Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can too many NoFollow links damage your Google rankings?
-
I've been trying to recover from a Google algorithm change since Sep 2012, so far without success. I'm now wondering if the nofollow on external links in my blog posts are actually doing me damage. http://www.smartdatinguk.com/blog/
Does anyone have any experience of this?
-
Impact of nofollow links from a technical perspective
Matt Cutts is a distinguished engineer at Google, and as per him; the simple answer is: No, too many nofollow links have no effect on your website’s PageRank. These links were created to ensure that generating direct traffic to a website could be used as much as needed without compromising the overall quality of the website’s SEO. Therefore, from a technical perspective, the PageRank algorithm will ignore any and all nofollow links. These links are automatically dropped from the link graph as the web crawlers index the web. However, there are exceptional cases where nofollow links will have an effect on the website ranking.
Special cases where too many nofollow links have an impact
It is possible to use nofollow links to spam websites on the internet trying to generate traffic for whatever product you are promoting. This tactic was once used on blogs where a spammer would post outrageous or absurd comments so as to attract attention and generate traffic. This is deception and manipulation, and where it is done on a large scale, Google will take notice. If many people report you for using nofollow links to spam, Google reserves the right to take action with intent of stopping you. In such cases, they will downgrade the PageRank the offending website gets.
-
I've done 2 link cleaning exercises and disavow requests so far but haven't removed those. I can see they are bad links but they're actually from decent, relevant sites in most instances which is why I haven't touched them yet.
What do you think is most damaging, run-of-site links or keyword link text?
-
Having checked your link profile it is very spammy. 25% of your backlinks are for the term "speed dating", 9% for "singles holidays", and thats just a start.
But that is not all. You have alot of domains sending many links back to your site for the same keyword. Sitewide links can cause penalties, and will need to be cleaned up.
I recommend using ahrefs \ majestic to find those links and dissavow \ get them to change to no follow etc.
A few examples of sites causing you problems are (but there are many others):
-
In the sense you're talking about, yes. Google won't count those nofollowed links against you.
-
Usually nofollow links don't hurt your website. But there are some extreme cases in which they could.
For more info check this video by Matt Cutts from Google -> Can nofollow links hurt my site's ranking?
-
You don't want to nofollow every outbound link from your site but even if 99% of them are nofollowed, it won't hurt your rankings and I wouldn't consider that to be holding back your recovery.
-
So if you can't have too many nofollow links to upset Google, does Google respect the nofollow 100%?
-
NoFollows on links in your blog that point off the site are not hurting you.
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
-
My product category pages are not being indexed on google can someone help?
My website has been indexed on google and all of its pages can be found on google except for the product category pages - which are where we want our traffic heading to, so this is a big problem for us. Our website is www.skirtinguk.com And an example of a page that isn't being indexed is https://www.skirtinguk.com/product-category/mdf-skirting-board/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chelseaskirtinguk0 -
Can Google Bot View Links on a Wix Page?
Hi, The way Wix is configured you can't see any of the on-page links within the source code. Does anyone know if Google Bots still count the links on this page? Here is the page in question: https://www.ncresourcecenter.org/business-directory If you do think Google counts these links, can you please send me URL fetcher to prove that the links are crawlable? Thank you SO much for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fiyyazp0 -
Why some websites can rank the keywords they don't have in the page?
Hello guys, Yesterday, I used SEMrush to search for the keyword "branding agency" to see the SERP. The Liquidagency ranks 5th on the first page. So I went to their homepage but saw no exact keywords "branding agency", even in the page source. Also, I didn't see "branding agency" as a top anchor text in the external links to the page (from the report of SEMrush). I am an SEO newbie, can someone explain this to me, please? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Newly designed page ranks in Google but then disappears - at a loss as to why.
Hi all, I wondered if you could help me at all please? We run a site called getinspired365.com (which is not optimised) and in the last 2 weeks have tried to optimise some new pages that we have added. For example, we have optimised this page - http://getinspired365.com/lifes-a-bit-like-mountaineering-never-look-down This page was added to Google's index via webmaster tools. When I then did a search for the full quote it came back 2nd in Google's search. If I did a search for half the quote (Life is a bit like mountaineering) it also ranked 2nd. We had another quote page that we'd optimised that displayed similar behaviour (it ranked 4th). But then for some reason when I now do the search it doesn't rank in the top 100 results. This, despite, an unoptimised "normal" page ranking 4th for a search such as: Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered. So our domain doesn't seem to be penalised as our "normal" pages are ranking. These pages aren't particularly well designed from an SEO standpoint. But our new pages - which are optimised - keep disappearing from Google, despite the fact they still show as indexed. I've rendered the pages and everything appears fine within Google Webmaster Tools. At a bit of a loss as to why they'd drop so significantly? A few pages I could understand but they've all but been removed. Any one seen this before, and any ideas what could be causing the issue? We have a different URL structure for our new pages in that we have the quote appear in the URL. All the content (bar the quote) that you see in the new pages are unique content that we've written ourselves. Could it be that we've over optimised and Google view these pages as spam? Many thanks in advance for all your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MichaelWhyley0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?
Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand. However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues? Or is it an issue with some other penalty? At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm0 -
My website is not ranking for primary keywords in Google
I need help regarding some SEO strategy that need to be implemented to my website http://goo.gl/AiOgu1 . My website is a leading live chat product, daily it receives around 2000 unique visitors. Initially the website was impacted by manual link penalty, I cleaned up lot of backlinks, the website revoked from the penalty some where around June'14. Most of the secondary and longtail Keywords started ranking in Google, but unfortunately, it do not rank well for the primary keywords like (live chat, live chat software, helpdesk etc). Since I have done lot of onsite changes and even revamped the content but till now I dont find any improvement. I am unable to understand where I have got structed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sandeep.clickdesk
can anyone help me out?0 -
Can a competitor close your business on Google Places?
One of my listings says it has been closed and the business is not closed. On Google + / Google places there is a field that allows users to check that claims the business is closed. Can they actually close it? Your Google Places listing has been updated Dear Google Places user, Google has updated your listing data on our consumer properties such as Google and Google Maps to more accurately reflect the latest information we have about your business. We use many sources to determine the accuracy of our listing data and to provide the best possible experience for business owners and consumers who use Google and Google Maps to find local information. Based on our sources, the following listing has been marked as closed: Company info... If you disagree with the changes we have made, please visit your Place Page to edit your listing. Note that if you are an AdWords or Boost customer, your ads will be unaffected by this change and will continue to display the listing information you have provided in Google Places. To manage your online advertisements, please sign into Google Places or Google AdWords. For more information about updates to claimed listings, please visit:http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1318197 Sincerely,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur
The Google Places Team |0