Ratio follow/nofollow outbound links
-
Dear all,
So far, I couldn't find any satisfying answer to my problem - I hope you might be able to help:
Due to the fact that our website consists of user-generated content, we've got many many outbound links to other sites. Until now, it was possible to assign a follow-attribute to these links. In the ages of "pandas" however, we realised we had to limit this possibility as well as the amount of outbound follow links already published. My question now is whether there is some kind of rule of thumb as to what ratio of outbound follow and nofollow links is advisable.
I'd appreciate any ideas or comments. Thanks a lot!
-
I don't know of any 'magic' ratio, but surely you should put nofollow on all user generated links? That's kinda what it was invented for. Normal links (or 'follow' if you will) should be used for linking out to sites you can personally recommend to your visitors - either the sites offer additional insights that your content cannot or doesn't cover, or it corroborates what you're saying (e.g. linking to a government resource or wikipedia).
Does that make sense?
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
-
City and state link stuffing in footer
A competitor has links to every state in the U.S., every county in our state and nearby states, and every city in those nearby states. All with corresponding link text and titles that lead to pages with thin, duplicate content. They consistently rank high in the SERPS and have for years. What gives--I mean, isn't this something that should get you penalized?
On-Page Optimization | | nkolson0 -
Rel=canonical vs noindex/follow - tabs with individual URLs
Hi everyone I've got a situation that I haven't seen in quite this way before. I would like some advice on whether I should be rel=canonicalzing of noindexing/following a range of pages on a clients website. I've just started working on a website that creates individual URLs for tabs within each page which has resulted in several URLs being created for each listing: Example URLs: hotel-downtown-calgary hotel-downtown-calgary/gallery?tab hotel-downtown-calgary?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/map?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/facilities?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/in-the-area?tab Google has indexed over 1500 pages with the "?tab" parameter (there are 4380 page indexed for the site in total), and also seems to be indexing some of these pages without the "?tab" parameter i.e. ("hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews" instead of "hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews?tab") so the amount of potential duplication could be more. These tabbed pages are getting minimal traffic from organic search, so I've got no issues with taking them out of the index - the question is how. There are the issues I see: Each tab has the same title as the other tabs for each location, so lots of title duplication. Each individual tab doesn't have much content (although the content each tab has is unique). I would usually expect the tabs to be distinguished by the parameters only, not have unique URLs - if that was the case we wouldn't have a duplication issue. So the question is: rel=canonical or noindex/follow? I can see benefits of both. Looking forward to your thoughts!
On-Page Optimization | | Digitator0 -
Index / Monthly Click Number
Hi,
On-Page Optimization | | HypermediaSystems
This is a general question, so sorry in advance if inappropriate. Once I was told, in large scale EC / Forum Site,
the following number should be around 1,
and if it is below 1, it is a good sign ... Google Indexed Page Number / Monthly ( 30days ) Click Number I was told this is just a general idea, and real world situation varies, then
if you don't have any standard, this could be a start. (not dogmatic rules, just reference) Does this sounds about right? or do you have any other formula? I was tasked to do the site wide SEO, and diagnose the general state of SEO-wellness/fitness..
and right now, the number is 1.5, so I am about to report we can do more to get more SERP presence or something... If you guys point me relevant blog article / Q&A forum, I would really appreciate. Thanks!0 -
Does Google follow link path or url path when it comes to passing link juice
I noticed something with one of my sites and now I am thinking I made a boo boo (I think) here is what I have On my homepage I have 5 links Link1
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich
Link2
Link3
Link4
Link5 Links 1 - 4 go to a page and stops there. So my URL structure is www.mydomain.com/Link1
www.mydomain.com/Link2
www.mydomain.com/Link3
www.mydomain.com/Link4 So naturally my link juice passes down to these links evenly. Link5 also goes to another page, but on that page I have more links that go down further. www.mydomain.com/Link5 -> more links On page Link5 I have links that go to more pages, BUT my URL structure for these pages go like this Lets say on Link5 page I have another link that goes to AnotherLink1, AnotherLink2 and AnotherLink3 When you click on those links it takes you to those pages just fine, BUT my URL structure is like this www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink1
www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink2
www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink3 Basically I put all the "AnotherLink1-3" in the root directory as well. My question is concerning how Google passes the link Juice from my pages and if it is passing based on the path of the links and how they point to those pages, or do they pass link juice based on the URL structure. So since "AnotherLink1-3" is located in the root directory am I dividing my link juice from my home page to all the links as well based on the URL structure. For instance www.mydomain.com/Link1
www.mydomain.com/Link2
www.mydomain.com/Link3
www.mydomain.com/Link4
www.mydomain.com/Link5
www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink1
www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink2
www.mydomain.com/AnotherLink3 Do I need to change my path for Link5 page to www.mydomain.com/Link5/AnotherLink1
www.mydomain.com/Link5/AnotherLink2
www.mydomain.com/Link5/AnotherLink3 ?0 -
My report is showing duplicate titles.. for http://www.mysite.com/ & http://mysite.com
Is this because I setup my campaign wrong in seo moz or should I have my site setup differently to forward all traffic without the www to the www version? Or vise versa? Thanks for any advice!
On-Page Optimization | | Fridaythe15th0 -
Dropped 12 after following SEOMOZ Tips
I changed up my on page stuff via SEOMOZ tips, and I dropped like a rock in water 12 positions from 29 to 41 over night for homes for sale in casa Grande AZ. What did I majorly do wrong?
On-Page Optimization | | sansonj0 -
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 -
Link Product Thumb & Product Name with same anchor link?
We have an issue on one of our sites we're monitoring a campaign for that seems to have TOO many links on each page. I think the biggest reason is that each product listing on each category page has two separate anchor links into that page. One for the thumb and one for the name. So even though there should only be 60-70 links on each category page, that amount is being inflated because each product listing technically is being split into two separate links. Question is, should I place the thumbnail and name within the same anchor link? We do this on a lot of other sites we operate, but I'm not sure what's a better strategy. It would seem to me that it would be better to have a single anchor link that shares the thumb and product name.
On-Page Optimization | | AarcMediaGroup0