28 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Has anyone else noticed that Business.com uses nofollow for all their links?

(Perhaps this was mentioned here already and I missed it?)

[Debra]

I see that now since I have my handy dandy searchstatus tool on! That's relatively new I believe!

[Michael Martinez]

They're using redirection on their listing links, so they wouldn't be conferring any link love even if they weren't using NOFOLLOW.

[Jill]

Is it 301 or 302 redirection? If it were 301 they could still be passing link pop. Of course with nofollow it's all going to be suspect now.

[sweepthelegnate]

They're using redirection on their listing links,

not on all of them.

[St0n3y]

Looks like they are not using the no follow on all links either. Check this out.

By looking at this is appears that those who have NOT paid for a listing get the nofollow tag.

[qwerty]

This is interesting. If you run a search, then the listings in the results are either nofollow or 302'd. However, if you go to an actual category, the paid listings still have real links. For example, here's a search result and here's the category page.

You gave me a bit of a scare there. The client on that page had to be convinced it was worth the money to be listed at business.com. If it turned out to be nofollowed or 302'd I'd be eating some crow.

[Jill]

You know what is so hugely hilarious about that?

It's exactly the opposite of how our boy Matt C. wants it to be!

They're supposed to nofollow the paid links not the freely given ones.

Watch Business.com lose all their PR any day now!

[St0n3y]

The law of unintended consequences!

But if you think about it, this is being used almost precisely as Matt has said it should, though not how they really intended. Business.com is saying that the paid links have been investigated and "approved" while the other ones... well, they're just not so sure about. Basically, B.com is vouching for the paid links (not to be confused with paid ads), but are not vouching for the free ones.

[qwerty]

Which doesn't make any sense, if you ask me. Assuming every site they list has been checked out, none of them should be nofollowed.

[St0n3y]

Which tells me that only sites they review for money get any good review at all, and that they don't have faith in those adding sites in the directory which have not paid.

Personally, this looks like Business.com's way of saying, pay us if you want the link value... which really is exact opposite of what Google intended.

[qwerty]

Right, but what Google intended never really made sense. If one can submit for free, why not submit 150 crappy sites? A few of them might get in. However, if you have to pay to submit, you're not going to waste your money. You're going to do some work on the site first, you're going to be careful about choosing the category under which you're submitting it, and you're going to make an effort to describe the site in a way that an editor will approve.

IMO, nofollow simply doesn't make sense for directories, or any site over which the owners have control. If you don't trust the link, don't link to it. Under those circumstances, no link would have nofollow on it.

[St0n3y]

but what Google intended never really made sense.

I think that sums up the nofollow tag altogether.

[Randy]

Oh well. Matt needed something to do when he got back from vacation anyway, right?

It'll give him an easy one to out and make a few more confusing points.

[qwerty]

Yet another excuse for him to avoid discussing the actions of the New York Times.