Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?
-
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.
-
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.
-
Hi, what I meant was whether I should be looking for robot txt at the top of the page or somesuch
-
Hi Irvnig
Thanks for the response but the issue of adding tags doesn't apply as it's not my site.
-
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.
-
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)
-
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?
-
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")....
-
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
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
-
Rel=Canonical For Landing Pages
We have PPC landing pages that are also ranking in organic search. We've decided to create new landing pages that have been improved to rank better in natural search. The PPC team however wants to use their original landing pages so we are unable to 301 these pages to the new pages being created. We need to block the old PPC pages from search. Any idea if we can use rel=canonical? The difference between old PPC page and new landing page is much more content to support keyword targeting and provide value to users. Google says it's OK to use rel=canonical if pages are similar but not sure if this applies to us. The old PPC pages have 1 paragraph of content followed by featured products for sale. The new pages have 4-5 paragraphs of content and many more products for sale. The other option would be to add meta noindex to the old PPC landing pages. Curious as to what you guys think. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Follow no-index
I have a question about the right way to not index pages: With a canonical or follow no-index. First we have a blog page: **Blogpage **
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
URL: /blog/
index follow Page 2 blog:
URL: /blog?=p2
index follow
rel="prev" /blog/
el="next" ?=p3 Nothing strange here i guess. But we also have other pages with chance on duplicate content: /SEO-category/
/SEO-category/view-more/ Because i don't want the "view-more" items to be indexed i want to set it on: follow no-index (follow to reach pages). But now the "view-more" also have pagination. What is the best way? Option 1:
/SEO-category/view-more/
Follow no-index /SEO-category/view-more?=p2
Follow no-index
rel="prev" /view-more/
el="next" ?=p3 Option 2: /SEO-category/view-more/
Canonical: /SEO-category/ /SEO-category/view-more?=p2
rel="prev" /view-more/
el="next" ?=p3 Option 3: Other suggests? Thanks!0 -
Does using data-href="" work more effectively than href="" rel="nofollow"?
I've been looking at some bigger enterprise sites and noticed some of them used HTML like this: <a <="" span="">data-href="http://www.otherodmain.com/" class="nofollow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a <="" span="">Instead of a regular href="" Does using data-href and some javascript help with shaping internal links, rather than just using a strict nofollow?</a>
Technical SEO | | JDatSB0 -
Missing Meta Tags - "thousands" using WooCommerce?
Recently took a site live for a client using WP/WooCommerce to replace their antiquated shopping cart site and have encountered thousands of "Missing Meta Description Tag" errors. Have researched and tried a couple different approaches, but nothing really seems to fix this problem. I'm happy to continue to research, but have never encountered this problem before. Anyone else encountered similar? If so, how did you fix? Which resources to start with? 2VKDRVx
Technical SEO | | twelvetwo.net0 -
How do you mark a quote HTML wise?
Hi, As far as I know, in the past Italic was used to emphasize (similar use to Bold). Now I've seen people use Italic for quotations. Is that the correct thing to do for an entire paragraph or is it a problem for Google wise? Thanks
Technical SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Rel=author
Hi everyone, i'm trying to understand the rel=author thing for cotent, i need some clarification please. Firstly do you only use it for content on your site or can you have it for a guest post you have done on another domain which is not your own - linking to your author profile on your domain? Secondly implementing it, i understand it's 3 links: 1., Link on your content where the blog post is with a rel=author going to your domain authort page. 2., a link from your domain author page going to your google + profile. This is rel=me 3 a link on your google+ profile to your blog? if so how do i do this? i only have an option to edit about page and add recommended links? there is no 'contributor' section. I am UK profile also. Any help really appreciated, thanks guys.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Top pages give " page not found"
A lot of my top pages point to images in a gallery on my site. When I click on the url under the name of the jpg file I get an error page not found. For instance this link: http://www.fastingfotografie.nl/architectuur-landschap/single-gallery/10162327 Is this a problem? Thanks. Thomas. JkLej.png
Technical SEO | | thomasfasting0 -
"/" at the end of a URL
I just noticed that I have the exact same page showing up separately in my Google Analytics reports. One has a "/" at the end and the other does not. Otherwise, these are the exact same URL's. Is this something I need to be aware of from a duplicate content perspective? If so, how do I go about fixing this? I thought the SE's would automatically see that a URL with a "/" at the end is the same as one without, but if that is the case, why is it showing up in my reports as two separate pages?
Technical SEO | | Blockinc0