Yesterday Eric brought up the NoFollow attribute and his theory about it setting off red flags at search engines for them to look deeper into a site’s SEO practices, theory being if someone is savvy enough to use NoFollow to harness the flow of linkjuice through their site by ‘nofollowing’ links to internal pages, what else are they savvy about?
Well, arguments aside (there are 30 comments on that post) I thought I’d take a look at situations where a NoFollow should be used for linking out, besides for paid links as suggested by Google.
First and foremost, your search marketing efforts build the incoming links and link juice which help lend authority and ranking to your site. Think of linkjuice as your juice, your property, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with sharing that property with the right people, and letting the ‘wrong people’ go thirsty.
Use NoFollow when linking out to ScanAlert’s HackerSafe, Better Business Bureau or Verisign.
Ok, I’ll say it. If I’m going to pay HackerSafe for the rights to use their button on my site, I’m not going to send them any link juice. Why not? They have enough link juice to go around and they have been known to use that link juice to power questionable linking tactics.
Giving HackerSafe linkjuice is like selling paid links in the bizarro world. “I pay YOU to put your link on my site!”
If you feel paying HackerSafe to put their button on your site increases trust in your site and conversions, that’s fine. But leave it at that. Protect your linkjuice, HackerSafe won’t miss it… according to Yahoo they already have over 95 million incoming links.
The same goes with the Better Business Bureau and other *trust* oriented badges which you have to pay for to place on your site.
Use NoFollow when linking out to you Feedburner RSS feed
Someone at Feedburner may take this the wrong way and I hope they do not because they are an incredible company and part of the Google family, but linking out organically to Feedburner does not only give them some of your juice, but it also could lead to duplicate content issues.
Your blog feed is your lifeline, but it also copies the text of your blog. Furthermore, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve searched for something or a blog in Google and found a blog’s Feedburner feed listed before the blog itself.
If you’re worried about duplicate content and your blog’s rankings, you may want to look into using a NoFollow on your Feedburner link.
Use NoFollow when linking out to questionable sites or content
While blogging, on occasion I tend to cover some spam sites or questionable marketing or link farm sites which I feel should be linked to, but in this case I want to put a condom on this link to make sure that I’m not passing PageRank and that there is no link association between my site and theirs. In this instance, I use a NoFollow. You may want to also.
Also, keep this in mind for linking out to your competition ;)
Use NoFollow when linking to internal pages that don’t need PageRank
This is kind of old school (like 12 months old school) but Matt Cutts and many others recommend using NoFollow when linking to a site’s Privacy Policy, Contact Us page, Login page, Register page and secure pages.
I recommend not using NoFollow on your About Us page because About Us is one of the most important pages on your site and usually lists local relevant info like your address or phone number. Plus, you’re more likely to use industry jargon to describe your company via an About Us page which should pick up some very targeted users via searches for these keyterms. And NEVER NoFollow an FAQ page.
Use NoFollow when linking to the same page many times from one page.
This is my own theory so please bear with me.
If I have a site and its FAQ page has numerous links to internal pages like About Us or specific service pages, such as more than one link to each page, I feel it would it make sense to NoFollow the second and third link so it does not look like that site is trying to unload multiple internal links to the same internal page in an effort to make that internal page rank higher (under outdated link popularity schools of thought) under an internal authority page like FAQ.
In the past, I’ve seen internal rankings increase when we take the multiple links out, and decrease with multiple links using different anchor text (ie. Click Here, More Information, Blue Widgets).
But in this case, I’d think using NoFollow would make the FAQ page look like it is only directing one link to an internal page while also addressing those link popularity driven usability standards which say we should include multiple links to one page from one page. Make sense?
What Other Situations Should You Use a NoFollow Attribute for controlling the flow of internal or external link juicy PageRank?
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Comments
12 responses so far ↓
Adam Maywald on Feb 12, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Wow, the situations are pretty endless for more examples. For instance, award sites that give out their little badges - you should apply a nofollow to their badge if you display it on the site. The nofollow tag could be taken to the extreme on any website and I do think its a very good way to drill down spammy sites in competitive niches, where handjobs happen daily.
What about the argument that linking out to other authorities within your vertical shows authority within your own site? That would be an interesting test.
WebSite Design Orange County on Feb 12, 2008 at 7:15 pm
There is going to be a break point on internal linking, is the linking useful to the user and the bots? Or is the linking set up in such a way as to just be beneficial to the bots. I’m guessing that the NoFollow tag itself isn’t a negative tag to use. But rather why you are using it and in which manner it’s being used.
There are a few pages that, as Matt Cutts points out, don’t need to be indexed. Other pages on the site may also not have a need to be indexed and should also utilize the NoFollow tag.
Michael Martinez on Feb 12, 2008 at 7:40 pm
People need to give up on trying to justify bad advice like using Rel=”nofollow” for internal links. All you’re doing is telling crawlers not to follow links.
If you have pages that you absolutely feel are getting too much PageRank (something which you cannot possibly measure), JUST PLACE LINKS TO OTHER PAGES on those poor, over-PageRanked pages.
Use your most linked pages to point crawlers to your less-linked pages.
seo tips on Feb 13, 2008 at 1:56 am
Dammed if you do…Dammed if you don’t. To use no follow or not to use no follow. Does it raise redflags that flag you as using SEO tactics.
Personally, I like the idea. It puts more value on links with out the no follow tag,,,,,making them harder to come by.
I am interested to revisit this subject in a few months to see what the buzz is.
Marcel Feenstra on Feb 13, 2008 at 4:30 am
One “situation” you do not mention is the one for which the attribute was originally intended: links in unmoderated content (e.g., comments left by blog readers).
I do feel, however, that you should only use “nofollow” if you do NOT moderate comments –using both moderation *and* “nofollow” is like wearing *two* link condoms… :-)
Matt Cutts on Feb 13, 2008 at 4:36 am
Less controversial, but good points..
Mukesh on Feb 13, 2008 at 6:24 am
you once told that privacy policy and copyrights need not be nofollowed as presence of these pages on a site tells the engines that the site is a quality site that respects privacy rights and has quality copyrighted content.
So which point should we talk? Nofollow or dofollow privacy & copyright pages?
SEO Design Solutions on Feb 13, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hi Loren:
I think it is important for many people to know that internal links and site architecture can contribute up to 80% of the ranking factors if formatted properly. Bleeding link juice as a result of not employing the no-follow on sidebars and CMS systems are one of the leading contributors to eeking out vital ranking power and directing it where you need it.
I know the argument about external links vs. internal links is an argument worth revisiting, the fact is, if you structure your pages for a very competitive keyword and use off page and some on page factors alone. Compared to a lean, relevant internally linked CMS and then add external links, the one with superior architecture will dominate the SERPs. It is an important step, particularly when you hit the top 20 results for an extremely competitive term.
amelia on Feb 13, 2008 at 10:05 pm
am really new in this industry some words might not that familiar to me but this article really helps me some things about a bit of everything when we say SEO’s , linkings etc. The examples really helps for ranking factors of sites :) in order cope up in competitive world. Am not really familiar with the “no follow” word but am hoping to know more about that someday :)
Local SEO Guide on Feb 19, 2008 at 11:46 am
Bill,
Re your point about never NoFollowing a link to the FAQ page, how do you feel about the situation when you are on a deep page and are attempting to channel PR to another deep page? The FAQ is in the footer (and likely boilerplate) and already gets a lot of internal links so do you think it’s that big a deal to nofollow it on a page like this?
SEO China on Feb 22, 2008 at 12:29 pm
What an impressive article.
The thought of channeling link juice via strategic implementation of nofollows, is something certainly worth trying.
Adam on May 16, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I think, using no follow links is important as explained here for some cases but then again some sites take it too far.
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