Can No Follow Links Hurt Rankings?
-
Thanks to sites like SEOmoz and good folks like yourselves I was able to understand enough about SEO to know that the company we outsourced the SEO to were doing at best a sloppy job.
I have seen that the link profile of site is totally unnatural in terms of factors such as relevancy and anchor text but also that around 95% of the 800 links are no follow.
My question is whether these low quality no follow links causing unnatural anchor text ratios and poor link relevancy would hurt our rankings? I am basically wondering if I have to now go and try to have all those links removed somehow to avoid any problems going forward?
-
Well thanks guys - that sounds like a resounding 'no it's not going to hurt the site'.
-
Hello,
No folow links dont pass juice, so in my opinion there is no harm from those type of links.
-
An even amount of followed vs. no followed is always beneficial. But, the SEO company did you a great disservice buy charging for links that were obviously- pointless. You will maintain your link juice, and page rank- however your theme and overall relevance may be impacted. Removing the links is unnecessary as they are already irrelevant in as much as SEO goes.
They may however be sending traffic which is your goal I assume. With the Penguin update, links have really moved to the forefront in our world. That being said, now you get to build relevant amazing links. Create valuable content, alter your anchor text ( some experts say navigational anchor text is the best now) and look forward to expanding your link profile to be extremely relevant and valuable for your SEO campaign.
-
Thanks for your input Ryan. My concern is just the sheer volume of no follow links they have created, out of 800 links the ahrefs tool is showing 95% of them being no follow. To simple old me thats a big red flag but like you said there is a consensus that no follow dont pass juice so really not sure if we could be penalized going forward.
-
Hi there from my understanding as I have had similar situations there are 2 schools of thought on this subject.
School 1 No Follows are a waste of time and as such should no tbe concerned or bothered with.
School 2 No Follows whilst not juicing the site play a part in a more balanced linking structure and a better overall make up of the total amount of links one's site has.
Ok now as I say I am self taught over the last 12 years, and I went to the search engine school of hard knocks so I stand to be corrected but I approach our companies SEO with the following policy on this, bearing in mind nearly all SEO stats sites including our best chums here at SEO MOZ including follow and no follow in reports it makes sense to me to have a balance of both, and reading between the lines with the guys at Google they are saying the same. So a good mix of both I believe is the best recipe.
Best wishes
Ryan
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
-
Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links warning, Should I do something?
Hi, I got: "Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole. " I don't see any dropping at rankings, could the best solution here to be, just to leave everything as it is and be more careful with the link building in the future? Or is there a danger that Google gives further penalties if I don't act on this one do something? I am little afraid that if I start removing links, my rankings will drop, even though they have remained same if don't do anything? Any help is appreciated.
Link Building | | pok3rplay3r0 -
Will links from startup/tech blogs help a site rank for *money* keywords?
If a startup has a tech blog (say, domain.com/tech) and a startup journey blog (on domain.com/journey — think groovehq.com/blog), will garnering high PA/DA links to those pages help the root domain rank for keywords related to the startup's services? For example, continuing the Groove example, will quality links to their aforementioned startup blog help them rank the homepage for Online Help Desk Software? Even when those links are from non-helpdesk content on non-helpdesk sites? My theory is that links from high DA sites won't be a bad thing — as long as they're not from spammy pages and done naturally. In some niches, where it's hard to get organic product-related links, this might be a worthwhile strategy. Am I right? Or sadly misguided...? 🙂 EDIT: BTW. The niche I have in mind is fairly uncompetitive, and it'd be easier to garner links from the startup/tech community than the niche community itself.
Link Building | | brandrsn1 -
Low quality links for Amazon product page=high rank?
I am wondering if there would be any benefit in using low cost link building gigs off of fiverr and seoclerks for specific Amazon product pages. The theory I have heard behind this is Amazon's authority is so high, that even the bad links pointing to the specific product page add to the SEO of the page. When google see's a product page on Amazon, they already assign it a high authority, so links help google see which page is the most popular in that niche, and ranks it. Amazon product pages already rank high in google search results, so the idea is this would give specific pages a little boost. Do you think this is a valid method for getting a specific amazon product page to rank high on google search? I understand this is not the normal type of question here, and it really only applies to Amazon product pages specifically, and not normal sites.
Link Building | | jmc5090 -
My site has more than 1,341,796 total links but only 500 external links after months of SEO. Please help me ,not sure what went wrong.
My site has more than 1,341,796 total links but only 500 external links after months of SEO. Please help me ,not sure what went wrong.
Link Building | | rsethia1230 -
Do No follow links from social media platforms transfer authority or value when they link to third party websites?
With social media playing a bigger role in SEO (since the Panda, Penguin updates etc) and how search engines rank sites now, does anybody know why Twitter for instance has 'no follow' when I check my client's websites under 'inbound links' on Open Site Explorer?
Link Building | | caroline19770 -
Anyone else agree with outbound links to boost rankings?
Anyone agree with this article? If your position 7 is there a chance of jumping to position 6 by only linking out! http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/outbound-linking-rankings/
Link Building | | activitysuper1 -
Links from Real Estate Websites Link Page, Do or Don't?
It seems that real estate sites have at times been under heavier scrutiny from the search engines. But real estate agents get networking, which makes acquiring those links a little bit easier. Plus with localization of search, I think real estate sites may give off a good GEO scent. Should SEO's go for links from real estate websites? Does a reciprocal link devalue said links?
Link Building | | Thos0030 -
Looking at Page Authority of a link to our website... what Page Authority number should we use in deciding the link is junk?
What are the Page Authority ranges? 1. Excellent link 2. Moderate 3. Total junk link Of course you look at the anchor text you can use, how many links are on the site, how often it is cached. Thoughts?
Link Building | | RezStream80