Blog links - follow or nofollow?

[PeterAlexLeigh]

I need my memory refreshed here!

Say, I've got a blog and some of the posts have links to recommended external sites and content. Should these be nofollowed?

They're not paid links or anything like that, simply things relevant to the post.

[mjtaylor]

Agreed. It's called the web for a reason - a web of links. To my way of thinking, when I link out I am saying to Google: this is my neighborhood, and I am linking to it.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Gyi - the fear has subsided for the time being!

Thanks for the response

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Thanks Keri. Well put

I've taken it on board

[mjtaylor]

Google doesn't have the x-ray vision some of us fear.

The ONLY reason to nofollow a link, IMO, is because you have sold the link and want to be compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines. To use nofollow in most other cases makes no sense to me.

I know it was developed to prevent blog spam - and if you don't have time to moderate comments, then nofollow might make sense.  But, IMO, it's better to have a clearly stated followed, moderated blog comment policy; when readers know that substantive comments are approved and followed, it encourages participation.

[Gyi]

+1 for what Keri said. Don't fear linking out. It's upsetting that so many webmasters are suffering from outbound link paranoia. In fact, many are just wholesale nofollowing their entire sites. So sad.

[KeriMorgret]

I'd put the links out there straight. I don't see anything for you to worry about at all. You're curating the links, you feel they are valuable, let Google know they are valuable and trusted links.

[seoroyal]

As long as you doing it the right way you will be ok. Good luck with it. Nice taliking to you.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

Yes, that's a fair point.

My caution is because in the past, the blog didn't link out to other sites at all. Now I've just started creating posts with external links in them.

As long as this won't be detrimental in anyway, I'll carry on

[seoroyal]

I dont think that woukld be a problem as long they are no links to spammy sites of some kind. The thing is it is really hard for google to see if it is a paid link and they will not just give you a penalty for without looking into it.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

I know that google's traditional stance on this is that any paid links should be nofollowed, so I just don't want google to think that these might be paid links which haven't been nofollowed... and therefore impose a penalty for this.

[seoroyal]

I would say make it dofollow because this way you will pass linjuice to the other site and kind of reward them for good information.

If you are asking because you are loooking for blogs to comment on i wont worry to much. The thing is if you are  going to get 99% dofollow and 1% NOFOLLOW  people will notsee this as natural and nobody want that.

Hope this helps