Adding NOFOLLOW to all external links, is this a good idea?
-
In the setting of a news site, with articles that often link to one or more outside sources, is it a good idea to rel="nofollow" all external links? Would this hurt link-building prospects?
Of course, internal links would keep on passing link juice back and forth, but is there real harm in following external links?
These would be links our writers and editors created themselves to reputable sources, blogs, etc.
-
Hello,
you said: "From Google's perspective a nofollow link means.... "They paid us!".
I understand this perfectly, but you are not saying that it's against google policy to get paid for banner ads on our website, right?
As long as I have a space dedicated to advertising and I use NOFOLLOW attribute I can sell spaces on my website, right?
Thanks a lot!
-
We have a blog that links out to six to ten external sites every day. All of those links are followed.
Our philosophy for linking out is to only give links to sites that are better than ours or sites that have superior content than ours for a specific subject. So we are not linking out to second class sites.
From Google's perspective a nofollow link means.... "They paid us!"..... or...... "We don't trust this!"..... and neither of those are the case. So why should we use nofollow?
From a pagerank perspective a nofollow has the same impact on internal pagerank flow as a followed link, so it saves you nothing to apply a nofollow. (Google originally blocked pagerank flow through nofollows but then they made it evaporate (a pagerank loss) and didn't tell webmasters. Then Matt Cutts told webmasters that pagerank is lost through nofollow just as it is through a followed link.) So, you don't know how google is treating this because they could have changed their mind again and not told anyone.
Finally, I think of it like this.... The web is the web because it is full of links from one site to another. If you believe that google rewards pages that link out to other great pages then you should be giving followed links. Why? Because if you use nofollow then maybe Google does not give you that reward. I don't know if that is true. Only google knows. But that is where I am placing my bets.
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
-
What is the difference between anchor text and external links?
I understand you 'Pro's' may fins this a silly question. But I'm a visual learner and I can't seem to grasp this. I've read the pages MOZ has provided on anchor text and external links and my question is, how are they different? And which one is more important to seo? Can someone who has a great ability to simplify things, please help me understand this. They seem very similar to me but, I know there has to be more to it. External links: External Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on (source) **Anchor Text: **Anchor text is the visible characters and words that hyperlinks display when linking to another document or location on the web. Thanks is advance, Lauren.
Link Building | | MissThumann0 -
Is there a good website builder that can gain links?
I made the horrible mistake of using GoDaddy website builder and just found out that I have 3 homepages with a 302 temporary redirect on one of them. GoDaddy says I have only one homepage and no redirects which is not true as far as both Google Webmaster and Mozpro are concerned. I am not able to change anything structurally on the Godaddy site. Is there an economical alternative to having a website built that I can work with myself (with little knowledge) and that I can do some link building that will be effective. Thank you, I will refrain from commenting on GoDaddy Scott
Link Building | | ScottR.0 -
Is there an extra SEO benefit for linking to pages that link to you?
Currently working on a link-building strategy and have gotten a few mentions. Just curious if there is any SEO benefits of linking back to the pages my site was mentioned and linked on? Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks!
Link Building | | Derrald0 -
AllTop Linking Me to Other Sites Feeds, Webmasters Reporting Lots of Broken Links
I submitted my blog to All Top awhile ago and something seems to be wrong with their feed. They're sending people to mysite.com/truth-o-meter.com/this-is-a-post. It's not just truth-o-meter either. I'm getting links that are supposed to go to all kinds of political blogs. As a result, I'm getting a ton of broken links reported on Google Webmasters. I couldn't find any real support option on alltop.com, and when I log in, there are no sites for me to manage. Instead, I resubmitted the site with the correct feed address and in the comments, I mentioned the problem. All I got was a message saying the site was rejected. I believe because I already added the site. But I'm thinking they didn't pay attention to the comments. (In fact the message may have gone through an auto-filter considering how quickly it was rejected.) Is there a way to solve this? Is this a situation in which I would use the disavow tool? If All Top continues to create bad links, how do I stop the issue once and for all? Thanks!
Link Building | | eglove0 -
How do I find links that link to several competitor sites?
I want to find linking pages that link to several of my competitors. Those are likely to be lists of tools I can also add my website to. My application is a dashboard tool/kanban board. So if I find a page linking both to say kanbannery.com and kanbanflow.com it will be likely to be a collection of links to kanban tools, ad my application can be relatively easy added. Magestic SEO has a "clique hunter" - is there anything similar in MOZ suite of tools?
Link Building | | kanbanchi.com0 -
Links from my Own Blog to my Own Website and Link Scheme
Hi There, I use my own blog to give advices and offer information related to my business service. Of course in terms of SEO my blog is useful not only to expand my brand presence but also to acquire long-tail traffic. I use to insert a maximum of one link with a relative matching anchor text in every article of my blog pointing to my own webpage. Said that, the questions are as follows: Am I involuntarily participating in a Link Scheme with my blog? And If so, how many links can I send to my own webpage ? Shall I limit the number of links to a minimum? Thanks a lot for your advices.
Link Building | | Midleton0 -
Are Directory Links a Good Source of Branded Links?
I am trying to increase the number of branded links for a few of my sites since the links are too heavily weighted on anchor text. If so, would you recommend a service like Directory Maximizer?
Link Building | | rise10 -
External links--Does it matter which page they go to?
I'll be doing some linkbuilding in which I will be asking manufacturers of the products we sell to link back to our site. My thought was to have a single page for our "Valued Suppliers" with a badge that I would give them the embed code for. If the URL goes to a "Valued Supplier" page on our site where there are multiple manufacturers, will this help my entire site or only the page that's being linked to? Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | AC_Pro0