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
-
Too many on page links
Hi I know previously it was recommended to stick to under 100 links on the page, but I've run a crawl and mine are over this now with 130+ How important is this now? I've read a few articles to say it's not as crucial as before. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Is there an automated way to test what HREFLANG is ranking for in google and yandex?
Hi everyone, We implemented HREFLANG code for our international sites. We are wondering is there an automated way to test is HREFLANG is working vs. manually browsing in each international search engine? Also, we implemented this a few days ago, and google webmaster tools stlil hasn't picked up that we have it implemented. I've heard it taking anywhere from 2-8 days. At what point would we see results. our site is http://www.datacard.com Is there an order that the site listings have to follow, for example should x-default be the last item listed? Thanks, Laura
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lauramrobinson320 -
Ranking on google but not Bing?
Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
How can such a small company out-rank the big players?
I'm really puzzled how for many keywords the company www.leathersofaworld.com, a retailer of sofas is able to out rank very large companies such as DFS.co.uk and IKEA. They rank 1st for the phrase 'black leather sofas' and have done for a long time. They currently rank 4th for 'leather sofas' and don't seem to move. Having looked at their back links, I can't see anything special and their domain authority is only 25 compared to DFS which is 45. Can anyone help me with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GoMetrics0 -
Post your 3 best ways to rank well on Google
Hi, Anyone care to share what are your 3 best ways to rank well on Google? As for me i think: 1.) Link building & Social Media 2.) Onsite optimization 3.) Quality Content What about you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chanel270 -
Do total number of links in main navigation play a role in ranking?
On one site I work on, I noticed that pages in the upper navigation that have less links in the main navigation vs pages that have more links tend to perform better in organic search. Has anyone else noticed this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Can someone please help me understand my sites recent loss of rankings?
My site has been top 3 for 'speed dating' on Google.co.uk since about 2003 and it went to below top 50 for a lot of it's main keywords shortly after 27 Oct 2012. I did a re-submission request and was told there was 'no manual spam action'. I have a Page Authority of 53, a regular blog http://bit.ly/oKyi88, a KLOUT of 40, user reviews and quality content. I did discover that another URL I using was set to a 302 instead of a 301 for some reason. I don't necessarily think this was an issue as Google should know which is the trusted URL and therefore which content to list. I removed this redirect completely about 3 weeks ago, but I've seen no improvement. I'm looking at improving various things, but I'm still not sure why I've been hit and wonder if I'm missing something obvious? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benners0 -
How can you rank for several cities ?
I have a website design client who wishes to rank for several cities they are willing to service locally. I have seen a competitor do this, Main-site.com/web-design content all about web design subcategories main-site.com/web-design/city-name-website-designer Content about web design plus content about the city itself and hiring a website designer in that city main-site.com/web-design/next-city-name-website-designer Content about web design plus content about the next city itself and hiring a website designer in that city Is this a great strategy, it seems to be working for them, or will Google eventually penalize this ? Or would you just put all 4 city names in the title and descriptions and content on one page ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jlane90