Links to Social Media accounts, rel=nofollow/follow and rel=me
-
Hi guys,
I just saw this rel="me" attribute and I can't find any reputable recent (within last year) information. I never heard of this and wonder if it's any beneficial in any way.
At the same time, should I use nofollow or follow on links from website to social accounts? I've heard different opinions but, again, no recent relevant and trustworthy information.
Please, kick me into right direction. However, when kicking, please give me some proof, rather than thoughts
Thanks!
-
I'd recommend linking to all your own properties using rel="me". You can see the tag in common usage on Twitter and Instagram profiles, where the user's website link is tagged using rel="me". You can basically connect up all your online properties as belonging to the same person/brand/entity - and who wouldn't want that. You're indicating to Google that all those webpages are related to you. By linking to your social profiles from your website using rel="me", you're confirming that those profiles are officially yours.
-
Now, what's about rel="me"?
Anybody has any insight?
-
Good article, but as you said, statements sometimes conflicting and self-contradicting. I guess the best way is to test and see what works and what doesn't.
-
Thanks! I'll look into it tomorrow.
-
You might be interested by this article from Marie Haynes on footer links (follow or not follow) which gives a recap of the (sometimes conflicting) statements from Google regarding footer links- and some advice on how to deal with it.
It's a pretty long article - but worthwhile reading; Marie is also member of Moz & specialised in link penalties & unnatural links.Dirk
-
Thanks.
What about too many follow links from the same website?
Example: as a webdesign company we have a backlink from every client's footer. So, we used to have them all follow, therefore from large ecommerce websites we were getting 10k+ follow links. We decided to try to do all those links nofollow. Pretty much next week we saw significant enough jump in rankings.
There are lots of articles/discussions about topical relevance of follow interlinked websites as well.
What's your take on this?
-
Basically nofollow links should be used for
- links to site with untrusted content
- paid links
You could use nofollow as well for crawl prioritisation (not leading Google bot to pages on your site that can't or shouldn't be indexed like loginpages) -although this is not the recommended usage (according to Google: "a solid information architecture is likely to be a far more productive use of resources than focusing on crawl prioritization via nofollowed links".
Source: Google
For links to Facebook you have the choice - a big chunk is not being indexed by Google (source: https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt?_rdr=p) - so you could put the links nofollow (but you could leave them follow as well). For the other ones - it could be interesting to have links to your Instagram / Twitter account to push these as well.
I would just keep all these links follow. It will certainly not hurt you.Dirk
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
-
Does Google give more ranking weight for Shares for One Social Network over Another.
We are using BuzzSumo to explore the types of content that generate the highest number of shares per article. Does anyone have data to suggest that a share on Google+ carries more ranking weight than a share on Twitter or Facebook, or LinkedIn? We have seen a recent case with one of our client's competitors where they significantly grew their Google+ shares within a relatively short period of time and gained a higher rank for a key search phrase that my client is also targeting. Thank you, Rosemary Brisco
Social Media | | RosemaryB0 -
Main Site Social Media SEO impact on different product specific site
Hi, Few months ago I have created a minisite for a particular product category for the online store Giftcampaign.es with a different domain name. The idea was to focus this minisite on selling personalized usb memories and to have a different design, functionality and content that the main one (the site is http://www.usbpersonalizado.es). What I have done here is to link on my site the Social Markers of Facebook and LinkedIn of the parent site GiftCampaign.es, as we are not planning to open and maintain an account for those social networks, and we are already maintaining the ones for the parent site. I would like to know if the SEO Positioning of my minisite can benefit from the links of the Social Networks of the parent site or whether it makes not really an impact in SEO positioning unless I create and maintain new social network accounts for the different minisites that I create with different domain names. I look forward for your response. Best regards, Oriol .
Social Media | | oriolbandalux0 -
Duplicating content on more than one social network
I am just getting in to social media for my company and i can find an answer to my questions. Different people give a different answer. Question: i have written a post and uploaded it to our Google+ page. If i upload the same post / content to our Facebook page, will this fall foul of the 'duplicate content' rule with Penguin? Or does that rule only relate to websites? Any Guru's out there with an answer? Much appreciated. Si
Social Media | | DaddySmurf1 -
Possible to automate/semi-automate twitter followers into specified list(s) after the fact without doing so one-by-one?
I have a list of about 3,000 Twitter followers and would like to segment my followers into separate lists for "emergency preparedness" and "travel." Is there a tool that can help me automate this without reviewing each profile one-by-one?
Social Media | | Timmmmy0 -
Value in content from website being shared across social media?
I asked this question a couple of days ago. Would be great if anyone has some good insight: I write content on my site, which I immediately share across Twitter, FB and Google+. Will Google view me as active on social media with this onsite content I distribute across social media sites (basically creating duplicate info across social media, which already is on my site) or will I be seen as less active on social media since I do not write original content on the social media sites, but rather use content from my site and distribute across social media.
Social Media | | knielsen0 -
Will Google+ pages be added to social tracking soon?
Google+ and YouTube are important social media networks for several of our clients. Are you planning to add them soon? Thank you.
Social Media | | pheffernan2 -
Facebook Page likes vs Webpage facebook likes - Social Media Query
I have a website and a facebook page. I have the Facebook Social Plugin on my website which shows my facebook page likes - This is currently at approx 140 likes. Is there a difference between facebook page likes and webpage likes? For SEO purposes, should I be concentrating less on the Facebook page and more on building facebook likes for the website? Are there any guides on this? What gets people to like a website as opposed to a web-page?
Social Media | | MangoMM0 -
Linking Facebook - Twitter - Website - G+ Profiles
During a spectacular presentation at Seattle Interactive Conference, Rand discussed how Google is able to see linkage between different social networks and a Google profile. Outside of setting up your Twitter feed to send loads of messages to your Facebook fans (or vice versa), is there a best way to communicate the "linkage" between your social media profiles to the search engines? Eg - How do you best signal to Google that your Twitter, Facebook, G+ and your website are from the same entity?
Social Media | | sftravel0