Would you "nofollow" links from a column on HuffingtonPost?
-
Hi all,
So, I've read a lot of posts about guest posting being dead, but what about if you have a regular column on a well-regarded site? Stop? Nofollow links?
We have a regular column on the Huffington Post and each piece has historically had at least one link (or more) back to our site. Yes, early on (like last year) we did use optimized anchor text in our links, and then calmed down on that a bit. But regardless, the links have always been relevant to the topic covered, and the topic is always in our niche (namely: budget travel in Europe).
I saw Matt Cutts' recent video in which he recommends using the "nofollow" tag on guest posts when linking to one's own site, and specifically mentions HuffPo. Thus, I'm prepared to go back to my old posts and "nofollow" those links, but I just wanted a sanity check from the fine folks at SEOMoz. Would you go back and nofollow them?
Many thanks!
-
Thanks, Ruth. I think I'll do this -- double check to make sure authorship is correct (which is, quite frankly, not easy to do!) and just take it easy on the links I put back to my site in any upcoming HuffPo columns.
I appreciate the helpful feedback!
-
+1 RB.
RB is a boss.
-
I don't want to advise you to ignore Matt Cutts' advice but honestly in the same situation I'd probably just leave them be. I think Chris' suggestion of making sure you've got authorship set up is a good one. If you want to nofollow your links going forward you should do so, but there are probably better things you could do with your time than go back and change the existing links - especially if your inbound link profile is already pretty diverse and on-topic.
-
Thomas,
I'd cut the followed links back to just a few, make sure the rest are nofollowed, and make sure that you've got your google authorship set up correctly to link back to your profile and that your profile shows you're an author at that domain. Google's already made a decision about those links and how to count them towards sites. I don't think changing the anchor text is a good idea--even if you nofollow them afterwards.
-
Its a tough one, because you know they should be nofollow but they are good links on a good site so you don't want to.
Only you can make that call, but one thing I would do for sure is go back to any of them with anchor text and change them to your brand or your domain.
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
-
Link reclamation: What happens when backlinks are pointing to other page than the most related page? Any risks?
Hi all, We have started link reclamation process as we failed to redirect our old website links to newly created pages. Unfortunately most of the backlinks are pointing to a page which already has lots of backlinks. Just wondering if I can redirect the old pages to the other pages than the actual related page they must be pointing to make sure only one page doesn't take away all the backlinks. And what happens if Google find that backlink is pointing to a different page than the actual page? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Sub domains take away the pagerank/link juice of main website?
Hi all, I would like to know how sub domains will be collaborated with domain or main website in terms of authority, backlinks, link juice, etc...Link juice will be passed to sub domains from domain or vice versa? If there are large number of pages in sub domain, will that going to impact the ranking of main domain? Backlinks of sub domain are going to be a deciding factor for website ranking too? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How to take down a sub domain which is receiving many spammy back-links?
Hi all, We have a sub domain which has less engagement for last few years. Eventually many spammy back links pointed to this sub domain. There are relevant back links too. We have deleted most of the pages which are employing spammy content or which have spammy back links. Still I'm confused whether to take this sub domain down or keep it. The confusion between "relevant backlinks might be helping our website" and "spammy backlinks are affecting to drop in rankings"? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
More or less pages from Homepage? Linking 3rd hierarchy level pages from Homepage.
Hi Moz community, With the concept of preserving link juice, many websites stopped linking too many pages from homepage. We even removed our 3rd hierarchy level pages removed from our homepage. We didn't notice much change in rankings. Recently I have gone through some SEO articles where some experts suggested to link low level pages from homepage which indicates to Google the way we respect and prioritise those pages but not just homepage and very next level pages. This also works in internal linking it seems. Is this true? Can we add such low level pages from homepage? Which actually works Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Homepage title tag: "Keywords for robots" vs "Phrases for users"
Hi all, We keep on listening and going through the articles that "Google is all about user" and people suggesting to just think about users but not search engine bots. I have gone through the title tags of all our competitors websites. Almost everybody directly targeted primary and secondary keywords and few more even. We have written a very good phrase as definite title tag for users beginning with keyword. But we are not getting ranked well comparing to the less optimised or backlinked websites. Two things here to mention is our title tag is almost 2 years old. Title tag begins with secondary keyword with primary keyword like "seo google" is secondary keyword and "seo" is primary keyword". Do I need to completely focus on only primary keyword to rank for it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google is really NOT SAYING IN "HOW SEARCH WORKS” ?
Hi All SEOmoz members and team, As I was reading this, is it true that Google does this . Simply, I don't think so, I haven't experienced any of such what is being talked [http://www.fairsearch.org/search-manipulation/what-google-isnt-saying-in-how-search-works/ C](http://www.fairsearch.org/search-manipulation/what-google-isnt-saying-in-how-search-works/ "http://www.fairsearch.org/search-manipulation/what-google-isnt-saying-in-how-search-works/")ome on, let us discuss the real thing about Google. Teginder Ravi
Algorithm Updates | | Futura0 -
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