Should I switch all paid-for directory backlinks to nofollow backlinks?
-
Hello Mozzers, I'm looking at a niche party services directory (b2c), established for over 8 years. They're not using nofollow tags on backlinks from their paid entries (free entries only get phone numbers and not backlinks).
If they suddenly switch all the paid-for backlinks in their directory to nofollow backlinks, might that have some kind of negative impact. Switching sounds like the best way forward, but I want to avoid any unintended consequences. Perhaps I should only implement this change gradually?
Thanks in advance, Luke
Edited 30 minutes ago by Luke Rowland
-
Thanks Chris... they have virtually no backlinks but definitely operate within niche and quality is middling - there is some useful content on the site relevant to the niche, but not shedloads of content. Almost all outbound links (and not many of those either... perhaps 200). Finding it a tough one to call...
-
If I understand correctly, you are making changes to the directory and you're wondering if you should change all of their followed/paid links to nofollow all at once or some at a time. If that's right:
I'd first consider the quality of the directory itself. How many back links does it have and are they from authoritative sites within the niche? Is there a high percentage of low quality links? I'd next consider the quality, number, and relevance of the sites being linked to from the directory. Are they are all within a well defined niche that is consistent with that of the directory's back links. Is the scale of outbound links well beyond the scale of the directory's outbound links?
If it is a strong, editorial directory with relevant back links and outbound links to a well curated list of niche-relevant sites, you might keep the followed links and focus on building the directory's editorial value within the niche. You could do that by adding content that makes the site more valuable to visitor and more linkable to other sites within its theme.
If your directory has anything but those quality, relevant back links and/or has outbound links of a scattershot relevancy, it may not make much difference what you do, because there's likely not much intrinsic value in the site.
-
Hi,
A directory shouldn't be used for SEO purposes, only if they are relevant and used to help customers find relevant site, especially in niche industries.
The damage of a link penalty would be more of a threat that any lost link juice from the links changing to nofollow. If your site's authority is determined mainly by directory links then you may need to look at some other methods of creating quality links.
Kind Regards
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
-
Will deindexing a subdomain negate the benefit of backlinks leading to that subdomain?
My client has a subdomain from their main site where their online waiver tool lives. Currently, all the waivers generated by users are creating indexed pages, I feel they should deindex that subdomain entirely. However, a lot of their backlinks are from their clients linking to their waivers. If they end up deindexing their subdomain, will they lose the SEO benefit of backlinks pointing to that subdomain? Thanks! Jay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MCC_DSM0 -
Backlinks from old domain
Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agguk
We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!0 -
Cleaning up backlinks and changing URLs
Currently we are performing very poorly in organic clicks. We are a e-commerce site with over 2000 products. Issues we thought plagued us: Copied Images from competitors Site wide duplicate content duplicate content from competitor site Number of internal links on a page (300+) Bad backlinks (2.3k from 22 domains and ips) being linked to from sites like m.biz URLs URLs are abbreviated, over 50% lack our keywords Lack of meta descriptions, or too long meta descriptions Current State of fixing these issues: 50% images are now our own Site wide duplicate content near 100% completed Internal links have been dealt with Rewrote content for every product 90% of meta descriptions are fixed From all of these changes we have yet to see increase in traffic...10% increase at best in organic clicks. We think we have penalties on certain URLs. My question for the MOZ community is what is the best way to attack the lack of organic clicks. Our main competition is getting 900% more clicks than us. Any more information you need on the topic let me know and will get back to you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TITOJAX0 -
Use Canonical or Robots.txt for Map View URL without Backlink Potential
I have a Page X with lots of unique content. This page has a "Map view" option, which displays some of the info from Page X, but a lot is ommitted. Questions: Should I add canonical even though Map View URL does not display a lot of info from Page X or adding to robots.txt or noindex, follow? I don't see any back links coming to Map View URL Should Map View page have unique H1, title tag, meta des?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
How to create backlink to prominent sites which competition has
Hi, While going through link analysis of competition, there were links on high da sites, all these sites were reputable, wondering how to get dofollow links as what competition has attained any suggestions http://jalopnik.com/5965768/why-india-is-making-the-worlds-most-interesting-cars http://features.rr.com/topic/Maserati http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/volkswagen-plans-two-compact-suvs http://www.firstpost.com/tag/honda-amaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Follow or nofollow to subdomain
Hi, I run a hotel booking site and the booking engine is setup on a subdomain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmotuz
The subdomain is disabled from being indexed in robots.txt Should the links from the main domain have a nofollow to the subdomain? What are you thoughts? Thanks!0 -
Rel=nofollow and SSL Certs
Will I lose or gain seo benefit from using rel=nofollow on my SSL certificate? every page on the site refers (links) to the cert and the server call to display the cert adds over 500ms to my page load speeds. <updated question=""> Is there a way to display the cert to cut down on load speeds? Also, would Google discount or penalize the site if the cert were nofollowed?</updated> Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AnthonyYoung0 -
How many articles should I write per day & how many backlinks should I get per day to be natural!
hey.. I"m working in review blog one day per 1 or 2 weeks and I post up to 6 articles one time; is it unnatural for SEO ? how many articles should I post in blog per day? another question..how many backlinks should I get to just one post? I'm using Magic Submitter software to get help but I don't get more than 50 backlinks one time..what's real number of backlinks should I get and for how much time to be 100% natural for Google? any helpful info about backlinks techniques worth to hear..thnx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | akitmane0