What's the difference between follow and nofollow links?
-
I understand this may be a really dumb question and from my understanding there is a piece of code in some url's that tell search engines not to follow that link. I am interested in finding out what the purpose of nofollow links are and how they apply to search rankings.
Thanks for the help
-
Thanks for the insights.
It really helps
-
Thanks Tait,
That is awesome information and thanks for responding so thoroughly!
-
Spiders from search engiines "crawl" the web by following a link from one page to another. Using a rel=nofollow HTML attribute on a link tells the search engine not to follw the link and crawl the page that the link points to.
Search engine rankings by sites like Google are based on the premise that the best content has the most links to it (this is a super over-simplification, I know). "nofollow" links aren't counted by Google when they assign value to the page being linked to.
Most often sites use "nofollow" to block links from user generated content that might be used to manipulate search engines. An example of this might be a blog that nofollows all the links in it's comments so that spammers don't show up and flood the comment section with links to sites they'd like to rank higher in google.
-
Basically, a link with rel="nofollow" will not pass link juice to that page.
The nofollow can be used to link to outside content without passing link juice, and is widely used in many sites with user generated content and profiles to prevent link spamming.
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
-
'spammy' domains redirecting to website
Hi Everyone, I hope that someone will be able to help us with this one as we have trawled the internet looking for a solution! We have multiple domains (.com/.co.uk/.net versions) which all point to the one website, however, some of these domains have a high spam score - 9-11. Our first initial reaction would be to remove the auto redirects, but, the other domains have been a source of conversion in previous months (or so analytics tells us). So what I'm wondering, is do we remove the 'spammy' links from redirecting to our site, or do we leave them there? We certainly don't want to risk a penalty. Thanks for reading!
Link Building | | hydra_creative0 -
Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently
Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior. My website is www.hindimeaning.com which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar
Link Building | | chaudhary04890 -
I'm hiring a link building company - need help choosing
I asked this question before and got mixed feedback. Companies vs. Freelancers. Well I have a couple questions here. At a certain point it is definitely worth going in house, but what about the knowledge that we could gain from working with a big agency? Does that really add any value? Can I hire a freelancer and trust him as much as a big agency? or vice versa? Can I hire an agency and trust them as much as a freelancer? I have also been advised to make sure they offer competitive / site analysis as a first step, AND inform you of exactly how many links they plan to build per month, how much time they will dedicate to you and your account, expect turn around times, and light strategy details that they would likely use. Thanks for any help! TA
Link Building | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Links from Directory's
I have been looking at the Directory's recommended on the SEOMOZ site. All of those that I have looked into do not appear to have a page rank for the actual page that my link would be appearing on. They all appear to offer N/A as the reply.Is this a problem? Thanks in advance for any replies!
Link Building | | Babyshoe0 -
What's your strategy for guest blogging?
How long? a.) 500 words b.) 1000 words c.) As many as I need to get a link How good should it be? a.) Digg/StumbleUpon worthy b.) A decent article that the webmaster wouldn't mind posting. c.) Good enough for a link Who should you go for? a.) Go big or go home! High authority b.) Start small Other thoughts and strategies?
Link Building | | 10JQKAs0 -
How many links per week is too fast in link building?
For a new website/blog how many links per week looks suspicious or hurt the rankings?
Link Building | | aaran1 -
Links on portfolio with nofollow?
Hey guys, everyone know that to get better PR you need quality one way links.. my question is should I put nofollow to the links to the websites on my portfolio? since those website have the link to my page? ideas?
Link Building | | onyx8080