Been offered a no follow link on a blog post ?. Is it worth it ?
-
Hi All,
We are having a go at doing our own link building and just wanted some advice on a couple of questions
-
I've found some industry related blog sites which could be good but alot of them only offer a no follow link ?. Is this worth it ? And if ,so what is the advantage of having a no follow link ? as it won't directly help with our DA etc ?
-
I've also noticed some of these sites link to each other or recommend each other (i.e other blog sites) which may be some sort of link network ?.. I take it this is bad ? and could be penalized by google ?
thanks
pete
-
-
Cool, Many thanks Andy
I will check out Buzzsumo to
thanks again
Pete
-
...but it's something I am very wary of , especially considering the mess the last chap caused
I do feel your pain and links that are not natural to Google and are not earned, can cause you issues.
As a little tip, look at your site - if you were visiting your site for the first time, would you consider it link-worthy? Do you carry good linkable assets that others will feel they want to link to because they are useful? If not, then concentrate on this first. You can also use BuzzSumo to have a look at what the winners in your market are sharing and reach-out to those individuals who share it. You are also able to see if it has lead to any back-links.
Make / write something better than the other guy and then get busy with your outreach.
-Andy
-
Yes thanks Andy, got the penalty finally removed at xmas but no real uplift since apart from what I can only assume is seasonal search variation.
Have kept away from link building over the last 6 months , just concentrated on citations and doing a lot of content, housekeeping and generally tidying the site up. Will see whether my efforts have been in vain or not, when the new Panda gets rolled out anytime now.
I may look at some freelance link building in the near future if we dont get very far trying it ourselves but it's something I am very wary of , especially considering the mess the last chap caused.
thanks
Pete
-
Are you all sorted on that front now Pete? It can be daunting when you get a penalty and disavowing can take a long time to kick in.
-Andy
-
Many thanks All,
Some very good points here. I will take a look at all your suggestions and articles links and see if I can also see find a video out there on how to do it i.e what metrics to look out for etc etc .
We previously had a manual penalty (unnatural links) due to our naivety when we outsourced some link building work and they were using these blog network sites which got us hammered so we are naturally pretty worried on who and how we to get links from .
Many thanks
Pete
-
Hi Pete,
If you want to see what a site is doing the in the SERPs, head over to SEMrush, enter the URL and see what the organic traffic has been doing. This is a wonderful way to see if there are indications of the target site having acquired a penalty - in which case, stay well away. Their Alexa ranking might show you trends as well.
Assuming the site OK, as with any link, keep the anchor text very neutral. Don't try and add keywords or money-phrases in there. Just use your company / brand name, click here, URL, etc.
Another very useful tool to see what else is going on, and if you suspect a link farm, have a look at them with http://www.geoipfacts.com/
-Andy
-
It's hard to expand on this topic after what was just written, however I will reiterate pretty much every point that was stated above. Nofollow links are still links and the source of the link can have a large impact on your website. For example, Wikipedia links are Nofollow, but I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody who would say a Wikipedia link is not worth it. There is also argument on how much nofollow links actually affect SEO.
Although they technically don't add any link juice, Google can still see the categorization and labeling. If your website has 100 no follow links from Car Repair websites, to a page on your site about Car Repair, that will still help Google identify what your page/site is about.
Anyway, any link is worth it in my opinion, as long as it can benefit you in some way. I.e. exposure, positive SEO, conversions, etc. And the other website isn't utilizing any negative/blackhat tactics.
-Hope this helps!
-
Another point to touch on is where will the link be located? If it's in your author profile on an article you wrote for them, then I always nofollow the link. If it's within the content and is a valuable resource for the readers then a dofollow link shouldn't be an issue.
Regardless, treat links as more than just for SEO value. I mean it gives people a chance to click and visit your website. That's the main goal right?! As long as it's linking to a relevant page/article on your website then you shouldn't worry as much.
-
Many thanks Patrick,
I will take a look at those points
thanks
Pete
-
Hi there
Don't disregard links because they are nofollow. They can be valuable and important, especially if that link is relevant to your business and helps expand your visibility to your audience. There's a great article here about nofollow.
The best way to assess links are to ask the following questions:
-
Does this link help my website?
-
Does it send quality traffic?
-
Is this link relevant to my website?
-
Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
-
Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
-
If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?
-
Are the links from directory templates? (example)
-
Inspect URLs with blatant spam words
-
Free
-
Porn
-
XXX
-
Submit
-
Directory
-
Paid
-
Links
-
URL
-
Sex
-
etc.
-
Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs
-
This can usually show link farms or spam
-
Don't forget - don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag
A lot of this comes down to common sense, so if you trust the site, it's relevant, provides quality content, and don't feel weird or shady about it, then I say explore the option.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
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
-
Better to place linked-back article or post article and seek multiple links?
Which option is better for SEO purposes: 1. Author article for trade journal in return for link back to my home page. 2. Post article on my site and solicit links from multiple sites. Assume links all have moderate authority.
Link Building | | Lysarden0 -
Is link sharing still worth it?
Hi guys,
Link Building | | ikwilzitzakken.nl
As far as I can see a lot of people still are sharing links from A <-> B, my question is: is it better not to use this? Can it possibly cause a penalty? My compeditors are using it and are ranking better.0 -
External links - link to third party sites
Greetings! Actually, got an doubt on linking to external site. The thing, i have working for roof marketers site. They have covered roof products. Each of the products have a page along with major keyword. Actually, i do link from other pages[internally]. Meaning,if i see any main keywords in different page then will link that to corresponding page/product[internally].This is what i am doing to get page rank. Now, my doubt. Some of the pages are having link with main keywords which directs to the third party site those who are really producing the products. But, i remove the third party-link which has with main keywords. Since already the site/my client site having pages for that main keywords. But client really want that link. meaning the links which they have given to direct to third party[product producer] site. So what should i do at this case. Can i just past RAW link like [http://www.thirdpartysite.com] or what do i do. But my client wants that link to be in content area. Hope you would understand my long explanation and case Please help us. Thank you
Link Building | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Are Directory Links a Good Source of Branded Links?
I am trying to increase the number of branded links for a few of my sites since the links are too heavily weighted on anchor text. If so, would you recommend a service like Directory Maximizer?
Link Building | | rise10 -
Why are none of my incoming links showing up in SEOmoz or Google? How do I get good legit incoming links?
There are hundreds of sites that are linking to my website, but nobody is showing it. Google wont display any when using link:eugenecomputergeeks.com, and in webmaster tools it only shows 46 incoming links. SEOmoz shows only 3 links. This just isn't so. Why is this? I DESPERATELY need valid incoming links from well ranked websites , and having lots of trouble getting them. Nobody in town with a well ranked site seems to want to do a link exchange, and I've already made the mistake of buying my way into directories, which didn't do anything good for my rankings. Thanks!
Link Building | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
JavaScript is crawled by search engines, isn’t it? Does it mean that links embedded in JavaScript pass link juice?
I wonder If links embedded in JavaScript from an external Website pass link juice to the linked page and thus have a positive effect on google rankings. I read that JavaScipt is craweld. Does it mean that also the link juice is passed? I'm looking forward to your answers.
Link Building | | Tabea0 -
Competiton Creating Links from high ranking blogs through comments?
So I have been noticing that a lot of my competition is leaving a lot of non sense comments on high ranking blogs. What they are doing is either A. Linking the username they are using back to the page they want to link or B. Within their comment on that blog leaving their URL in the text or end of comment. Question is does this even work to get links back to your page? Is this that even ethical SEO? Might be a dumb questions but how am i suppose to fight this when its already hard enough to come up with unique content for a e commerce site and then i have to battle my competition doing this?
Link Building | | Horrific_ending0 -
Link Churn - where have all my links gone?
I am sure most of you have asked yourself the question I'm asking right now.. Where have all my links gone? I am starting to get twitchy now. I would estimate we have lost around 60% of our links in the past 3 weeks. Does anyone have any comeback stories? Feel like I am back to the start again. I have made a number of changes on the site not least removing a reciprical link page.. that had over 200 links on it but from reading one of Rand's tweets is it true that linking out could be good again?
Link Building | | robertrRSwalters0