Best way to filter out the nofollowed links from WMT?
-
When I'm downloading links from WMT to audit them for my unnatural links clients I generally check each individual link. If it is a nofollowed link I make a note that it is nofollowed and move on. I'm thinking that there has to be a quicker way to find all of the nofollowed links so that I can filter them out from the beginning. How would I do that?
-
Yes, that's right. What you'd end up with is a small list of URLs that have nofollow anywhere/somewhere on the page. If it's a big list of 5000 links and this tool can trim it down to maybe 200 having nofollow somewhere or 500 or 2000. In either case, it's a small list. Definitely not a solution to what you are looking for.
-
Hmmm...interesting. I was just playing with screaming frog and thought I had it because you can upload a list of links and then when you export them there is a column for "nofollow", but that column means that the page is nofollowed. That means that a nofollowed link from a meta robots follow,index page would not be flagged.
I see what you're saying about searching for nofollow on the page, but I can't see it being specific enough. A lot of pages may have for example nofollowed comment links but my link in the article could still be followed.
-
Marie
What you could do is use Screaming Frog to crawl all the links (the combined list of ahref links and WMT and then use the custom filter to check if the domain is there, ie your link is there and then the 2nd filter to check if there is the word nofollow anywhere on the page. It's not going to be a perfect list, because you may end up seeing a page that is linking to you, but is nofollow'ing somebody else from the same page.
But then most of the times, the regular links, they are either nofollowed or they are not. "Mostly".
I hope this helps.
-
agreed and good point. (That is why we end up with soooo much SAS).
Thanks -
Thanks Robert. Yes, I usually do use ahrefs and the links from there are nicely marked as nofollowed and easy to filter out. I generally combine the links from ahrefs with the links from WMT and remove the duplicates.
I find that often there are links that are only on one list and not both. For small sites that's not a big deal, but for a large site there may be thousands of nofollowed links that only exist on the WMT list. I figured that if I could find a way to filter out the nofollowed links from the WMT list as well then this would save me a lot of time.
-
Marie,
Have you used ahrefs.com before?
If not I think it will be very useful to you given that I know what you do. I took a small site we handle and looked at what I have in WMT and then ran it on ahrefs. On WMT we are showing 68 distinct external links. On ahrefs we are showing 62. Worst case about a ten percent difference. (For finding those 6, download both csv files and sort and should be quick. Obviously with thousands you have more work.)
With ahrefs, you can simply sort them by nofollow, mark your GWMT data, then boom. You are real close to magic.If you want to see it, etc. I have a conference call with a bunch of Cannucks at 0930 CDT for about 45 min. After we can talk if you call me. Oh, sorry, forgot you were up North...
Hope it helps,
Robert
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
-
Internal links: How do I find keywords that are not linked to a URL?
Hi Moz members I'd really like to place an internal link of every instance of an important keyword phrase "cycling caps" or "cycling cap" to my eComm category page
Link Building | | andystorey
https://www.prendas.co.uk/collections/headwear/cotton-caps I feel this would not only help my customers browsing my store, but I believe it will help from an SEO perspective. How can I search my site using Moz, Screaming Frog, Google etc to find every time cycling cap(s) is used but is not linked to the above URL? I can then apply the same for cycling jerseys, socks, etc Andy0 -
Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links warning, Should I do something?
Hi, I got: "Unnatural Links To Your Site — Impacts Links Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole. " I don't see any dropping at rankings, could the best solution here to be, just to leave everything as it is and be more careful with the link building in the future? Or is there a danger that Google gives further penalties if I don't act on this one do something? I am little afraid that if I start removing links, my rankings will drop, even though they have remained same if don't do anything? Any help is appreciated.
Link Building | | pok3rplay3r0 -
Link Building
Hi Mozzers, I work for an IT company specialising in outsourcing Cisco Engineers worldwide. Due to being involved heavily in outsourcing, I'm finding it impossible to generate genuine and organic links to our website. My question is that is it essential to have back links back to our website to achieve high search engine rankings? I'm unable to get clients and other partners to provide links as we're the outsourced company,but I can get backlinks from unrelated c ompanies. For example we're running a CSR initiative with a National Gym relating to health & fitness, also links from our web designers etc... Do these links have any type of value? Any help and feedback would be greatly appreciated. Jason 🙂
Link Building | | 4Cornernetworks0 -
Using sitewide links to improve link profile?
Hi Guys... When I look at my competitor's link profile, they often have thousands of backlinks. For example, one of our main competitor, he got 3,400 backlinks in total but only 80 referring domains. When I look at my link profile, I have around 50-60 referring domains, but hardly 80 backlinks. My question is, is it okay to get a few sitewide links (no-follow of course!) to get to the thousands backlinks? Or I will be able to achieve top rankings with my current link profile? Thanks!!
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
A link with "return false"- OSE sees as a No Followed Link
Hello, I couldn't find a clear answer to the impact on SEO for a link written in this way: [" class="expert_info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=) [Does the "return false" act as a "no follow"? I came across this in our link data in Open Site Explorer which lists these links all as "no follows." However, an engineer I spoke to said that it shouldn't impact search engine behavior. Any ideas? Thank you in advance! -Sarah K.](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=)
Link Building | | OneMedical0 -
My best links not showing in Open Site Explorer
Why is it that OSE does not display my strongest backlinks, including those from Wikipedia, a legitamite .edu, Squidoo, etc.? Some of those links have been live for a long time, and some (not all) are "dofollow". Impossible to do a thorough backlink analysis in this situation.
Link Building | | veezer0 -
Link Building the Right Way?
There are still a few things that I need clarifications for link building. I have joined many forums and I am following some big website (Seomoz / search engine watch / search engine land) and such for ideas about link building. There are various different suggestions among them for example about Create a blog, Profile links, Article directories,Web 2.0 submission,Press release submission, Infographic submissions,Company directory submissions,Video submissions,Niche specific directories,Logo/Graphic/Web design directories,Free web directories,Non-English directories,RSS directories,Guest posting,Games Submission's and social bookmarking, Blog commenting, Forum posting.Q&A,Wiki Links,Local listings,Getting trackbacks. one would say to use it the other would say not to, can you please guide as to what is the right way to follow these suggestions. Also nofollow backlinks have any effect on the SERP? Thanks.
Link Building | | KLLC1 -
Tracking Link Requests Best Practices
I've been tracking my link building activities in a spreadsheet using these columns: Date, URL, Action Taken, Status, Link Text used/requested. Can anyone share different or better ways of tracking what links you have requested and how you keep track of them
Link Building | | waynekolenchuk0