sites in context with certain areas of your site and this would provide much more value to the visitor as well..