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Business.com Using NoFollow on Listings

Business.com Using NoFollow on Listings

For those of you in the SEO world who are purchasing listings on Business.com hoping that the $199 a year price will assure your site better rankings in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com, be forewarned; Business.com seems to be using a ‘nofollow’ command so some search engines, specifically Google, do not value such backlinks.

I first noticed this report in a DigitalPoint Forums thread last night dubbed They are using “nofollow” links at business.com where members were sounding off about how publishers are getting ripped off via these no follow tags.

Peter Da Vanzo at V7N points out that this seems to be an abuse of the tag, which was originally intended as a preventive measure against blog spamming. Citing the Google Blog, Peter quotes:

“Q:What types of links should get this attribute? A: We encourage you to use the rel=”nofollow” attribute anywhere that users can add links by themselves, including within comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists. Comment areas receive the most attention, but securing every location where someone can add a link is the way to keep spammers at bay”

There is also some talk that Business.com is picking and choosing which sites receive the ‘nofollow’ tag, possibly giving sites which pay an extra fee a boost in popularity via not including the nofollow on such sites.

Jill Whalen’s High Rankings forum brings this up in their thread, Business.com Uses Nofollow, where Jill points out this obvious abuse of the NoFollow tag:

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!

Looking back at Matt Cutts and his comments on No Follow, these statements seem to summarize his and perhaps the Google view on the usage of the tag:

“In an ideal world, nofollow would only be for untrusted links.”

“Anytime you have a user that you’d trust, there’s no need to use nofollow links.”

“Nofollow is recommended anywhere that links can’t be vouched for. “

Seems like Jill has a point. In an effort to boost the value of their paid for links in Business.com, they are, according to Matt’s philosophy, trying to tell Google that the links with ‘nofollow’, which they have approved and listed in their directory, are untrusted and questionable.

Perhaps the business practice of placing ‘nofollow’ tags on sites which you want more money from is a bit more untrusted and questionable, wouldn’t ya think?

Hopefully we’ll have more on Business.com’s nofollow policy within the day.

Category SEO
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SEJ STAFF Loren Baker Founder at Foundation Digital

Loren Baker is the Founder of SEJ, an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing ...

Business.com Using NoFollow on Listings

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