15 replies to this topic

[kevs]

I have a list of ten anchor text with links to my various websites I put on my about pages on certain portals.
Some portals have no follow some don't.

Obviously, if they don't, the SEO value gets passed fully.

but if they do institute no follow, is that neutral for SEO, or bad for SEO?

In other words, does Google see no follow links to my site and penalize in any way? thanks.

[Jill]

kevs...you've been on this forum since 2004. What do you think we will answer to that question?

Look at my answer to you in the last thread you had regarding Google penalties. I already answered that they don't penalize sites for anything other than people trying to trick them in some manner.

You don't have to believe me if you don't want, but this sort of question just doesn't make any sense coming from someone who's been doing SEO as long as you have.

Why in the world would Google penalize your site because others linked to it with the nofollow attribute? There's simply no logical explanation as to why they would consider something like that to be deceptive. Unless you can think of something that I'm totally missing.

[kevs]

Because I think I vaguely remember some article somewhere saying not to have too many no follow links. Just have to be safe than sorry.
You never know what the new rules are.

I've been on forum long time. I remember you before you had your own forum.
That said my SEO knowledge it about maybe 5 % of what you or Bobs or other real experts is.

[Scottie]

I think the arbitrary "don't have too many no follow links" is about as good of advice as "get lots of inbound links". It's just too vague and general to be able to apply to any particular site.

The real question in my mind is, why do you need no follow links? What's their purpose?

The tag was created to automatically block spam links on unmoderated blogs... so I would ask, why are you linking to spam anyway?

[Michael Martinez]

Google says it ignores nofollowed links. People who don't work at Google, who don't represent Google, who don't have access to Google's algorithms, who don't in any way have any more information about what Google does or doesn't do than anyone else outside of Google, say that Google *sometimes* follows nofollowed links.

Given these facts, why even fuss over nofollow? What's the point? I can assure you there is absolutely no SEO benefit to actually knowing whether someone believes that Google is or isn't using nofollowed links in some way.

[kevs]

thanks guys, the issue was a portal initially said, go ahead add your links with anchor text. So I did that. and then the it turns out they are all no follows!

[satechheads]

google does not ignore nofollow links. you can see many no follow links indexed in google's cache still being counted as a link. however, no page rank authority will get passed along with the link, but if all you are looking for is link building, no follow links are still OK. and they do boost serp position over no links at all.

[kevs]

stachead,
interesting reply. thanks!

[Scottie]

google does not ignore nofollow links. you can see many no follow links indexed in google's cache still being counted as a link. however, no page rank authority will get passed along with the link, but if all you are looking for is link building, no follow links are still OK. and they do boost serp position over no links at all.

What is your proof that no follow links boost rankings?

[Scottie]

Can you give us a link to the authority that you are using to determine this? A generalized search will turn up a lot of hearsay. I'd like to know who's tested this and how. Thanks!

[Jill]

We've been having a discussion on Sphinn about nofollow links as well. It's mostly just opinion, but the general consensus (and I agree as well) is that nofollow links do have some value, just how much (beyond the click of course) is hard to say.

[kevs]

thanks, the portal I'm on, the owner put no follow in code, because they feel they could be seen as spammers by Google, are they worrying too much?

[Jill]

They put nofollow where in the code? Every link on the site?

[Michael Martinez]

Well, let me add that indexing the links on the page doesn't mean that Google is using them as a source for crawling. As I mentioned above, some people claim they have seen Google follow such nofollowed links.

There are two sides to the story and I am in no position to debunk or verify either one. So, frankly, I don't care any more. But I would accept a nofollowed link if it sent real people to my site with an interest in my content.

[chrishirst]

Of course links with the rel="nofollow" attribute are being cached and indexed, they have to be by necessity!

How on earth would the search engines know that the attribute was there without indexing the page??????