When should I dofollow a link?
-
I know I should have all my affiliate links as nofollow but when should I dofollow a link? When will it HELP me to have a dofollow link?
Right now - all my links are nofollow because I haven't figured out how to have nofollow and dofollow in the same blog post.
Any info appreciated!
-
Thanks!
-
Hello,
Here is a plugin that can take care of the job for you:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nofollow/
Just install it, and set it up. You can use it when you add affiliate links, too... just check the nofollow box and voila, you're done.
-
Ok I see. So basically I should follow all my links except for affiliate links?
Is there a plugin that can help me do that? Because right now, the only thing I know how to do is follow or nofollow the entire page. I don't want to deal with code because it would take a long time for me to do. I am a deal blog and link have a lot of amazon affiliate links.
Edit: I am using Thesis.
-
Actually, dealaholic, the question is better answered if you ask it in reverse - when should links be nofollowed?.
All links on a website should be do-follow except in specific circumstances. Essentially, the only time you nofollow a link is if it is commercial in nature, or should be untrusted.
Typical example of commercial is the example you use of affiliate links. Another would be if the link was part of a paid advertisement, for example. (Google claims it can recognize aff links, but it's a safe bet to nofollow them anyway to be sure, and to account for the other SEs which may not handle them the same way.)
Untrustworthy links are things like links within user-generated content where the site author isn't actually responsible for creating, nor is vouching for the links, even though they appear on their site. (Links from within comments or profiles are a perfect example of this.)
Search engines expect that hyperlinks are to be followed - that's the premise the web was built on. A site that extensively uses nofollow on what should be natural links will appear to be trying to manipulate the natural flow of the web - something the search engines have been going to great lengths to discourage and even penalize.
In addition to looking unnatural if a site unnecessarily uses nofollow, it can make the site very hard for the SEs to crawl. One of the most common ways a SE discovers the pages on a site, especially the new ones, is by following the links from pages it knows about, to those it doesn't know about yet. If you nofollow the internal links in your navigation and post contents, you severely interfere with the SEs' ability to crawl and index your site. (There are a few examples where you can help the engines make better use of their crawling time by not following links that are truly pointless to the SE on your site - like a link to your account signup page, which the crawler couldn't submit to anyway.)
So, TL:DR leave everything as followed except if the links are paid/commercial. or or are to site's you don't personally vouch for.
Hope that makes sense?
Paul
P.S. Found this direct from Matt Cutts on using nofollow.
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
-
Link flow for multiple links to same URL
Hi there,
On-Page Optimization | | doctecs
my question is as follows: How does Google handle link flow if two links in a given page point to the same URL? (do they flow link individually or not?) This seems to be a newbie question, but actually it seems that there is little evidence and even also little consensus in the SEO community about this detail. Answers should include source Information about the current state of art at Google is preferable The question is not about anchor text, general best practises for linking, "PageRank is dead" etc. We do know that the "historical" PageRank was implemented (a long time ago) without special handling for multiple links, as e.g. last stated by Matt Cutts in this video: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 On the other hand, many people from the SEO community say that only the first link counts. But so far I could not find any data to back this up, which is quite surprising.0 -
Link in H1 tag?
Hi guys, We're working through a redesign of our product page and are considering the following: http://screencast.com/t/NBSsDGA9vgS3 Currently the product name (including the brand name - Arc'teryx) in this case is included in the H1 and none of the title is linked. You can see this here: http://www.evo.com/synthetic-jackets/arcteryx-atom-lt-hoodie-womens.aspx The firm we're working with is proposing keeping the entire title in the H1 but linking the brand name to the entire brand assortment. My concern is that the brand name is a critical part of the product title and should be text (not a link). Any suggestions? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | evoNick
Will0 -
Too many broken links which i am unable to understand
Dear All, There are some links which are cropping up again and again in my google webmaster tools. I am using wordpress and genesis theme. Both are upgraded to the latest version. But there are 3 types of errors being created as mentioned below. tag/target-markets/%E2%80%9Dhttp:/www.wordpress.org%E2%80%9D tag/smartphone-apps/%E2%80%9Dhttp:/%E2%80%9Dhttp:/www.marketing91.com%E2%80%9D how-to-maintain-customer-interest/%3C?php%20the_permalink()%20?%3E As you can see, either wordpress.orf or marketing91.com or php%20 the _permalink is being added at the end of URLs and they are breaking. This cannot be seen in google index. But this indicates wrong coding and due to it my traffic is regularly dropping. Can you tell me what is causing the break in URL like above. My website is http://www.marketing91.com Thanks in advance. This has being going on for 2 months 🙂 Hope someone comes out with the right answer.
On-Page Optimization | | hith2340 -
What is the right schema.org link for a web design / developer / mobile agency?
It seems strange that a group of web developers would make up an entire structured language to designate businesses by category and somehow forget to include companies like.... web developers. So I must be missing it, what is correct to use?
On-Page Optimization | | yeagerd0 -
Internal Links: Navigation Bar vs. Body Text
Hello. I have a page on our site that is especially popular and has many inbound links. This page has the same site navigation buttons (at the top) as every other page on the site. Do these site navigation buttons pass along link juice to other pages in the same way that an internal link would elsewhere on the page? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
Internal Links & Title Tags, Which Page Benifits?
The best way I can explain why question is with an example. Lets say I have a parent parent page that is focusing on a broad keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | donford
I also have a sub-page which is focused more on long-tail keyword variations. When I make an internal link and give it a title tag, should I give it the long-tail keyword for the juice, or should I use the broad keyword for the parent page's relevancy? Thanks for any help, advise or pointers.0 -
It has been recommended that we remove the number of links in our footer, should we?
We have a pretty user friendly footer with almost an entire site-map on it. It's similar to many e-commerce company footers, and I think it's useful to the user. SEO professionals have recommended that to reduce the number of links on any given page on our site we should compress our footer and only show the headers, thus removing many links. This in my opinion is a disservice to the user and makes the site not look as good, but maybe it's a good idea for SEO to get rid of so many links per page? What do you think? (pic attached) Screen_shot_2011-08-05_at_3.54.53_PM.png
On-Page Optimization | | aran0881 -
Internal Linking
Okay, if I write 10 different articles on my site that are related to one of my products. Can I safely have a link in every article to my product?
On-Page Optimization | | azguy0