Ignore Nofollow? – Think Again!
The latest post on SEOmoz blog entitled “Nofollow is Dying: The Impact of Microblogging and Nofollow on SEO” touched on a very important issue in the the SEO world – that is the importance of nofollow links. SEOs have always believed that links should always be done on dofollow sites because nofollow does not provide link juice. However, SEOmoz have this theory that nofollow does not matter anymore.
SEOmoz provided good basis for this claim. The author referred to microblogging platforms such as Twitter that only have nofollow links. However, the conversion of these links are phenomenal since links are shown to concerned followers. If this idea is going to be applied to SEO, this can somehow change the search engines’ algorithm. With their goal of providing the most relevant search results to their users, it is not surprising if they will consider nofollow microblogging links in the future.
Another basis SEOmoz have presented is the explosion of 3rd party program users. Like social media sites such as Twitter, 3rd party websites such as blogger, wordpress.com and others usually have nofollow links. However, with the increase in users, search engines can’t always say that the links to these blogs must be ignored. Some of them are relevant and ignoring them are not practical.
Third, nofollow links have been proven to be more trusted. This can be attributed to the announcement that nofollow links are not counted by search engines. It is with this reason that spam is not present in most of the nofollow websites. Spammers usually flood the dofollow sites with their links expecting link juice. Ironically, the people who try to game the system only make the dofollow links look worse than the nofollow links. This is an aspect that search engines may consider as they weigh which link is worth more.
I have personal experience with this as well. I have found that the search engines managed to crawl my site even if I commented on related nofollow sites. I tried searching the links and the nofollow comment came out in the listings. This means that the search engines are still counting that link even if it comes from a nofollow blog.
However, this is just a theory. I think it is still best for Google to have this rule because it limits comment spam as well as build relevant content to a particular page. But it is still an interesting thing to know that nofollow may also be valued by search engines.
Subscribe to our blog to receive new posts and updates by EmailIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tags: link, Link building, Links, nofollow
That’s very interesting. I have the same suspicion that google doesn’t really care about it.
I am sure that it has some effect with a “no-follow” link, at least it will get your page indexed if your having troble with that. Maybe a good thing would be to point to the sitemap of your site?
hush! hush! Keep this secret. I am off to comment in nofollow blogs with high PR.. if this is correct then i will get PR5 atleast as i have nofollow backlinks from 8 Pr7 pages and 16 PR6 pages.. and some pr5.. Lol if it works then grt..
the only reason I think why dofollow blogs can prevent spam is that they tend to be more strict with approving. Of course, a nofollow blog would generally mean a virtual non-spam blog, something that other writers would prefer having.
If all blogs were required to become dofollow/nofollow, then there would be no debate as to which one is better.
Sunil… LOL! Now I think I’ll do the same! But really – I have noticed backlinks popping up even when I comment on no-follow blogs. Though, I have to say, do follows are my current target. However, in the end – if a blog post comes my way and it merits a comment, I’ll leave it – regardless of its follow status.
yes,I also studying this point these days,you are right,I also found out many links of the nofollow tag.
just do it,but don’t spam it!
I came to this page researching whether or not certain PR7 pages with nofollow attribute would count or not. I remember reading somewhere that if the only anchor text that exists, that google knows of, points to your page as a nofollow — then that nofollow link passes anchor text value so the page could be found with that anchor text, even though its from a nofollow.
This lead me to believe that perhaps Google still considers them, however places some kind of modifier on it, like make it worth 100th the value it would have been if it were dofollow, even if only relating to anchor text and not passing PR.
Which makes me think … 1/100th the anchor text value on a PR7 page is still very much worth it. I don’t know that for certain and never read it, I’m just theorizing out loud, though I did hear that a nofollow can pass anchor text value when there aren’t any other dofollows passing that anchor text.
if i check my links in google webmaster tools i see all my nofollow links indexed.
Interesting, I have not heard about this
Some really good points. Concerning conversion rate and usability, the no follow doesn’t matter. But if and when google will implement this factor is the bis question.
Nofollow links are indexed by Google but notice that they don’t appear whenever you query “link:” not even those linked from high PR pages. I don’t think nofollow links count for Pagerank, they may deliver traffic for your site, but won’t give Pagerank.
Agree with Rewy … Now adays dofollow blogs are most popular for the link-building part of seo.
I am currently doing some SEO.. Someone told me that nofollow links are a “no! no!” Now you gave another point of view.. that nofollow links are somewhat helpful.. Now I’m confused.. Hope someone could enlighten me more of what is best to do.. Thanks thanks…
dofollow is good if you are trying to build a network, establish relationship with your visitors and “socialize” your blogs.
I follow your blog for quite a long time and should tell that your articles always prove to be of a high value and quality for readers.
Nofollow links do not have any SEO value. Of course they can bring you some traffic but they will not be considered as positive votes for your website.
Thanks to the author and commentators! I’ve been studding the issue of non-follow links for a while, and this is a valuable information.
That’s an interesting article. I just wondered if you could tell me where to find more info on this topic ?
Google clearly said on one of its blog that it not follow any link that has “nofollow” enabled but when I have looked into webmasters tool, Google is showing all inbound links that has “nofollow”.
After doing some research on net finally I agree that Google will index all inbound link with this tag but will not pass link juice and you will not get page rank benefits.
blogwalking brother…
I believe dofollow do pass link juices while nofollow do nothing but a possible human traffic though googel index them all. But yahoo and MSN still follow no follow links.
Also I agree with you that ignore nofollow is not a good idea. That remind me of your another article of what happens when you combine a .edu blog + PR4 post + dofollow + no moderation whatsoever!!! That is the last thing we are willing to see.
In responce to the post made my Kevin, I’ve been link building to my website and have 60+ Pr0 links at present, many of them are nofollwo, despite this I have now got onto page 2 of Google, so Pr0 and nofollow must be doing something right?
I made my blog, Architecture with a capital A, dofollow two weeks ago and despite listing it in most of the major follow directories, there has been only a modest rise in visitors. Still its early days yet and I’ve become a committed dofollow blogger.
Nice article. I completely agree with you. Nofollow links are not to be under estimated. Also, I remember reading somewhere that some search engines ( including yahoo) do not discriminate between nofollow and dofollow links. Is this true?
waw..
seo things always make me got headache..
it’s so complicated..
I do not like nofollow. ist to much manipulation in the serps
Well this is just a theory and as you see nobody can really tell if no follow links are ignored by g-crawlers or not. But one thing is for sure when i checked my webmasters tools I’ve noticed that there are less links that points to my blog which means no-follow links are really working but there’s a twitter url that points to me. now that’s weird perhaps this theory is worth checkin out
I think it is important to build nofollow backlinks as well. This helps make link building efforts look real and natural. Like JD, my google webmasters tools is showing nofollow links like those from my twitter profile
Ive noticed on yahoo site explorer that links from sites using nofollow still show up on external links, not that it proves anything one way or the other as to whether these links will benefit my page rank.
Google sometimes count no follows as do follow I noticed it to, it seems as though its counted for a while then it’s not I don’t know but I hope it helps ranking in the long run. Interesting post.
Nofollow is a possible value of the attribute rel in the markup of HTML. Many search engines, such as Google, rank pages based on the number of other websites that link to them, but ignore links that contain rel=”nofollow”. This attribute determines whether Wikipedia has any influence on the search engine ranking of any page linked to by Wikipedia. This article is an attempt to gauge community opinion on whether or not Wikipedia should use the nofollow attribute.
thanks for sharing
Nofollow links do not pass ONLY PageRank, so, is worth as much as the link on the page PR n/a (not to be confused with PR0), but if you provide traffic, its value increases in each level
yes, when I checked my backlinks i found some nofollow links in some blogs’ comments.
I think this will cause much more spams
It all comes back to the point I think Google wants us to adhere to anyway… allow sites to grow organically. Nofollow clearly has *some* value to the engines. But the true value of any link is still the viral nature of it.
Focus on building a site worth visiting, put it out there on a few related blogs and social media groups, and PR will follow regardless.
It is pretty much impossible to say for sure, what i will say is that a few competing websites of mine have much more no follow links than me and i have more do follow than them yet they are higher than me
I strongly agree about the spammers trying to gain link juice by spamming dofollow sites/blogs – because some moderators don’t always have the energy to read all comments they turn on their automatic “approve comments”, which makes a web page not SEO/SE friendly.
I have not heard about this
The information was great..But i have some doubts with what Rewy has commented because i think his view is agreeable. Nofollow links can only give a better traffic but cant help in increasing the pagerank..Search engines always consider only the dofollow links not to be spammy because they are moderated..
Thanks for sharing valuable information Aira.
Great Post….I agree with what you have to say as this is how I understand….Nofollow links…and dofollow links…so overview I would say both are good..one links the other traffic….excellant info…
Good post! I liked the info you contained in it. I would have never learned of this website if I did not see it Googling random things!