NOFOLLOW in Forum Topic External Links?
-
We run a busy aviation website, with lots of members who post external links within our forum. Currently, we implement NOFOLLOW tags on all external links or links to external sites not in our domain portfolio.
Would we benefit from removing the NOFOLLOW attribute? Would we benefit from keeping it?
Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
-
I have a blog that gets about six to ten posts per day. Each of those posts has a link to another website. All of these links are do-follow. I do that because the sites that I am linking to are all very high quality and have better content for that subject that I have on my site.
I believe that when you are "linking up" to sites better than yours for a topic that the outgoing links are valuable.
However, I also believe that if you are "linking down" to trash sites and pages of unrelated content then the links can harm your site.
I would never give control of outgoing links on my site to strangers and even when my employees post content I always review the target of every outgoing link myself.
-
Thank you for your responses guys.
I was also asking if there would be any SEO benefit of "DO-FOLLOWING" the links? I.E. Google noticing that the page content doesn't include any NOFOLLOW links?
Most, if not all of the links are to legitamate aviation related websites.
-
Agree with Scott. Almost every forum I've seen that allows followed external links gets spammed so you'll need a strategy to combat that. If the links provide value I'm not sure if following/no-following will make much difference to community behaviour, but they might encourage the more seo-savvy users to post links (and of course, attract the spammers).
At the simplest level you could try requiring javascript from posters, but I suspect you'll need something a bit more sophisticated. There are forum posting and blog commenting tools that try and solve captchas so ultimately, i suspect there will be little alternative but to manually moderate the forum.
-
Are these links going to other great sources of aviation content... or are they simply people linking to personal websites, websites who pay them to grub links, and websites who paid somebody who paid these people to grub links on your site?
My question is... are these people turning your site into a linkfarm? If they are then you better keep the nofollow or heavily moderate.
If you remove the nofollow and word gets out that you have a "do follow" forum then that could be like painting a target on your own behind.
-
The nofollow attribute was created to help discourage spam.
If people post a ton of unrelated links that provide little or no benefit to the page I would leave the nofollows there. But if the links provide value it might be a good idea to allow them to be followed.
Just remember there's a large number of spammers out there that are looking for places to post followed links. Your spam might increase dramatically overnight.
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
-
Question about related topics
I know that in order to rank on any keyword I need to talk about different "concepts / topics " everyone has a different word for it but let say I need to talk about multiple subject to make it simple. My question is how to find those subjects ... in some industry it is pretty straight forward you go to related search or some keyword tool such as Moz and you find what you need. Example : If "Title tag" is my main topic the subtopic that I find and that I need to cover on the same page are "title tag length , title tag checker, mobile title tag, title tag example etc..." On my keywords such as " Alsace bike tours" all I find in related searches and using all the tools out there such as Moz keyword research explorer is "Alsace cycling vacations " ""Cycling Colmar" "Alsace bike trip " etc... not really anything exiting , it means the same thing and it is just variations of the keyword. I have used other tools such as Marketmuse and they give me related topic such as "Strasbourg" "Colmar" "half timbered houses" "Alsace wine" and I am not sure it is any better... because to cover those I have no other solution that doing definitions... or describe those in details which is probably not what someone typing "Alsace bike tour" is looking for. I have the feeling that all those tools are great for keywords like "content marketing" or "title tag" with a lot of requests but they fail for everything else. Can someone give me an insight on how they do to write on multiple topic where they are in my situation and based on the example I gave which topic they would cover and based on my example.. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Link externally from destination pages
Hello, From my destinations pages, is it beneficial to have a link going externally to the hotels my clients are staying in ? In other words is it beneficial to my website or will it hurt me to link external from all my destinations pages to all the hotels my clients are staying in ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Links to external site (hotels link)
Hello, I am currently designing the webpages of my website and I am wondering if I should link externally or if it going to hurt me ? I am in the travel industry and for example in the France in the Loire valley, I want to list hotels that people can stay at in pre and pods trip. Is it ok to link to maybe 10 of those hotels websites or can it hurt me ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Link building… how to get high rewarding links?
Hi Guys, I have a few people whom I have built relationships up in my industry with that would like to link to my site. Is there any particular things I need to be mindful of before having them link to me? I'm just mindful of the unknown. Also, which links to use etc? Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Charity links
Quick question - Are links on charity websites with a small mention about what your company does good links to go for?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson1 -
How quickly should you aquire links?
Hi Guys, How often should you aquire links without getting into trouble with Goolge? Should you aqure a linka day? Or a link every 2 days? What should it be? Thanks guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Too many links on home page?
I run a forum that currently has 351 links on its home page (and p.1, 2 etc.) due to all the tags that appear under feed items. Is it a viable solution to get this number down to simply nofollow all of these tag links? How else can I get this number of links down recorded by Google down, or is it not something I should be especially worried about?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | staingurus0 -
Nofollow links in Google Webmaster
I've noticed nofollow links showing up in my Google Webmaster tools "links to your site" list. If they are nofollow why are they showing up here? Do nofollow links still count as a backlink and transfer PR and authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoCoGuru1