Is ok to add 'no follow' to every outbound link?
-
How do you handle outbound links from your site?.. do you no follow them all to be on the safe side?
-
You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater (to use a colloquialism). External pointing, followed links are not only good for the web as a whole, they're good for YOUR site, too. We've seen numerous examples of sites that began opening their external linking policies and received greater search traffic and rankings as a result. The most famous of these in the NYTimes, which Marshall Simmonds talked about in his Whiteboard Friday here: http://moz.com/blog/convincing-upper-management-aka-justifying-your-existence-whiteboard-friday
I'd also suggest watching Cyrus' video on the topic of linking externally here: http://moz.com/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday
And finally, I'd point out that sites that never link out with followed links create the perception that they are not generous and thus, not deserving, of links of their own. You might point out that only a fraction of web users know what a nofollow link is, and my response would be that those are the same people who control most of the websites and links.
All in all, I'd strongly advise against this (and Google does, too!).
-
My thought is really that if one of the sites we link to on a normal basis gets penalised/banned by google (we link to big sites but dont forget BMW scenario), then we could be penalised in turn for linking to them
-
What's your thought behind the question. In my opinion telling Google that this is a no-follow link indicates that the receiving site is not trusted.
If your happy to link to them then you should be happy to allow follow - if that's an actual term
-
I do not think it is a good idea to no follow ALL outbound links, but It seems like a lot of big websites (like Yell) are doing this now.
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
-
Site Migration Question - Do I Need to Preserve Links in Main Menu to Preserve Traffic or Can I Simply Link to on Each Page?
Hi There We are currently redesigning the following site https://tinyurl.com/y37ndjpn The local pages links in the main menu do provide organic search traffic. In order to preserve this traffic, would be wise to preserve these links in the main menu? Or could we have a secondary menu list (perhaps in the header or footer), featured on every page, which links to these pages? Many Thanks In Advance for Responses
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ruislip180 -
Re: Inbound Links. Whether it's HTTP or HTTPS, does it still go towards the same inbound link count?
Re: Inbound Links. If another website links to my website, does it make a difference to my inbound link count if they use http or https? Basically, my site http://mysite.com redirects to https://mysite.com, so if another website uses the link http://mysite.com, will https://mysite.com still benefit from the inbound links count? I'm unsure if I should reach out to all my inbound links to tell them to use my https URL instead...which would be rather time consuming so just checking http and https counts all the same. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | premieresales0 -
Hammered by Spam links
When we moved from one host to another in Wordpress engine, we had this insertion weird redirect thing happen. We 410'd the page cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi, but it hit us hard in the anchors. If you go to ahrefs, we are literally all Asian in anchors text. Anybody have any suggestions, thank goodness it looks like it finally stopped. I am looking for creative ways to repopulate our back end with the right stuff. Any thoughts would be great! Heres a example: allartalocaltours.com/tumi-tote-401.html ↳customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi ↳www.customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi ↳lockwww.customerbloom.com/cgi-sys/movingpage.cgi
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Link building strategy
Hello Moz Community, For the last couple of months we have been trying to improve our ranking in Google UK for the keyword "church candles" http://www.wattsandco.com/church-supplies/church-candles.html We’ve been contacting relevant interiors/lifestyle blogs to feature our candles including anchor text linking back to our page. Our anchor text has been predominately our brand (Watts & Co) but also other key search terms (Watts and Co church candles, Watts and Co pillar candles). We have been tracking our ranking for the keyword “Church candles” using the Moz “ Rank Tracker” and we started on position 15 in Google UK. We went up to 12 briefly before moving down every week to 15, 17, 19 and 22. We checked today and we have moved back up slightly to 19. Our progress seems to be a bit slow and inconsistent. We wanted to reach out for any advice on how we can move up? If there was any way we can improve our strategy? Here’s the links we have built so far: http://nostalgiecat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/what-autumn-means-to-me.html http://blog.pollyrowan.com/2015/10/5-small-ways-to-decorate-your-home-that.html http://www.happyhomebird.com/2015/10/watts-co-candles-for-cosy-autumn-home.html http://www.frolic-blog.com/2015/10/beeswax-candles-for-fall/ http://hisforhomeblog.com/lighting/watts-co-church-candles/#axzz3qhqN1wzA http://lorilangille.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/sponsored-post-watts-and-co.html http://www.californiahomedesign.com/product-finds/waxing-poetic-must-have-candles Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Which links to disavow?
I've got a new client that just fired their former SEO company, which was building spammy links like crazy! Using GSC and Majestic, I've identified 341 linking domains. I'm only a quarter of the way through the list, but it is clear that the overwhelming majority are from directories, article directories and comment spam. So far less than 20% are definitely links I want to keep. At what point do I keep directory links? I see one with a DA of 61 and a Moz spam score of 0. I realize this is a judgement call that will vary, but I'd love to hear some folks give DA and spam numbers. FWIW, the client's DA is 37.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rich.owings0 -
What To Do With Too Many Links?
We have four pages that have over 100 links (danger, danger from what I gather), but they're not spammy footer links. They are FAQ videos for our four main areas of practice. Does that make a difference? If not, should I just take half the questions on each page and make four additional pages? That strikes me as a worse UX, but I don't want to get penalized either. Thanks, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Do links from twitter count in SEOMoz's Toolbar link count?
I am using the Chrome extension and looking at a SERP, when a page is said to have 2000 incoming links, does that include tweets with a link back to this page? What about retweets. Are those counted separately or as one? And what about independent tweets that have exactly the same content (tweet text + link)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davhad0 -
'Select your country' page leading to high Temporary Redirects
Hello all, I manage an ecommerce website and product prices are shown depending on what country you select. When a user does a product search or lands on a product page, they are immediately redirected to a 'select your country' page. After selecting their option, the user is redirected back to the product or search result page. The problem I face is that, this is leading to a high 'Temporary Redirects' list in my crawl diagnostic page. Looking at the list of temporary redirects, 90% are users being bounced to a 'select your country' page. Any advice to tackle this? Have you guys faced anything similar? Thanks Cyto
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0