Blog links - follow or nofollow?
-
I need my memory refreshed here!
Say, I've got a blog and some of the posts have links to recommended external sites and content. Should these be nofollowed?
They're not paid links or anything like that, simply things relevant to the post.
-
Agreed. It's called the web for a reason - a web of links. To my way of thinking, when I link out I am saying to Google: this is my neighborhood, and I am linking to it.
-
Gyi - the fear has subsided for the time being!
Thanks for the response
-
Thanks Keri. Well put
I've taken it on board
-
Google doesn't have the x-ray vision some of us fear.
The ONLY reason to nofollow a link, IMO, is because you have sold the link and want to be compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines. To use nofollow in most other cases makes no sense to me.
I know it was developed to prevent blog spam - and if you don't have time to moderate comments, then nofollow might make sense. But, IMO, it's better to have a clearly stated followed, moderated blog comment policy; when readers know that substantive comments are approved and followed, it encourages participation.
-
+1 for what Keri said. Don't fear linking out. It's upsetting that so many webmasters are suffering from outbound link paranoia. In fact, many are just wholesale nofollowing their entire sites. So sad.
-
I'd put the links out there straight. I don't see anything for you to worry about at all. You're curating the links, you feel they are valuable, let Google know they are valuable and trusted links.
-
As long as you doing it the right way you will be ok. Good luck with it. Nice taliking to you.
-
Yes, that's a fair point.
My caution is because in the past, the blog didn't link out to other sites at all. Now I've just started creating posts with external links in them.
As long as this won't be detrimental in anyway, I'll carry on
-
I dont think that woukld be a problem as long they are no links to spammy sites of some kind. The thing is it is really hard for google to see if it is a paid link and they will not just give you a penalty for without looking into it.
-
I know that google's traditional stance on this is that any paid links should be nofollowed, so I just don't want google to think that these might be paid links which haven't been nofollowed... and therefore impose a penalty for this.
-
I would say make it dofollow because this way you will pass linjuice to the other site and kind of reward them for good information.
If you are asking because you are loooking for blogs to comment on i wont worry to much. The thing is if you are going to get 99% dofollow and 1% NOFOLLOW people will notsee this as natural and nobody want that.
Hope this helps
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
-
Anchor Test (do follow link)
Hi, I am new to SEO, may I know how many anchor text with a do-follow link I should aim for a 500-1000 words guest post? also, what is the percentage of different type of anchor text per post, e.g. ( 20% Branded, 20% Exact-match, 20% Naked link and more? I know that quality is more important, but is there any magic number and the percentage I should really aim for? Kind regards CHRIS
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KINSHUN0 -
Is this link follow or nofollow? Does it pass linkjuice?
I have been seeing conflicting opinions about how Google would treat links using 'onclick'. For the example provided below: Would Google follow this link and pass the appropriate linking metrics(it is internal and points to a deeper level in our visnav)? =-=-=-=-=-=-= <div id='<a class="attribute-value">navBoxContainer</a>' class="<a class="attribute-value">textClass</a>"> <div id="<a class="attribute-value">boxTitle</a>" onclick="<a class="attribute-value">location.href='bla</a>h.example.com"> <div class="<a class="attribute-value">boxTitleContent</a>" title="<a class="attribute-value">Text Here</a>"><a href<a class="attribute-value">Text Here</a>"><a ="blah.exam.cpleom">Text Herea>div> ``` =-=-=-=-=-=-= An simple yes/no would be alright, but any detail/explination you could provide would be helpful and very much appreciated. Thank you all for your time and responses.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TLM0 -
Stopped ranking. Suspect links with keyword in blog posts and blog username. What to do? Disvow?
One of our staff thought it was a good idea to comment in 30 blogs in our niche using "keyword" as username in blog post linked to our website and additionally adding links to our website in the posts. We now got caught by panda or penguin (google confirmed no manual penalty was taken) and not ranking anymore for this keyword. No notification in webmaster tools neither. We have links from around 90 root domains of which 30 are from these blog posts. What would you suggest to do? Just building more legitimate links so that share of bad links goes down?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
Using google disvow tool? We would then loose potential to get later legitimate links from these sites? Any ideas/suggestions?0 -
Subdomain Metrics Links??
I have been analysing my companies website against our competitors and we beat them hands down on everything apart from the total links in the subdomain metrics. Our competitor jumped above us a couple of months ago to grab the number one spot for our industries most valuable keyword. They have had a new website designed and after looking at the source code and running it through SEO MOZ in comparison to our site I can't see how they have manged to do it. We beat them hands down on all factors apart from subdomain metrics > Total links where they have twice as many. When it comes to Page Specific Metrics and Root Domain Metrics we easily beat them on all factors. Does anyone have any ideas what I need to do to improve the subdomain metrics? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Detectamet0 -
Bad links
Well just set up SEO Moz to find out someone thought it funny to build a load of links to our site http://bluetea.com.au/ with the anchor txt "Buy Cocks" .... PLEASE PLEASE let me know how much I should worry about this and how can I get rid of it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Intrested0 -
Looking for a link builder
Hey guys I'm looking for a freelance link builder to work with my agency. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks Jaime
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | flemingsteele0 -
Linking Back
Hello, I have a blog www.digitaldiscovery.eu and I have been working the link building. Now I have a few links pointing into my blog and in Google Webmaster and in Open Site Explorer I can see the URL of those websites. In scale from 1 to 10 how usefull is to have a blogroll in my blog pointing back to those high PR links? How usefull is this in link-building strategy? Tks in advance! PP
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroM0 -
While SEOing .com.au websites should I submit blogs and PRs only in .com.au Blogging / PR sites?
While SEOing .com.au, websites I am submitting PRs in sites like prweb.com, pr.com, prlog.com etc. Is that the right way or should I submit these PRs in Australian PR sites only (.com.au)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__0