Should event write-ups be nofollow?
-
Hi guys,
tl:dr - Should articles discussing a company's event (offline content) be nofollow?
My company hosts a number of events across the year, during which we invite a selection of bloggers, journalists and interested parties from across the UK. During these events we show them the "behind the scenes" of our company as well as the manufacturing process and give them an amazing experience surrounded by our products.
We never (ever) ask for write-ups or links, and leave the day entirely open every time. If people ask about articles or links, we always say it's entirely up to them if they wish to talk about their experiences.
So, my question is: should any follow-up articles (for example reviews of the day, which bloggers will want to talk about) be nofollow? They're not reviewing any products, nor have they been paid or incentivised to talk about their experience.
One could argue the event itself is incentive, however if this is the case then surely providing content is equally incentivising... The only difference is that the content we're providing is offline?
Would be good to get people's thoughts on this!
-
During these events we show them the "behind the scenes" of our company as well as the manufacturing process and give them an amazing experience surrounded by our products.
I believe that that qualifies as promotional--you are giving them a perk that others don't normally get. So, those links should probably be tagged as nofollow links. The post or article that is written should include an explanation that the writer was invited to the event--which would be clear when reading what they posted.
Keep in mind nofollow links aren't always a bad thing--it's logical that your site have both links that have nofollow them and links that don't have nofollow on them. It's ultimately up to the individual blogger or author/site to decide, though, and I wouldn't obsess over these links.
-
In my opinion, people have been way too quick to slap nofollow on just about everything - out of envy ("do not give them juice!"), out of fear ("I cannot influence that great content on that page - it might change and even be illegal!") or various other reasons.
Would you say you have to nofollow a link given from a football fan who was invited to a VIP lounge for one game (after some raffle or whatever)? Would you say, you have to nofollow links from fair visitors who were given some goodie, enjoyed it and mentioned you with link?
I feel rather strongly about the - pardon my directness - idiocy to slap nofollow on just about anything. In my opinion they belong on exactly two links: those you directly paid for; and those you want to actively distance yourself from.
Then again, the real question might be how google sees those links, their context etc.. If you get punished for those links, I'd think that was a misjudgement - which does not help you in that moment; so if those links look very much paid for ... But as I said: you did not pay or ask for them, they are freely given. Stated generally, I see no problem from those links being just normal links. Let us not forget that there used to be just "links" - and that few people overall have ever heard of "nofollow" and "follow".
Regards
Nico
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
-
Should i noindex/nofollow a faceted navigation page?
I have an ecommerce website with 4 departments, that share the same categories, For example a bicycle shop would have different products for mountain biking and road cycling, but they would both share the same 'tyres' category. I get around this by having the department as a filter, that changes the products on show, and adds a URL parameter of ?department=1. When this filter is applied, i have a canonical link setup to the non-filtered category. Any filter links are nofollowed. My top menu has 4 different sections, one for each department, and links to these URLs with the department parameter already on, these links are set to allow robots to follow. As i am actively pointing Google at these pages, and it is my main navigation, should the page they go to be noindexed? As its the canonical i want to rank. Hopefully this makes sense. Cheers
Technical SEO | | SEOhmygod0 -
Yoast's Magento Guide "Nofollowing unnecessary link" is that really a good idea?
I have been following Yoast's Magento guide here: https://yoast.com/articles/magento-seo/ Under section 3.2 it says: Nofollowing unnecessary links Another easy step to increase your Magento SEO is to stop linking to your login, checkout, wishlist, and all other non-content pages. The same goes for your RSS feeds, layered navigation, add to wishlist, add to compare etc. I always thought that nofollowing internal links is a bad idea as it just throwing link juice out the window. Why would Yoast recommend to do this? To me they are suggesting link sculpting via nofollowing but that has not worked since 2009!
Technical SEO | | PaddyDisplays0 -
NOFOLLOW Links: Can we 100% ignore them for SEO purposes?
Some SEO articles say we can completely ignore NoFollow links. Other articles say they still matter - but then are very vague on what they count for or against. So which is it really? I do realize that they can provide traffic, and for that they are worthwhile. But it is SEO I am asking about... The SEO purpose I am most concerned with is the Link Profile. Separating the Follows from the NoFollows often gives really different anchor text distributions. If they don't matter, why do MOZ and other SEO Analysis programs still include them in their standard reports? (I can see some benefit to having them as part of the in-depth reports) So what's your thoughts? Can we 100% ignore the NoFollows for our SEO analysis?
Technical SEO | | GregB1230 -
Sitewide Links delete or add nofollow
This question has been asked before, and I’ve read most of the answers. However, things are somewhat different, as we are a web hosting company and have many clients that link to us site wide in the footer, as well we have a website builder application where we control the footer links on our end user's websites. Most use just our “domain name” or “Powered by Domain” Should we remove them? It does provide visitors some value as they can tell where the website is hosting, has been developed or how to sign up for our website builder or web hosting services. Right now, they are all follow, and we are working on cleaning up our link profile so looking for some great advice on how to proceed. Our link profile is very large since we are a web hosting company that has been around for 10 plus years. Thanks in advanced for your recommendations.
Technical SEO | | goodhost0 -
Does hidden text, which appears for an onclick event, get indexed by Google and what SEO impact does this have?
I'm trying to simplify a conversion process with an onclick event to show text rather than having a completely separate page, but wondering if this is going to negatively impact on SEO, especially considering it's hidden text. I've seen a couple of things out there where you could position the text off the screen and the onclick results in it coming on.
Technical SEO | | JuiceBoxOM0 -
Browser Pop Ups - Can it be SEO Friendly and how?
Hi The designer of the company I work for is re-designing Pop Up browsers as well as inline Pop up and Drop down menus. He needs SEO requirements - how can they be SEO friendly? Thanks a lot for your help! SL. Please see below the detail: Browser Pop Ups all include:
Technical SEO | | charsimona
• a browser title,
• a logo and title in the title bar,
• a close window button and
• a call to action (that closes pop-up when clicked). Usage:
Use when you'd like to offer additional information to the
user but, not take the user away from the main page. Inline Pop up and Drop down menus. The inline pop-up & drop down is used to display additional menu options, functionality
or content on the page without dedicating real estate in the page layout. It's a part of the page HTML to retain SEO value and thus does not trigger pop-up blockers. A title bar displays when content of the pop-up or drop down is not in context of
the trigger. When used as a drop down, it is attached to the the bottom of it's trigger and left-aligned (unless it would exceed beyond the browser chrome, then it's right-aligned). When used as a pop-up, it is centered vertically/horizontally in the users browser window.
The inline pop-up/drop down can be triggered differently per instance (e.g. onclick, onhover with delay). It can be closed by: clicking on link/location that triggered the pop-up/drop down (a.k.a. close icon) clicking anywhere outside the pop-up/drop down There are 5 widths to choose from, based on the needs of the content: 196px (3 columns) 266px (4 columns) 406px (6 columns) 546px (8 columns) 658px (10 columns)0 -
Nofollow and ecommerce cart/checkout pages
Hi!! Another noob question: Should I be nofollowing my site's cart and checkout pages? Or as SEs can't get to the checkout pages without either logging in or completing the form is it something I shouldn't worry about? Have read things saying both. Not sure which is correct. Thank you! Appreciate the help. Lynn
Technical SEO | | hiphound0 -
Does Google care how you write internal links?
I am changing ecommerce platforms. For my internal linking on the old site there was a lot of old links written like this: http://www.domain.com/page-name But now i am writing links mostly like this: /page-name Will that make a difference to search engines? Is one easier than the other for them to interpret?
Technical SEO | | Hyrule0