No crawl code for pages of helpful links vs. no follow code on each link?
-
Our college website has many "owners" who want pages of "helpful links" resulting in a large number of outbound links. If we add code to the pages to prevent them from being crawled, will that be just as effective as making every individual link no follow?
-
No problem hope you found what you were looking for.
-
Thanks, George!
-
I think you might want to read up on the subject to determine just what you would like to do. Personally, I wouldn't "noindex" the pages themselves if they provide useful information for students (and/or others), but I would "nofollow" outbound links by default if I was unable to control what types of links will be placed on those pages.
Here is some reading on the subject:
http://www.blueglass.com/blog/to-nofollow-or-to-noindex-that-is-the-question/
http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts.shtml
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
-
A crawl revealed two home pages
After doing a site crawl using the moz tool, I have found two home pages-www.domain.com/ and www.domain.com. Both URLS have the exact same metrics and I have set a preferred domain name in google, will this hurt seo? Should I claim the www.domain.com/ as well as www.domain.com and domain.com in the search console? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
I need help with redirecting chain to another page and 301, I don't understand on how to fix
Redirect Chain <label>What it is:</label> Your page is redirecting to a page that is redirecting to a page that is redirecting to a page... and so on. Learn more about redirection best practices. <label>Why it's an issue:</label> Every redirect hop loses link equity and offers a poor user experience, which will negatively impact your rankings. <label>How to fix it:</label> Chiaryn says: “Redirect chains are often caused when multiple redirect rules pile up, such as redirecting a 'www' to non-www URL or a non-secure page to a secure/https: page. Look for any recurring chains that could be rewritten as a single rule. Be particularly careful with 301/302 chains in any combination, as the 302 in the mix could disrupt the ability of the 301 to pass link equity.” This is not helping me I don't understand about the 301 do I use the www.jasperartisanjewelry.com or the /jasperartisanjewelry.com I'm confused
Technical SEO | | geanmitch0 -
Need Help On Proper Steps to Take To De-Index Our Search Results Pages
So, I have finally decided to remove our Search Results pages from Google. This is a big dealio, but our traffic has consistently been declining since 2012 and it's the only thing I can think of. So, the reason they got indexed is back in 2012, we put linked tags on our product pages, but they linked to our search results pages. So, over time we had hundreds of thousands of search results pages indexed. By tag pages I mean: Keywords: Kittens, Doggies, Monkeys, Dog-Monkeys, Kitten-Doggies Each of these would be linked to our search results pages, i.e. http://oursite.com/Search.html?text=Kitten-Doggies So, I really think these pages being indexed are causing much of our traffic problems as there are many more Search Pages indexed than actual product pages. So, my question is... Should I go ahead and remove the links/tags on the product pages first? OR... If I remove those, will Google then not be able to re-crawl all of the search results pages that it has indexed? Or, if those links are gone will it notice that they are gone, and therefore remove the search results pages they were previously pointing to? So, Should I remove the links/tags from the product page (or at least decrease them down to the top 8 or so) as well as add the no-follow no-index to all the Search Results pages at the same time? OR, should I first no-index, no-follow ALL the search results pages and leave those tags on the product pages there to give Google a chance to go back and follow those tags to all of the Search Results pages so that it can get to all of those Search Results pages in order to noindex,. no follow them? Otherwise will Google not be able find these pages? Can someone comment on what might be the best, safest, or fastest route? Thanks so much for any help you might offer me!! Craig So, I wanted to see if you have a suggestion on the best way to handle it? Should I remove the links/tags from the product page (or at least decrease them down to the top 8 or so) as well as add the no-follow no-index to all the Search Results pages at the same time? OR, should I first no-index, no-follow ALL the search results pages and leave those tags on the product pages there to give Google a chance to go back and follow those tags to all of the Search Results pages so that it can get to all of those Search Results pages in order to noindex,. no follow them? Otherwise will Google not be able find these pages? Can you tell me which would be the best, fastest and safest routes?
Technical SEO | | TheCraig0 -
All other things equal, do server rendered websites rank higher than JavaScript web apps that follow the AJAX Crawling Spec?
I instinctively feel like server rendered websites should rank higher since Google doesn't truly know that the content its getting from an AJAX site is what the user is seeing and Google isn't exactly sure of the page load time (and thus user experience). I can't find any evidence that would prove this, however. A website like Monocle.io uses pushstate, loads fast, has good page titles, etc., but it is a JavaScript single page application. Does it make any difference?
Technical SEO | | jeffwhelpley0 -
Unnatural links to your site--impacts links
Hi, I just recive a "nice" Massage at my WMT- 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. Learn more._Did someone here came across any massage like this before?if so, any suggestion on what to so next?Whould love for some help! Thanks
Technical SEO | | Tit0 -
Does rel= canonical combine link juice for 2 pages?
If two pages are very similar, and one should rel= canonical to the other, will the page authority pass from the page with rel= canonical to the target page? Also, what happens when you a page rel=canonical's to itself?
Technical SEO | | SkinLaboratory0 -
Internal links of my website is taken as inbound link ?
Hi, I was checking my links in Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.bons-plans-vacances.fr) this morning and i came up with this: My main domain is taken as outbound links ...! This link : www.bons-plans-vacances.fr/ Anchor Text : (img alt)100% Bons Plans Voyages From this URL : www.bons-plans-vacances.fr/ I have the same problem with my subdomains : voyage.bons-plans-vacances.fr/sejour/Toutes-Destinations I have that HTML code on the link : Any help ? This is very strange .. i have the same result in google webmaster tools. Thanks 🙂 eDE9b.jpg
Technical SEO | | BonsPlansvacances0 -
Would nofollowing the footer throw an unnatural blance between followed and nofollowed links?
I have been getting errors for too many on-page links. All the major navigation pages are found in links within the navigation tabs and are identical to the footer links. So my question is, would nofollowing the footer look unnatural and throw off the balance between followed and nofollowed links on the site and negatively effect SEO?
Technical SEO | | smilingbunny0