Internal linking to subdomains

[ngw]

Hi *, I have a main site called example.org, and a lot of user generated pages to foo.example.org / bar.example.org and so on.

Most of those pages link back to example.org.

In example.org I have a page that links to all subdomains.

How can I optimize the pagerank of the list page? Should I add nofollow to subdomain sites to avoid passing link juice to those sites and keep normal linking from subdomain sites?

[RyanKent]

It's true that subdomains are not internal links. But if they are your subdomains they are trusted links.

When you place a link, your PR from that page will automatically flow to it. The only question you have to answer is, now that the link juice has been spent, do you want the link's target to benefit from the link and let your PR to flow to the page?

Can you share a context of where or why you think it would be beneficial to use nofollow on a link to one of your subdomains?

[ngw]

Yes, but from what I understood subdomains are not always considered internal links, that's why I asked.

I thought that having a lot of subdomains linking TO a page but not receiving any pagerank FROM that page would be beneficial to the listing page.

[RyanKent]

That is correct. PR from a nofollowed link does not flow to the target page. It does not flow anywhere and dies on the existing page.

[seoug_2005]

Will you please clarify " Your page rank flows TO the link whether it is followed or not". I thought that if we add rel=nofollow, the pagerank does not flows to the target page.

[RyanKent]

As a rule, never add "nofollow" to internal links. Your page rank flows TO the link whether it is followed or not. When you add the "nofollow" tag, you stop the PR from flowing FROM the link and it simply dies.