How can I check a website to see if it is "nofollow"?
-
I'm a little new to SEO, so maybe this is obvious to some . . .
I'm attempting to build backlinks by submitting articles, posting on forums etc. I just wrote my forst article for ezine and submitted it.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until I mentioned it to someone trying to sell me their SEO services and he said that ezine articles are considered "nofollow" on all their links.
Well, that was pretty frustrating to hear! It got me wondering, how many of these other sites have all their posts and blogs listed as "nofollow"? Is there a way for me to figure it out ahead of time? Obviously, there are only so many hours in the day and I would rather focus on posting on sites that will actually help me build backlinks!
Thanks for your help in advance!
-
Hey Domaon,
This happened to me once and I was furious. I would contact the publisher and show them this article.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
Basically it explains that the site gains no additional PR to it's other links by nofollowing your links. Who knows maybe they'll chance their stance on nofollowing links to use submitted articles.
That said there are good reasons why a link can have a nofollow attached to it. However, if you contributed an article to an ezine that selectively publishes user submitted content you deserve a "dofollow" link.
-
Ain't it fun?
-
Thanks everyone, very helpful! I DO have the toolbar, and now I know how to use it!
My head is swimming learning all this stuff!
-
Will still require a manual check before hand but 'Right Click > Properties' will give you a link relationship.
For FF you'll need - https://addons.mozilla.org/af/firefox/addon/element-properties/
Alternatively you can get a nofollow highlight plugin
FF - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nodofollow/
Chrome - http://floridaventureblog.com/2009/03/highlight-nofollow-links-chrome-plugin.html - (Not tested)
Then you can see at a glance if a page comment does give followed or unfollowed links, though you still have to visit the page first.
-
Never had used before their toolbar but its just great, i was using the SEO Site Tools but just turned that off now
-
Hi Damon,
Get the SEOmoz Toolbar, it has a function to highlight NoFollow links. very handy!
http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar
Regards
Aran
-
There are a few ways. If you have the SEOMoz toolbar installed, you can click the nofollow button and it will highlight all of the nonfollowed links in pink for you.
Or, you can check the source code. To do this right click on the page, and select "view source". then, do Ctrl-F and search for "nofollow". This will show you if the whole page is set to be nofollowed (i.e. meta robots noindex, nofollow) and if an individual link is nofollowed.
As a side note, I don't do much article submission. I do believe that the links from ezine are followed, but the link juice you get from them is usually minimal. The way that an article would have more link juice on ezine is if other people from high PR sites linked to it. But, if it's that good an article that it deserves links then it would be much better to have it on your site.
Similarly, forum sigs are usually not terribly helpful for ranking unless you are targetting a really,really non competitive term.
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
-
HTTPS websites in Directories
Hi Everyone, Whilst trying to submit some client sites to directories we have been struggling to post any of our clients sites that use the HTTPS protocol. When trying to submit they usually come up with an error stating that the website could not be found etc. It doesn't accept it if I remove the HTTPS or replace it with the HTTP version either. Any ideas, or has anyone else had any issues with this? Couldn't find much information about it online anywhere. Thanks 🙂
Link Building | | O2C0 -
Can this be done?
Hi, Suppose, a page from Wikipedia ranks on 1st position in Google for "keyphrase1". But when you investigate further, there are no backlinks to that page that have "keyphrase1" as the anchor text. Then how come the page ranks for that keyphrase? Regards
Link Building | | IM_Learner0 -
How can I find all the outbound links from a website domain?
I want to find all the outbound links (basically whatever comes in <a>tag) from a domain (say www.abc.com) as well as all the subdomains under it (say abc.com/a etc). Open Site Explorer provides the inbound links from a website but does not provide any functionality to get all the outbound links from a website. Is it possible to do?</a> <a>Thanks in advance. Deepak Jain</a>
Link Building | | Deepak_Jain0 -
Dofollow 2 nofollow
hi everyone, if i have a dofollow link pointing at me from website A and also i have a nofollow link pointing from my website to website A do they cancel each other out? or is it only if i have dofollow to dofollow?
Link Building | | amoseshet0 -
Websites where you can offer a service in exchange for a blogger reviewing it
Are there sites aside from blog link up where you can offer a free service to a blogger in exchange for a blog entry reviewing the service?
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
What can I do to increase this page's rank
I have this page that is doing alright for the phrase "skyward sword walkthrough" I used to be ranked number 2 but it has dropped http://legendzelda.net/skyward-sword-walkthrough/ Sites like IGN are huge so I do not blame them for overpassing my rank but zelda informer I feel like I should be outranking at least. I have a fairly good on page ranking grade using the seomoz tool. And the OSE shows I have 11 domains linking - most with some kind of variation to that keyword. And I have actually built out more since then. Most the links are on highly relevant pages. I contacted a lot of gaming sites before this game was released and asked for a link back in exchange for a variety of things (shoutouts mostly - no paid links) The page performed extremely well when Skyward Sword came out and I got hundreds of thousands of hits but as my rank is beginning to drop its a lot less (also can be attributed to hype dying down). But any suggestions or glaring issues would be great. Link building is something I am always doing as well - mostly through guest blogging.
Link Building | | webfeatseo0 -
Does Google see this as an inbound link?
Hi, I'm looking at adding my site to a directory. It's highly relevant to my industry and has relatively good PA/DA. The external links on the directory uses some PHP code like the following: http://www.ThisDirectory.com/visit.php?i=3141635&url=http://www.ExternalDomain.com Obviously the links works as a redirect but they do not show up in OSE. Would Google count this link as an inbound link? Thanks,
Link Building | | Confetti_Wedding0 -
Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ?
Hi all ! Do you think my homepage can still be optimized ? Here is the URL : http://www.proximeety.com Of course I'm not only speaking about the home page but I also think about the pages structure, links, etc. The fact is that my collegues and I are working hard on our SEO since 7 years and the result is that we still see our websites going down in the SERPS during months... What are we doing wrong ? Our opponents don't seem to be more backlinked or more optimized... I personnaly think that there should be a big mistake on our site that penalize us and our SEO but I can't find what it is... Can you help us ? Thank you in advance !
Link Building | | B-CITY0