Is ok to add 'no follow' to every outbound link?
-
How do you handle outbound links from your site?.. do you no follow them all to be on the safe side?
-
You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater (to use a colloquialism). External pointing, followed links are not only good for the web as a whole, they're good for YOUR site, too. We've seen numerous examples of sites that began opening their external linking policies and received greater search traffic and rankings as a result. The most famous of these in the NYTimes, which Marshall Simmonds talked about in his Whiteboard Friday here: http://moz.com/blog/convincing-upper-management-aka-justifying-your-existence-whiteboard-friday
I'd also suggest watching Cyrus' video on the topic of linking externally here: http://moz.com/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday
And finally, I'd point out that sites that never link out with followed links create the perception that they are not generous and thus, not deserving, of links of their own. You might point out that only a fraction of web users know what a nofollow link is, and my response would be that those are the same people who control most of the websites and links.
All in all, I'd strongly advise against this (and Google does, too!).
-
My thought is really that if one of the sites we link to on a normal basis gets penalised/banned by google (we link to big sites but dont forget BMW scenario), then we could be penalised in turn for linking to them
-
What's your thought behind the question. In my opinion telling Google that this is a no-follow link indicates that the receiving site is not trusted.
If your happy to link to them then you should be happy to allow follow - if that's an actual term
-
I do not think it is a good idea to no follow ALL outbound links, but It seems like a lot of big websites (like Yell) are doing this now.
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
-
Site Migration Question - Do I Need to Preserve Links in Main Menu to Preserve Traffic or Can I Simply Link to on Each Page?
Hi There We are currently redesigning the following site https://tinyurl.com/y37ndjpn The local pages links in the main menu do provide organic search traffic. In order to preserve this traffic, would be wise to preserve these links in the main menu? Or could we have a secondary menu list (perhaps in the header or footer), featured on every page, which links to these pages? Many Thanks In Advance for Responses
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ruislip180 -
What is the best way to add semantic linked data to WordPress?
As a recent Moz subscriber, I'm trying to up my game in terms of inbound marketing. One of the most pressing tasks is to add json-ld across all of my WordPress sites. What is the best way to do this? Should I use the technique set out here: https://moz.com/blog/using-google-tag-manager-to-dynamically-generate-schema-org-json-ld-tags Or should I use one of these plugins? https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/schema/ https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-structuring-markup/ I want to get this right so any guidance would be gratefully received.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | treb0r0 -
What link would be better?
Hi Guys, Just wondering what would be better in this instance: finding an old post (with good authority) and getting a link from that old article or creating a brand new article and adding the link to that. Finding an old post (with good authority) and getting a link from that old article Creating a brand new article and adding the link to that. Both naturally link out to the page you want a link too. To me, number 1 as the page already has authority but then again number 2 since Google might place some weight to recency. Any thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts140 -
International Targeting | Language > 'fa-ir' - no return tags
I see this error in search console :International Targeting | Language > 'fa-ir' - no return tagsURLs for your site and alternate URLs in 'fa-ir' that do not have return tags.and it is really increasingi do not know what is the problem and what I have done wrong? Originating URL Crawl date Alternate URL 1 /abadan/%D8%A2%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/browse/vehicles/?place=8,541&v01=0,1&saveLoc=1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | divar11/16/16 http://divar.ir/
0 -
Lower quality new domain link vs higher quality repeat domain link
First time poster here with a dilemma that head scratching and spreadsheets can't solve! I'm trying to work out whether to focus on getting links from new domains or to nurture relationships with the bigger sites in our business and get more links. Of the two links below which does the community here think would be more valuable a signal to Google? Both would be links from within relevant text/post copy. Link 1. Site DA 30. No links currently from this domain. Link 2. Site DA 60. Many links over last 12 months already from this domain. I suspect link 1 but given the enormous disparity in ranking power am I correct?! Thanks for any considered opinions out there! Matthew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Why isn't my uneven link flow among index pages causing uneven search traffic?
I'm working with a site that has millions of pages. The link flow through index pages is atrocious, such that for the letter A (for example) the index page A/1.html has a page authority of 25 and the next pages drop until A/70.html (the last index page listing pages that start with A) has a page authority of just 1. However, the pages linked to from the low page authority index pages (that is, the pages whose second letter is at the end of the alphabet) get just as much traffic as the pages linked to from A/1.html (the pages whose second letter is A or B). The site gets a lot of traffic and has a lot of pages, so this is not just a statistical biip. The evidence is overwhelming that the pages from the low authority index pages are getting just as much traffic as those getting traffic from the high authority index pages. Why is this? Should I "fix" the bad link flow problem if traffic patterns indicate there's no problem? Is this hurting me in some other way? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GilReich0 -
For those of you that used LINK DETOX.
Did you go ahead and remove all the TOXIC and HIGH RISK links? Just the toxic? Were you successful with the tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper0 -
Have you ever seen this 404 error: 'www.mysite.com/Cached' in GWT?
Google webmaster tools just started showing some strange pages under "not found" crawl errors. www.mysite.com/Cached www.mysite.com/item-na... <--- with the three dots, INSTEAD of www.mysite.com/item-name/ I have just 301'd them for now, but is this a sign of a technical issue? The site is php/sql and I'm doing the URL rewrites/301s etc in .htaccess. Thanks! -Dan EDIT: Also, wanted to add, there is no 'linked to' page.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | evolvingSEO0