Nofollow tags
-
So on the homepage, should all the links like privacy, contact us, etc...be rel="nofollow" ?
I want to get a better handle on passing as much link juice on homepage to important internal pages as I can, and want to get it right.
Thanks in advance.
-
What about 12 outbound links to external client sites not related to your service.
-
unfortunately, if you can't place a NOINDEX meta tag due to limitations of the CMS then you probably won't be able to place a rel=nofollow either... leaving you with a disallow in your robots.txt.
-
what if you can't place noindex into the html head (limitation of the cms) would a exclude in the robots be enough on its own? (or at least better than nofollow links to the page)
-
simply exclude or 'disallow' the file path in the Robots.txt. Then place NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW meta tag on those pages (in the HTML head before the body). If you have important links on those pages then use the meta tag NOINDEX, FOLLOW. I hope this helps... please ask for clarification if you need.
-
Yes - follow the link in my expanded answer above... the ink points to Matt Cutts original article from February 2009 explaining how/when/why the change was made.
-
"They changed this (I think in 2009) to : If you had 10 links on a page and 5 were nofollowed each link would still only pass on 1 PR point. The remaining 5 points essentially disappear into thin air."
R u 100% sure about this? any sources to back this up?
Thanks
-
You are "over my head" lol.
So for sitewide contact, privacy, etc...what is the best thing to do?
Thanks!
-
Haha! For some reason I didn't see the other post... thought I was the only responder.
Be well!
-
Anthony, I never said I disagree with you. I did not see your answer at first, I must have opened the thread before you posted your answer. reading your answer now yes, we are in agreement.
-
I'm confused about what you are disagreeing with me about... there is the meta NOFOLLOW tag that is placed at the page level and the more granular rel=nofollow attribute at the link level. They are not interchangeable but simply give more macro or micro control over links on a page. If you read my answer carefully you will see that we are in complete agreement over link decay using the rel=nofollow attribute on individual links.
-
No you should not.
When the nofollow tag first came out you could "sculpt" page rank by saying which pages you can pass it on to, this is no longer the case. Google made a change a few years back to stop people from doing this. An example would be:
When nofollow first came out: If you page had 10 links on it, each link would pass on 1 point of page rank (PR). If you nofollowed 5 of these links then each link without the nofollow tag would then pass on 2 points.
They changed this (I think in 2009) to : If you had 10 links on a page and 5 were nofollowed each link would still only pass on 1 PR point. The remaining 5 points essentially disappear into thin air.
So by adding nofollow to internal pages you are wasting your PR, rather let it be passed on to your less important pages which will return a certain amount back to the top level if you linking structure is correct. Only use nofollow for external links which you don't want to pass on PR to e.g. If it could be considered a bad neighbourhood etc. This may not be 100% how it works but the basic concept is correct, there are extensive explanations of this on Matt Cutts blog.
-
First there was the NOFOLLOW meta tag for page-level exclusion and then Google adopted the more granular rel=nofollow attribute for individual links on a page. I find that too many SEOs overuse the rel=nofollow attribute when there is a much more elegant solution available. The reason for this is now myth formerly known as the abused tactic called PageRank sculpting. I had a well-known culture/nightlife site in NYC as a client that had placed literally thousands of rel=nofollow attributes on links throughout the site... granted this does not seem to be your problem but I digress...
To illustrate my point, Matt Cutts discusses how rel=nofollow attributes affect how Google passes PageRank to other parts of your site (or more precisely how nofollows decay the amount of link juice passed). In the case of a few pages or even large directories, etc, I would do the following:
- Disallow crawling of less valuable pages via Robots.txt
- Use the meta exclusion NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW tag at the page level - unless these pages pass valuable link juice/anchor text to other parts of the site then use NOINDEX, FOLLOW (page is not indexed but important links are followed)
- Also, leave these pages out of your XML sitemap(s) - although you may want leave them in the HTML sitemap and place a granular rel=nofollow at link-level in the case of a 404 error page for usability purposes or required privacy statement for landing pages.
Saving your Googlebot crawl budget for only high value pages is a great way to get more of those pages in the Google index providing you with more opportunity to promote your products, services, etc. Also, limiting the number of rel=nofollows used and allowing link juice (or Page Rank) to flow more freely throughout your site will prove beneficial.
-
There was a time I would have said yes. Nowadays its hardly worth the trouble.
However, if its easy to implement, why not? You might get some marginal benefit out of it.
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
-
How can i fix the canonical tag issue?
I was experiencing today morning some issue on our website page. While I inspected the URL to Google for the page https://www.socprollect-mea.com/dubai-free-zone-company-formation/ I noted the issue. The canonical tag is showing errors only the source code showsThis is a serious issue right?Does anyone have the idea to solve this concern? Please help me to sort it out the issue and guide me on how to fix this WordPress issue.
On-Page Optimization | | nazfazy0 -
Noindex or canonical tag for products which have no unique product description?
I have several ecommerce sites in the same niche and there are a high number of products shared among these sites. I understand that having unique product descriptions for each site may be ideal, but for several reasons this is not an option for the short term. Sales-wise it would be useful to continue products on several sites at the same time. Also it would not be a problem if only the product pages of our main store would show up in the google index. I thought about adding noindex xrobots tag to avoid that product pages are indexed in more than one store to avoid issues with duplicated or thin content or would you implement canonical tag here? What would you suggest?
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse0 -
Title tag length
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and have just noticed the end of my title text has been cut off by Google in the serps results. Everything i have read tells me titles should be maximum of 70 characters, however, Google is only displaying 54. See below Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police... Nobody else on the page is showing more than 54 characters. Am i missing something obvious? Any and all help gratefully appreciated. Thanks Si
On-Page Optimization | | DaddySmurf0 -
Phrase duplication within Title Tags
I'm creating a few hundred category level pages on my site, and am wondering if duplicating a phrase within each title tag is OK to do: Examples: 1) Title Tag for a page that provides brochure templates for the child care industry. - Title Desired: Child Care Brochure Templates | Brochure & Flyer Maker 2) Title Tag for a page that provides brochure templates for the financial services industry. ** - Title Desired: ** Financial Services Templates | Brochure & Flyer Maker Question: Is it OK to repeat what is after the pipe in each title tag (i.e. 'Brochure & Flyer Maker') on a few hundred category level pages. It's definitely an accurate description of what you will find on the page, however I don't want to run the risk of duplicate content / keyword stuffing issues. Essentially, can I use an exact duplicate phrase inside multiple title tags and be OK?...or is this not advised? I appreciate any advice or feedback. Thanks. -J
On-Page Optimization | | cre80 -
Do you use <nofollow>and rel=nofollow?</nofollow>
I just read http://www.thoughtmechanics.com/does-nofollow-attribute-work-google-says-yes-studies-say-otherwise/ . Is it really better to avoid using nofollow for local links (from one site to itself)?
On-Page Optimization | | fleetway0 -
Summary of Anchor Text and Hash Tags
This a summary of my understanding of anchor text and hash tags, along with a question. I'm looking for confirmation of my assumptions and an answer to the question. Here we go: Given these two links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "first" a) First b) a) Second Given these two links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "Second" a) First b) Second Given these three links on a page in order, Google will use the anchor text "Second" and "Third" a) First b) Second c) Third Is this consistent with your understanding of using hash tags to get around the first link rule? Here's my question: If I have the following 4 links on a page, does 50% of the link juice go to Page A and 50% to Page B; OR 25% to Page A and 75% to page B; OR something else? www.example.com/Page-A.html www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor1 www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor2 www.example.com/Page-B.html#anchor3 Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | dvansant0 -
Alt tag using photoshop
Simple question i think. Ive started adding alt tags to images using the slice tool in photoshop. This takes up a menu were the last part of is alt tag: This way to add alt tags does work right? I used SEO-browser afterwards and couldnt see the tag. There are maybe other better ways to see if your tags are in there ? Dan L.
On-Page Optimization | | danlae0 -
Are a lot auf tag-sites in the index a bad signal for low quality? (Panda Update)
Hello everybody, first of all please excuse my bad english. I'm from Germany - I try my best. 😉 The case: I have a Wordpress SEO project which rankings very well. A this moment I have all "archive sites" like "archive", "category" und "tags" indexed. I use the more-Tag for every archive/category/tag site - so duplicate content ist not really a problem, but in view of the Panda Update, which surely arrives in Germany soon, I wonder if all this Tag/Archive/Category Sites in the index maybe seen as low quality und can hurt the ranking of my whole site. Low quality because: With using the more-tag the site are just a list of internal links with content snippets. I have 500 articles und 700 Tag Site (all in the index). So my fear is when google (with Panda Update) looks at my site und sees all this (maybe) low quality tag-sites in the index I get penalised because there is not a good proportion between my normal (good quality) Articles und the archive/tag sites. I hope you guys can understand my thoughts. Do I have a legitimate fear that the mass of tag-site in the index could be problem? Are there any data from the USA, how blogs mit Tag-Site in the Index rank after the Panda Update or if sites which contains of internal Links mit content snippets - like these tag site - are low quality in Google eyes? Or I'm worring to much? Thank you very much! Oliver
On-Page Optimization | | channelplus0