What's the real deal with nofollow
-
I had a few questions regarding nofollow links. It seems like more and more sites, forums, etc. nofollow their links. Is it still worth trying to get a link from? I've heard only Google takes nofollows into consideration. Do other search engines (Bing specifically) "listen" to nofollows? Finally, when checking for nofollow, does it need to be right by the link(s) or can it be anywhere in the source? Thanks in advance!
-
Based on your comment I decided to confirm my understanding. I had thought the "nofollow" tag in the header was a directive to not follow any links on the page. Apparently I was mistaken.
I created a test page and verified the result with two link checkers. Both view the link as a followed link despite the "nofollow" tag in the header.
I will modify my original reply.
-
Thanks for the information about nofollow in the of the page.
-
Do other search engines (Bing specifically) "listen" to nofollows?
Bing honors both the NOFOLLOW and NOINDEX commands when properly implemented.
Is it still worth trying to get a link from? I've heard only Google takes nofollows into consideration.
I can't say with certainty that all search engines respect the NOFOLLOW directive, but I can say the major ones do, and for most people that is all that matters. As far as worth, there has been indicators that some value is still gained from nofollow links.
A nofollow link can still help show diversity and balance in your domain and page ranking metrics. It can possible also help associate your site or page with keywords through anchor text. Possibly the best value is exposing your site to other users who might otherwise not find you. If you offer quality nofollow comments on a popular blog, some users will click the link and go to your website.
Finally, when checking for nofollow, does it need to be right by the link(s) or can it be anywhere in the source?
The line element which contains the link is the only place to check for the "nofollow" tag.
-
Nobody knows exactly how Google and other search engines treat nofollow links. And even when they reveal a little information about how they treat them they can always change their mind and not tell us. This is part of the history of nofollow.
I would not waste any of my time chasing these links. Part of the signal associated with these links is: "they paid us".... "they spammed us"... "we don't trust them"
-
If it makes sense to participate in these spaces, do it. Don't worry if they are follow or nofollow.
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
-
Does having '?search' in a URL affect the page quality?
In our Costume Themes category on our website, http://www.costumedirect.com.au/themes/, the links direct to search pages with URLs containing the term '?search'. For example, the 'Edward Scissorhands' link directs to http://www.costumedirect.com.au/search.php?search_query=edward. Will the question mark and 'search' in our URL affect the page quality and rankings? Thank you.
Link Building | | CostumeD0 -
When pitching a whitepaper as Push Content for Link Building, is it ok to give the person I'm pitching a link to a landing page with a form on it?
When pitching a whitepaper as Push Content for Link Building (i.e. pushing out content that my client has created), is it ok to give the person I'm pitching a link to a landing page with a form on it? Or should I create a landing page with the whitepaper included on it? I’m not sure if the client will be ok with this b/c I know they use the whitepaper for sales purposes to gain leads. For example, my pitch email would include a line such as this, "the whitepaper can be found at LINK and I'd love if you could share it with your readers." I think it may be weird/a little wrong to ask a webmaster to include a link on his site to a landing page with a form to get the whitepaper. Does this make sense? What have others done with whitepapers as Push Content for link building?
Link Building | | ArketiGroup1 -
Outbound Links as References - use nofollow or not?
Hey People 🙂 We run an ecommerce site and we research and wrote articles on health topics , and we post the references on the articles in posts ( Magento site / Wordpress for articles ) Should I be putting rel=nofollow in the outbound links or not? I have read a few different posts but none seem to definitively fit my situation. Kind Regards
Link Building | | s_EOgi_Bear
Martin0 -
Dealing with spam link attack
Last year I noticed that overnight my site was backlinked by 1000's of spammy links.
Link Building | | chuckstar_za
All with same anchor text and all really awful unrelated sites (law, money, mobile phone, pr0n sites, etc). I've not been hit with any penalties (or at least been messaged with anything to that effect), and I still float around top 10 for that anchor text, but I don't like having 1000's of spammy links with exact anchor text pointing to my site. Especially when all the other competitors have a fraction of the number of links. What would be the best way to combat these links before they do serious damage to my rankings.
If you want to see for yourself, the site is www.alexkilbeephotography.co.uk Thanks in advance.0 -
Do NoFollow links count at all?
Does anyone really know whether or not links with rel=nofollow provide any value for link building at all? Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | dan.backowski1 -
Should we imitate our competitor's blog network?
One of our competitors has built a little blog network, and I'm wondering if it's worth it for us to imitate it. Here's how they have it set up: They have domain.com, their e-commerce site, and blog.domain.com. They also have a half-dozen EMD blogs set up that all link to each other and to the e-commerce site, each one supplying content related to one niche of their busines (e.g. kitchenwidgets.com, widgetsforkids.com, etc.). It seems they've been doing this since December 2011. In my opinion, the content on these EMD blogs is pretty low value. Sure enough, they have basically no inbound links from outside the blog network, and it's not getting shared socially. I'm having a hard time imagining a lot of long-tail searches that would bring in qualified shoppers, since they basically just write up 300-word long descriptions of photos. Based on SEMrush data, it doesn't look like this approach is hurting them -- they didn't take a Penguin dive in April, for example. But how likely is it that this approach is helping them enough to justify the time they must spend writing (probably ~30-60m a day)? It would be trivial for the algo to determine that these are not natural links and completely devalue them. Would it not be better to consolidate that time into 2.5-5hrs a week spent researching and writing a valuable, link-worthy, long-tail-rich post for the main blog and then promoting it in hopes of attracting natural links?
Link Building | | CMC-SD0 -
Where's MY SEO DVD'S
When I first signed up about a week and a half ago I paid for the DVD's but not only did I not get a confirmation, but my 2 emails requesting a status went unanswered. A question about the page crawl gets answered right away. So is this co. all tech? Sales dept. just takes money, then hides? What's up?
Link Building | | joemas990 -
What's your favorite link building tactic?
What's your favorite 100% white hat link building tactic? Well, maybe you don't want to reveal your favorite...just a good one...
Link Building | | AdamThompson0