Do NoFollow links still split link equity?
-
So I realize that Google will split link equity between all links on any given page. Example, if a landing page has 10 links then the authority from the landing page is split into 10 and each link given its own smaller amount of equity from that landing page. My question is if I were to turn 9 of the 10 links on this page to NoFollow links would the equity still remain split 10 ways or would it simply pass all of it to the one DoFollow link left on the page?
-
Hi Zach,
Good question. In the old days, this was referred to as "PageRank scuplting" - a process where you would place the nofollow tag on your unimportant links in order to pass more value to the links you wanted to count.
Then, in 2009, Google supposedly "plugged" the nofollow hole. Rand and team did a classic Whiteboard Friday on the topic. I still remember watching it the day it came out:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-how-do-we-plug-the-nofollow-leak
Today, you don't hear much about PageRank sculpting. Most SEOs don't bother with it, partly because of it's decreased effectiveness, but also in part because there are more effective ways of controlling the influence of links.
This is where the issue becomes more complex. Link "equity" or PageRank, (or MozRank), is only one small factor in the overall value of a link. Anchor text, position on the page, and a host of other factors all influence how much influence any given link can wield. Here's a good introduction on the subject (again from Rand)
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
As I understand it, the link equity is still spent evenly to all 10 links even if 9 of them are nofollow.
The 1 dofollow will receive its share, while the 9 nofollow will be sent it, but they won't receive the credit.
-
If you were to convert 9 of the 10 total links on the page into a nofollow, the only dofollow link will get all the link juice. I hope that clearly answers your question.
Edit: It looks like this changed a while ago (mid 2009) that if nofollow is added to 9 of the 10 links, the 10 links only get 10% of the link juice instead of the 100% and the 90% essentially gets lost.
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
-
Implementing nofollow tag affect ranking
if a blog that is performing well on the first page at an average position of 4 for an informative term. The blog contains a lot of outbound links, adding nofollow tag to all of them affect the current ranking? There are few other same cases. Here is the link - monk.webengage.com The was a lot of other optimization done on the page but the ranking did not improve at all. Is the issue with my domain authority or is it due to higher backlink to other competitive domains.
On-Page Optimization | | Web-Engage0 -
No followed links, what happens to the PR?
Hi, I have read a few times, on here and other places that when a website applies a no follow tag to a link the PR is not retained but instead disappears (evaporates) thus neither website benefiting. Is that true? If so what is the actual benefit of no following a link?
On-Page Optimization | | Bondara0 -
To many links on page and penguin
Could to many links on to many pages be a factor that the penguin update would effect your site. I know this is a broad question , but I am curious what people think.
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Too Many On-Page Links Reported By SEOmoz
Hi, I recently did run a crawl report for my blog dapazze.com, and found that SEOmoz is reporting many pages on my blog having more than 100 internal links. I opened OSE, and made a search for one of my pages which was reported to contain more than 100 links. And I found it to contain 464 internal links. Here is the link: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?page=1&site=dapazze.com%2F2012%2F10%2Fwin-a-commentluv-premium-single-site-and-multi-site-license-worth-about-154-giveaway-of-october%2F&sort=page_authority&filter=&source=internal&target=page&group=0 Please have a look at it. I have chosen - Show "All" links from "only internal" pages to "this page" option in OSE, which reports me this. I see almost every page in my blog linking to every page. This is not the problem for me. I have also tried to make a search for some popular bloggers, like ProBlogger.net, ShoutMeLoud.com, HellBoundBloggers.com, etc, and all of them have the same problem. Should I be worrying about this problem? What is the problem actually?
On-Page Optimization | | rahulchowdhury0 -
I have a client where every page has over 100 links
Some links are in the main navigation (it has a secondary and tertiary level) and some links are repeated in the left navigation. Every page has over 100 links if crawled. From a practical standpoint, would you (a) delete the 3rd-level links (or at least argue for that) or (b) rel='nofollow' them? From a usability standpoint, this setup works as they are almost one click from everything. From a crawl standpoint, I see some pages missed in google (the sitemap has over 200 links). Looking for the best on-page current SEO advice to set these guys on the road to success.
On-Page Optimization | | digimech0 -
Site wide 301 or canonical links.
Hi guys, I'd like add code to my header file to specify www. as opposed to just http:// for the canonical links across my entire site. How can I do this? I'd like it to be site wide code that I can just add to my header.php file which is included across the site.
On-Page Optimization | | absoauto0 -
If I have too many on-page links can I reduce it with nofollow tags or do the links have to be removed?
On my site I have a top nav drop down menu but once visitors go to one particularly large subsection, that menu is repeated on the left for easier viewing. As a result, I shoot over 100 links on page. Can I put nofollow or noindex tags on the left side links and reduce my "official" on-page links count or do I have to actually eliminate some of the links? Thanks, Oak
On-Page Optimization | | CSA-2316710 -
Non www. page still ranking highest
Hi I didnt quite know what I was doing in start when I started linkbuilding. Links were spread btw epleskrinet.no and www.epleskrinet.no . A couple of the strongest links were to the non www. version. So that one was ranking highest atm. I got it redirected 2 weeks ago. All links that are added know goes to www.version still the non www. is ranking highest. Should i worry about this or will simply the otherone overcome it in time ?
On-Page Optimization | | danlae0