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Asking a site to remove a "nofollow" on a link to our client
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Hello,
We created a good infographic for a client of ours and a large tech site (DA 86) picked up and ran a story on it. We didn't contact this company asking them to feature it, they have just picked it up through other shares around the Web.
I understand that, at the end of the day, it's their prerogative whether to "nofollow" their links or not, but surely they should be giving our client some credit as they have clearly deemed the graphic newsworthy and felt that it would appeal to their readership.
I've emailed said tech site, but to no avail. Does anyone have any advice on this? Or is it just a case of they can do what the heck they want? I know that our client will still benefit from the additional referral traffic, but a follow link would have been nicer!
Cheers,
Lewis
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Hey Lewis,
If they'd used your infographic without credit or attributed credit elsewhere then you'd absolutely be within your rights to ask for attribution. However in this instance as they've given you the appropriate credit there's nothing you can do (whether the link is no-followed or not).
Whilst clearly a followed link would be great I'd strongly advise that you don't pursue this aggressively. You've not said whether or not they routinely no-follow all outbound links on the site but this may just be their policy. Moreover you really don't want to end up upsetting or alienating what could be a great contact in the future.
This is still definitely a win
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They will do whatever it is that they already do and their system handles the rest.
Emailing them might work. Sometimes it can change but dont get your hopes up. You can try, then follow up on it. It is yours after all.
If they dont, then be happy with a nofollow link.
Referrals wont hurt
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I wouldn't worry too much about the nofollow link, especially since having a complete lack of nofollow links in a big profile would be a warning sign of link manipulation. Still, Google also knows when a site with really high trust and authority uses nofollow links to maybe a too high of a degree--like wikipedia. That said, they also can bring search value. See: http://moz.com/blog/the-hidden-power-of-nofollow-links and the first comments at the end of the post. Cheers!
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I think your are doing right!
It´s their site and they can decide whether to nofollow their links or not. You also can ask 4 a dofollow link of course, but i think such a big site have for sure automated processes and probably many e-mails per day, so I think it be difficult that they pay attention on such things, but who knows..
Anyway most important is that this is a clear signal that you did an awesome job and as you say, nofollow links are also important
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