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    4. Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

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    Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

    Technical SEO
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    • Jeepster
      Jeepster last edited by

      I've written a guest blog post for a site. In the link back to my site they've put a rel="follow" attribute. Is that valid HTML?

      I've Googled it but the answers are inconclusive, to say the least.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • irvingw
        irvingw @SVmedia last edited by

        I don't think so either, but you never know. Simple enough test to run to see if Google recognizes a "follow" or "dofollow" tag, simple enough test to run that's for sure. If it is hardcoded in the link code it will override any external nofollow tag.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Jeepster
          Jeepster @CMC-SD last edited by

          Hi, what I meant was whether I should be looking for robot txt at the top of the page or somesuch

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Jeepster
            Jeepster @irvingw last edited by

            Hi Irvnig

            Thanks for the response but the issue of adding tags doesn't apply as it's not my site.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • CMC-SD
              CMC-SD @Jeepster last edited by

              AFAIK, there is no way to "sneakily" no-follow a link. You no-follow a link by adding rel=nofollow. If rel=nofollow isn't there, the link is followed.

              Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • irvingw
                irvingw @Jeepster last edited by

                test it to see if for some reason it is recognized, just for fun.

                if something on a site is nofollowed by default and doesn't show up in the source code of that link (meaning it is declared in another piece of code), add a rel="follow" and a rel="dofollow" tag and see if it overrides the nofollow by using a firefox plugin tool that highlights nofollow links for you (you should already have this installed if you are an SEO)

                Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Jeepster
                  Jeepster last edited by

                  The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                  Yep, that's what I've read as well.

                  Now he's changed it to rel="dofollow"  (no, me neither) -- which strikes me as even more gobbledegook.

                  Obviously I'm going to ask him to leave out the attribute altogether. But what other attributes should I be looking for on the page source (CTRL+U) to ensure he hasn't sneakily no-followed all the links on the page?

                  irvingw CMC-SD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • SVmedia
                    SVmedia last edited by

                    GoogleBot does obey the rel="nofollow" attribute.. as for rel="follow" - I don't think so.  The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                    irvingw 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • STL
                      STL Subscriber last edited by

                      It's a way of controlling the link power from a site. They're passing on the link juice to you.

                      If you want the search engines to see that link on the external blog, then what they have done is a good thing. They could have also just left that parameter out altogether.

                      People can put rel="nofollow". This means "don't pass link juice". You could interpret it as a directive to the world that whilst you are providing the link to the site, you don't endorse it.

                      From Google:

                      "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link."

                      http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
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