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Introduced by Google in 2005 and initially intended to prevent blog and forum comment spam, the rel=nofolow tag is used to instruct search engines that a link should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index.
Most blog software like Wordpress and some forums use the “nofollow” attribute on links that readers submit.
Individual search engines handle rel=nofollow differently:
- Google does not “follow” the link at all.
- Yahoo! does not use the link in it’s ranking calculation, but does “follow” the link and index the page.
- MSN does not use the link in it’s ranking calculation, but there is little data to show whether they “follow” and index the link’s target.
- Ask.com does not support the attribute.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow
Knowing how each search engine handles rel=nofollow is important. With this knowledge we can:
- Get new sites indexed in Yahoo! and Ask.com, and possibly MSN quickly by commenting on a few blogs or in a few forums.
- Improve site authority for almost 4% of all searches by commenting on blogs and in forums. 3.92% of all searches are Ask.com searches.
- Effectively have our pages not be indexed by the search engines by using our robots.txt file instead of rel=nofollow.
Rel=nofollow Repurposed
Google doesn’t like paid links manipulating their search results. They recently suggested that advertisers should use the “nofollow” attribute to help search engines distinguish paid links from unpaid links. Can you see a company like Text Link Ads putting rel=nofollow on the links they broker? Ummm… I don’t think so.
Other uses for Rel=nofollow
There are many other ways that webmasters can use the “nofollow” attribute to improve their search rankings. But before we can use rel=nofollow to our advantage we must understand that every link (internal and external) on a page takes authority or Page Rank away from other pages on a site.
Internal Links
Stop spreading your authority thin by putting the “nofollow” tag on links that go to pages that don’t need to be indexed or carry a Page Rank. Most of these pages have little chance of bringing visitors in through searches. These pages may include:
- Privacy policy
- Terms and conditions
- Application pages for stores, booking engines, job boards…
- Refer-a-friend and contact forms
Use the “nofollow” tag when you have duplicate links on a page.
I manage a site that has over ten links on the home page that go to one subpage. I use the “nofollow” tag on many of these links so that the majority of the authority doesn’t go to that one page.
External Links
Consider using the “nofollow” tag on many of the following external links:
- Affiliate links - You’re already sending them traffic. Don’t send your Page Rank too.
- Banner ads - Most of your advertisers aren’t buying banner ads to improve their search results, so put a “nofollow” tag on those links.
- Blog Plugins - There are many blog plugins out there that automatically add links to your pages. A good example of this is the many social bookmarking plugins, some of which put up to ten links after each post. That could be 100 external links on a home page that displays ten posts. Make sure you’re using plugins that use “nofollow”. This Internet Marketing Blog uses the Bookmark Me social bookmarking plugin because it has an option to make the links rel=nofllow.
- The Wikipedia - Don’t send authority to sites that don’t give it back. The Wikipedia started using “nofollow” for external links soon after the attribute was introduced. This is one reason why you see them near the top of many search results pages.
SeoQuake for Firefox
SEOQuake is a powerful tool that allows you to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of a web site and web page on the fly. One of the many benefits of SEOQuake is that it gives you the option to see text links that use the rel=nofollow tag bolded and with a line through it. This can be a huge time saver because it prevents you from having to look at the source code and do a search for ‘nofollow’ when you want to see if a site uses the attribute. This tool does not work on images with links that have the nofollow attribute.
If used properly, rel=nofollow can greatly benefit a web sites authority and search rankings.
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