Should I no follow all external links?
-
I have worked with a few different SEO firms lately and a lot of them have recommended on the sites I was working on to "no-follow" all external links on the site.
On one hand this traps all the link equity/Pagerank. On the other I would think this practice is frowned upon by Google.
What are some opinions on this?
-
That is true. If you nofollow a link, nobody gets the PR.
-
Hi EGOL,
This caught my eye - 'If you nofollow a link the PR evaporates.'
When someone nofollow's a link, in most cases the person doing so thinks they are stopping PR from leaking out of the site.
If it evaporates, no one gets the PR?
Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick here?
-
I link out to dozens of websites every week and every one of those links are followed.
-
This. I asked the same question many moons ago and EGOL wrote a really good reply along the lines of "You indicating to Google that you're linking to untrustworthy sites. Why link to them at all then?"
Anyway, it changed my opinion of external links. I ALWAYS make them followed, there is really no point having them no followed.
-
On one hand this traps all the link equity/Pagerank.
This is not true.
If you nofollow a link the PR evaporates.
And... if you link only to good, trusted sites then why nofollow anything? It tells google that you link only to untrusted sites.
-
Hi Spencer,
I did have the occasion that I no-followed an external link that was on the footer of the website, otherwise quite some link juice would of been wasted.
However, whenever I do new blog posts I make all external links do-followed within the blog post. By doing this you could let the sites who you linked out to know that they received a link, and the will enjoy the fact that it is do-followed. They might even link back or share the blog post on their social media accounts.
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
-
Correct Internal Linking Strategy
Hello. So my website currently has 8 pages in total. (Homepage, 5 Service Pages, Contact, About). I currently have about 80 quality RD and my Homepage already ranks #8 for my main keyword, while all Service Pages (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5) are stuck somewhere at #30-60 positions for their target keywords. My internal linking scheme looks like this https://i.imgur.com/2cA529v.png. The Homepage has a sidebar with links to all Service Pages, and each Service Page has the same sidebar that links to each Service Page, but doesn't link back to my Homepage. Contact and About pages can be accessed only via the links in the menu. I don't have any contextual links on my website, so all pages that are important for SEO are linked only via this same very sidebar. All these Service Pages are equally valuable to me, but they don't seem to grow much in Google. The Onpage Score of these pages is better than those of TOP10 competitors, and my content provides more value (I used the Skyscraper Technique). Taking all that into consideration, can you please tell me what might be wrong? Why Should I build more quality backlinks to these service pages instead of the homepage? Should I add contextual links to all my service pages from the homepage? Does my internal linking strategy look good to you? If not, what should I change? Can I hit top #10 with my internal pages for their target keywords if I mainly build links only to my homepage? All keywords that I'm after have low to medium competition. My website has 90 RD in total, and my website's DA is 27. Thank you. 2cA529v.png
Technical SEO | | NathalieBr3 -
What are the lowest acceptable metrics for a link?
I understand there is a subjective, human factor when deciding to link to/from a site. Nonetheless, what are the lowest Moz or Majestic metrics that are acceptable when building links. At what point do you say this site doesn't have the profile I would want? I am looking to clean up the backlink profile of a site. Also, I would like to set a criteria for building links in the future. I appreciate your thoughts on metrics when it comes to link building.
Technical SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
How to deal with high authority but irrelevant external links
Hi, My client has an online ecommerce site where he sells wedding items. His previous SEO company added his URL to many websites that are related to porn. Those are high authority websites but are irrelevant to my client's business. Should I disavow those links?
Technical SEO | | alexkatalkin0 -
Too many links? Do links to named anchors count (ie page#nameanchor)?
Hi, I have an internal search results page that contains approx 200 links in total. This links to approx 50 pages. Each result listing contains a link to the page in the format /page.html and also has 3 more links (for each listing) to named anchors within the page. eg /page.html#section1, /page.html#section2, /page.html#section3 etc. Should i remove the named anchors to keep my links per page under the Seomoz suggested max of 100? Will it impact crawl-ability or link juice being passed? Thanks in advance for your response.
Technical SEO | | blackrails0 -
Back Link Question
Hi Folks, Our domain (www.alabu.com) has been around since 2000. We've accumulated a lot of back links over the years, many of which I don't recognize and didn't ask for. I've been reading on here recently about "cleaning up" back links. I do see a lot of ours that just aren't relevant and I don't know why they decided to link to us. We haven't gotten a warning from google or anything like that, but I wonder, how do I know if we could benefit from cleaning up our back links? Is there a benefit to it even if google hasn't warned us? Thanks! Hal
Technical SEO | | AlabuSkinCare0 -
Should I wory about spam domains linking to me?
A while ago my site had a pharmacy hack done to it and created a ton of spam links. I've since fixed the issues on my site but I'm still showing links from their sites. See screen shot: http://awesomescreenshot.com/0497cc147 I think they are links from the spam site to me and not my site "yakanger" linking to them correct? Do I need to worry about these? Can I get rid of them?
Technical SEO | | mr_w2 -
Internal links to low value pages
Hi, We're doing a big content update on our product pages and I'm looking for some advice about our internal linking. In a nutshell, the current design we're using links out from every product page (i.e. plants) to a set of accessory pages (i.e. things to help you plant the plants). The screenshot shows how this works. The accessories we sell are a very small part of our business and don't attract significant or valuable search traffic. It's the plant pages that pull in the visits and make the money.
Technical SEO | | jdeb
The reason for all these links to accessory pages is for usabilty & to reduce the volume of support calls about accessories (we get a lot of those). So my concern is that by linking out to these relatively low value accessory pages from all of our plant product pages, we will be spilling link juice from all our important pages to a small set of unimportant ones. Should I be concerned about this and if so, what should I do differently? I have considered: Making an intermediary page, listing the relevant accessories, so that each product page links to one intermediary page, which then links to all the accessories. Using nofollow on the accessory page links - there is so much info out there about this, much of it conflicting, that I just don't know if that's a good or bad idea. Using some kind of java-based pop-up box to list the accessory links that will hide the links from spiders. Linking back from the accessory pages to the relevant product sub-category pages to loop the flow of link juice. All ideas welcome zoBgC0 -
OSE Link Differential
I have the chrome toolbar installed. In the SERP a site I was looking at had 686 links from 12 domains linking to the root domain. When I checked this site in OSE with filters set to all pages in root domain it shows 65 links from 12 domains. Can anyone explain the difference?
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0