Nofollow tags
-
So on the homepage, should all the links like privacy, contact us, etc...be rel="nofollow" ?
I want to get a better handle on passing as much link juice on homepage to important internal pages as I can, and want to get it right.
Thanks in advance.
-
What about 12 outbound links to external client sites not related to your service.
-
unfortunately, if you can't place a NOINDEX meta tag due to limitations of the CMS then you probably won't be able to place a rel=nofollow either... leaving you with a disallow in your robots.txt.
-
what if you can't place noindex into the html head (limitation of the cms) would a exclude in the robots be enough on its own? (or at least better than nofollow links to the page)
-
simply exclude or 'disallow' the file path in the Robots.txt. Then place NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW meta tag on those pages (in the HTML head before the body). If you have important links on those pages then use the meta tag NOINDEX, FOLLOW. I hope this helps... please ask for clarification if you need.
-
Yes - follow the link in my expanded answer above... the ink points to Matt Cutts original article from February 2009 explaining how/when/why the change was made.
-
"They changed this (I think in 2009) to : If you had 10 links on a page and 5 were nofollowed each link would still only pass on 1 PR point. The remaining 5 points essentially disappear into thin air."
R u 100% sure about this? any sources to back this up?
Thanks
-
You are "over my head" lol.
So for sitewide contact, privacy, etc...what is the best thing to do?
Thanks!
-
Haha! For some reason I didn't see the other post... thought I was the only responder.
Be well!
-
Anthony, I never said I disagree with you. I did not see your answer at first, I must have opened the thread before you posted your answer. reading your answer now yes, we are in agreement.
-
I'm confused about what you are disagreeing with me about... there is the meta NOFOLLOW tag that is placed at the page level and the more granular rel=nofollow attribute at the link level. They are not interchangeable but simply give more macro or micro control over links on a page. If you read my answer carefully you will see that we are in complete agreement over link decay using the rel=nofollow attribute on individual links.
-
No you should not.
When the nofollow tag first came out you could "sculpt" page rank by saying which pages you can pass it on to, this is no longer the case. Google made a change a few years back to stop people from doing this. An example would be:
When nofollow first came out: If you page had 10 links on it, each link would pass on 1 point of page rank (PR). If you nofollowed 5 of these links then each link without the nofollow tag would then pass on 2 points.
They changed this (I think in 2009) to : If you had 10 links on a page and 5 were nofollowed each link would still only pass on 1 PR point. The remaining 5 points essentially disappear into thin air.
So by adding nofollow to internal pages you are wasting your PR, rather let it be passed on to your less important pages which will return a certain amount back to the top level if you linking structure is correct. Only use nofollow for external links which you don't want to pass on PR to e.g. If it could be considered a bad neighbourhood etc. This may not be 100% how it works but the basic concept is correct, there are extensive explanations of this on Matt Cutts blog.
-
First there was the NOFOLLOW meta tag for page-level exclusion and then Google adopted the more granular rel=nofollow attribute for individual links on a page. I find that too many SEOs overuse the rel=nofollow attribute when there is a much more elegant solution available. The reason for this is now myth formerly known as the abused tactic called PageRank sculpting. I had a well-known culture/nightlife site in NYC as a client that had placed literally thousands of rel=nofollow attributes on links throughout the site... granted this does not seem to be your problem but I digress...
To illustrate my point, Matt Cutts discusses how rel=nofollow attributes affect how Google passes PageRank to other parts of your site (or more precisely how nofollows decay the amount of link juice passed). In the case of a few pages or even large directories, etc, I would do the following:
- Disallow crawling of less valuable pages via Robots.txt
- Use the meta exclusion NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW tag at the page level - unless these pages pass valuable link juice/anchor text to other parts of the site then use NOINDEX, FOLLOW (page is not indexed but important links are followed)
- Also, leave these pages out of your XML sitemap(s) - although you may want leave them in the HTML sitemap and place a granular rel=nofollow at link-level in the case of a 404 error page for usability purposes or required privacy statement for landing pages.
Saving your Googlebot crawl budget for only high value pages is a great way to get more of those pages in the Google index providing you with more opportunity to promote your products, services, etc. Also, limiting the number of rel=nofollows used and allowing link juice (or Page Rank) to flow more freely throughout your site will prove beneficial.
-
There was a time I would have said yes. Nowadays its hardly worth the trouble.
However, if its easy to implement, why not? You might get some marginal benefit out of it.
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
-
Title Tags & Meta descriptions do not update
Hi, I have a question about the title tags and meta descriptions of my domain b-buildingbusiness.com. I've updated them about 5 days ago but the new versions don't show in the search engines. However it does show when you check with the facebook developers tool https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fb-buildingbusiness.com%2F . Does anyone have an idea why they're not updated in the search engines and how I can resolve this? Best, Rik
On-Page Optimization | | bbuildingbusiness0 -
Use of trademarks in tags and text
Does Google spider read registered trademarks (the 'R' or 'TM') or do these marks impede anything if they are featured in meta tags or text?
On-Page Optimization | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
Penalty for Changing Home Page Title Tags
Hey Mozzers I'm certain of the answer to this question, however I wanted to get some input from the experts in Moz-land to hopefully provide some additional perspective. Â I recently disagree with a client's assertion that there is some penalty Google levels for changing the title tags of your home page. Â Now, I understand changing the title tags can influence serp rankings, however, is anyone aware of some penalty Google levels for simply changing the title tags? Â Most of what I've read and experienced has people changing them all the time without some phantom penalty. Â It seems to me a problem of correlation = causality, in that people often attribute a drop to an action that may not have actually been the cause. Anyway, if you have any particular insight on this top I would appreciate it greatly. thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Does a phone number in the title tag hurt your rankings in SERP?
Hi Mozzers, One of my client is a carpet cleaner and I was wondering if adding a phone number into the title tags would hurt our rankings . I am asking because the client has mentioned it and that we do have some space to add a phone number into the tag. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Do I need a robots meta tag on the homepage of my site?
Is it recommended to include on the homepage of your site site? I would like Google to index and follow my site. I am using WordPress and noticed my homepage is not including this meta tag, therefore wondering if I should include it?
On-Page Optimization | | asc760 -
Will changing the title tags cause me to lose rankings?
I have a site that gets pretty decent rankings. Â Based on Seomoz's assessment of my site I have ALOT of title tags that are too long. If I make modifications to my title tags will that hurt my rankings? I am also thinking of removing my company name from the title tag as that is taking up too much space.
On-Page Optimization | | webestate1 -
Why DoFollow & NoFollow Attributes on Same Internal Text Links?
I want to know that, why SEOmoz have defined DoFollow & NoFollow attributes on same internal text links? Please, find out attachment to know more. Left bar have On-Page / Site Optimization link with dofollow attribute but, right section have nofollow. So, why should they have apply on DoFollow or NoFollow attribute on same text links? 6806571615_138b8765fd_b.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
How many meta tags are appropriate?
How many meta tags are appropriate? There is a page that ranks above me that has many more than I do. It has (I have removed the content of each to give a description of the type of content): I only use meta tags for keywords and description, robots. Should I have more? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0