200 mozpoints : Removal of "nofollow" from first custom URL on profile but first link is nofollow...
-
Hello,
I try to help Moz community and hope to get 200 mozpoints a day
When I analyze a profile from a member with more than 200 mozpoints, I see two links to custom URL link : one is added nofollow on a blank image, and one follow with anchor text.
But it appears that the tests show that in this case the second link is not taken into account... Why not remove the first link so ?
Here is the code:
xxx:
-
Happy to help, Nicolas!
-
Ok thanks Christie for your answer. It's curious no one even ask this question before.
-
Hi Nicolas,
The short answer is that we keep the first link nofollowed (instead of removing it and updating the CSS) because we need to use our development resources on higher priority projects that have greater benefit for our community at this time (and do not believe that the value of the second link is negated by virtue of the first one).
The study that you cited was conducted in 2009, right? While I tend to agree with Oleg's opinion of this particular study (and offer the same disclaimer as well as challenge), Matt Cutts, former head of webspam for Google, released this video a couple of years ago confirming that this is how anchor text used to work. As Cutts says, though the algorithm has changed a lot since then -- and has changed even more since 2014. (By the way, Moz's studies conducted around the same time that Cutts references in the video (2007-2009) confirm what Cutts says about how anchor text used to work.)
-
Hello Christie,
Ok for the layout, but why do you keep the first link nofollowed ?
Studies reveal that only first link attribute and anchor text are taken into account... So it could be fair that the first link be followed also (or remove it and correct CSS layout... with CSS rules!)
-
I think his question is more "why nofollow the icon? google only considers the first link to a domain per page (which in this case is the nofollow icon) which cancels out the 2nd dofollow link"
I don't think this is the case but he cited a French case study that supposedly affirms that statement. Based on the translated version of the article, I don't think there was anything to support it but I could be misunderstanding.
Any French SEOs want to delve in?
-
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for your question! The first "link" goes to an "invisible" icon, which was the easiest way back in the day this code was written, err... updated to keep our code from breaking without having to mess with the CSS when adding custom URLs to this section of the user profile. If you look at the rest of the code for this section, you will see that each social profile is linked to both an icon and the profile name in the same manner, except that the social icons are not just placeholders. (That is, they are real and visible icons.) In each case, the icon link is always no-follow, and the text link is the real link, regardless of whether it is followed or no-followed.
Why link to icons at all? Well, some folks click on icons for profile links instead of the anchor text in social profiles, so it's set up that way for usability.
When a community member earns 200 MozPoints, the no-follow attribute on the link to their first custom URL is removed (that is, the real link), while the no-follow attribute to the "invisible" icon remains in place, as it is only a placeholder.
I hope that helps answer your question. Let me know!
Christy
-
I'm checking out the results and it looks like the the page C doesn't rank for any of their link anchor texts so I'm not sure how they came to a conclusion.
From what I understand...
3 pages each have 2 links to page C. Each link has a unique anchor text that isn't found on Page C.:
- 2 dofollow
- 1 nofollow, 1 dofollow
- 1 dofollow, 1 nofollow
Then searching for the specific anchor texts that were linked should show Page C in search results. I don't see page C ranking for any of the anchor texts tested.
Am I missing something?
-
Yes here : http://blog.axe-net.fr/ancre-de-lien-nofollow-dofollow-test-seo/ (in french)
if there are two links to the same URL on a give webpage, only the first link is taken into account, so in the moz profile webpage, the first link is nofollowed. And it's really strange to have two links, one nofollow and one follow?
-
Why wouldn't the second link be followed? Do you have any studies to cite "tests show that in this case the second link is not taken into account"?
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
-
How to remove staging Urls from being shown in MOZ as critical crawler issues?
Hi MOZs, A few months ago we were updating our website and used a staging site to do so. Soon after we realized that it was indexed by G and shown in Search so we removed it to be indexed. The staging site has since not been visible in search except for 2 links that I just found out about today. My question is how to remove the staging site URLs being shown in MOZ as crawl issues or remove completely? I want to do this because the digital reports are connected to MOZ and it shows there are currently more than 400x 4xx errors which are all because of the staging URLs. I already marked to ignore the issues but they are still showing in. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks
Product Support | | Strausberg0 -
Both campaigns are now useless due to URL rewrite?
I have two campaigns on Moz and they were doing fine until I made the decision to rewrite my URL to remove www so, www.thing.com becomes thing.com Moz sees this as a error it seems and I am now getting error code 902. I tried to change my campaign setting but it won't let me change the URL because it's got historical information that doesn't pertain I guess. What should I do? Was it a mistake to remove the www? Thanks for any advise, Greg
Product Support | | Banknotes0 -
MOZ Profile is not getting update?
It seems like my profile (especially points) is not been updated since the start of this week. any possible reason?
Product Support | | Mustansar0 -
What is the difference between the "Crawl Issues" report and the "Crawl Test" report?
I've downloaded the CSV of the Crawl Diagnositcs report (which downloads as the "Crawl Issues" report) and the CSV from the Crawl Test Report, and pulled out the pages for a specific subdomain. The Crawl Test report gave me about 150 pages, where the Crawl Issues report gave 500 pages. Why would there be that difference in results? I've checked for duplicate URLs and there are none within the Crawl Issues report.
Product Support | | SBowen-Jive0 -
Remove of No follow when you become a specialist on Moz
Hi It says when you get over 200 moz points that you "Removal of "nofollow" from first custom URL on profile", this isn't the reason I have become more active on the network, but I was wondering do I need to do anything or does it happen automatically. Thanks Andy
Product Support | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Cannot create campaign because Moz doesn't recognize my URL
I have a new url, and I'm trying to create a new campaign for it. But in first step when i enter the domain, an error message pops up saying the url is invalid. could you help?
Product Support | | ALLee0 -
Is Moz creating a Bunker-Mentality with its Customers?
I’ve been using Moz (and SEOMoz) for almost 3 years. During that time, I’ve found them to be very engaged; however, during the last several months, I’ve found a shift in this philosophy—which is a bit disheartening: SEOMoz used to have a very simple contact-us page that listed an email to the help desk as well as the office. Now, they have the locations of the two Moz offices, with no phone numbers or emails. Moz’s help hub, used to have a form that could be completed when you were having issues. Now, there is only a list of community-managed resources to access. The only way you can find the way to contact their help desk is if something breaks & the website gives you an email help@moz.com. However, this email account seems to get overloaded quite often and you will get a “Delivery Response Failed” message because their inbox is full. Does anyone know how to get a hold of Moz directly? I'm having some issues accessing Moz Analytics and really need help from their support team.
Product Support | | TopFloor4
