It amuses me when I read how bloggers talk about the anchor tag (that’s the link tag for those that don’t know) and the possible nofollow attribute that can be added, and when they say that you should always do one or the other. It doesn’t matter one lick to Google what you mark as nofollow or dofollow, it matters only to you and your site. Using the nofollow attribute conveys a message to Google’s indexing bot, that’s all.
If we go by what Google says about the nofollow attribute, we can assume that we are left to make the decision ourselves, and there is really nothing right or wrong about using the nofollow attribute.
Or is there?
If you are confused about nofollow and dofollow on links, start with the link above to learn from the horse’s mouth what Google has to say about the nofollow attribute. I’ll discuss it a bit here, and I assume you know how it’s implemented in an anchor tag, and then read on to learn how I think about all this nofollow business.
Quick round-up of what nofollow and dofollow is
All links are by default, DoFollow. You have to explicitly insert the rel=”nofollow” attribute into your links to provide this indication to Google indexing bots. Keep in mind though that a system like WordPress, Blogger and many others have taken it upon themselves to change all links into nofollow links, regardless of how you might create the link. That’s why plugins like the DoFollow plugin for WordPress are so popular; it changes those links back to dofollow links, giving you the opportunity to selectively choose which links will be dofollow or nofollow.
The default state of a link is dofollow though.
Think about that a little. If the default state of a link is dofollow, what do you think is mostly out there? That’s right, dofollow links. From the small mom and pop sites that have their techno, whiz-bang kid in the basement learning html and coding up a site that will help them bring in a little extra money through their homegrown ecommerce site, all the way to large scale systems in use by major corporations. You’ll find that many, many sites out there haven’t gone as far as many bloggers have in terms of this fine-tuning we are talking about here.
And it really is fine-tuning. To pay attention to each and every link on your site is likable by those with OCD, but not something high on the priority list of many sites out there.
The only person that cares about nofollow is you
The nofollow attribute tells Google that you are either unsure about the reputability of the destination you are linking to, or that you simply don’t want to pass along any of your page rank to the destination site. Think of it this way, when a site like Wikipedia, which I believe is a PR9 or 10, links to another site, it carries with it a bunch of weight with it. A site with that high of a PR is a valued resource for Google because of the trust that it has garnered over the years. Sites don’t get that high of a PR without being a credible source of information. So when a site like that links to another site, and Google indexes the page and finds the link without the nofollow attribute, some of the PR 9′s weight is going to tell Google that this destination site is credible and trustworthy. Google likes sites like that.
When you link to a site, you should consider if you’re going to vouch for the site or not. It’s why I’m such a stickler about the comments I receive from readers. Not everyone gets their comment approved, and it does actually pain me to see people not get their comment approved. I care, but I don’t care for giving questionable sites a valuable DoFollow link.
An easy way to think about this nofollow business
I liken this whole process to resume references. Given a reference from McDonald’s versus a reference from a Vice President from a fortune 500 company, which do you think will carry more weight when someone reviews your resume? Of course, the VP will always look better.
When Google’s bot visits a page to index it, it will look at each link on the page. If the link has the rel=”nofollow” attribute, then you can rest assured that Google will not follow through that link to its destination to index it as well. Well, it might, but none of your PR will be passed along to it.
It’s like the VP saying, “Umm, yeah, I heard he worked here…”, and that’s about it. The VP isn’t elaborating or giving a glowing review, just a simple confirmation that he’s aware of you.
On the other hand, if the link doesn’t provide the rel=”nofollow” attribute, then the VP is singing your praises and talking about all the at-a-boy’s he had to give you and giving Google the impression that you’re really one top-notch dude, er site.
Kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about it that way.
Simple rules that I follow
If I need to link to a site that I’m unsure about, I’ll add the nofollow attribute. Just like what the Webmaster tools page I linked to above states, if you have reservations about the credibility of the site you are linking to, it is probably best to not pass along any juice. After all, a link is like a vote for another site. You link to it, you are vouching for it, unless you include the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Every link on my site is a dofollow link, which means I don’t add rel=”nofollow”, and I don’t allow WordPress to do so for me. For me, it’s easier to state which will be nofollow rather than which will not be dofollow simply due to the numbers. I rarely nofollow links here, but there are times when I feel I need to. For instance, affiliate links. They all get the nofollow attribute. Why? For the simple reason that I see no reason trying to promote a site to rise higher in Google ranking when it is I in fact that want to rank higher. In this case, if I rank higher than the affiliate destination page, I stand a better chance of making some money…whereas if the destination page was higher, I might not get as much love from my efforts. It’s a greedy thought for sure, and to be honest I don’t think it really makes much difference to me as I don’t promote affiliate stuff as much as others out there. It’s the principle of it really.
I moderate my comments heavily since I really don’t have any way to say “this comment is nofollow”, “this one is dofollow”. No, all comments by default are dofollow. So this leaves me with having to moderate my comments, which I don’t mind doing as I find it a rather enjoyable part of the whole blogging experience.
Resources for DoFollow blogs and sites
You might notice a few changes I’ve made to my comment form here. I’m now able to promote and instruct commentators on each element in my comment form, showing that I’m a DoFollow blog is one of those elements. I’ve written in a prior post a little about this nofollow business, and it is from Extreme John’s site that I grabbed a DoFollow image to show off that I’m a DoFollow blogger here on WayneJohn.com.
There are also a few sites that attempt to catalog each and every DoFollow blog, and you can submit your blog to them if you like. Other bloggers will use these sites to find blogs to comment on, since they know that the link will be a “good” link. Here are a few of them:
Those are the top three from Google search for “dofollow directory”. You can find more if you like in the search results for those terms.
Are you going to make changes to your site?
So, you might understand at this point that Google really doesn’t care if you are nofollow, or dofollow. The choice is up to you, and it’s only a tool to help provide some context to the Google bots when they come a crawlin’.
Are you thinking the same way I am here about nofollow and dofollow links? Do you have any feelings either way regarding your site or blog? Bring it up below, and know that when you comment, your link is going to be a dofollow link.
That’s just how I roll a yo-yo. (I think I lose street cred each time I say it that way…oh well.)
Wayne John is a health coach for people that want to lose weight, gain weight, improve athletic performance, or simply maintain a healthy lifestyle. Wayne has lost over 55 pounds and improves his current health every day by using simple, straight-forward techniques that anyone can integrate into their lives to achieve the same. Contact Wayne today to realize your own health and fitness goals, or get started now by completing and submitting the free Wellness Profile. He also has been developing websites since 1995 and programming solutions for clients even longer. He'd rather be outside having fun in the sun though.
Twitter: kikolani
says:
Wow, nice work on the Ajax (?) in the comment field. Almost distracted me from what I was going to write about.
While I have dofollow enbabled on my blog, that’s really the only place I care about it anymore. I don’t check to see if comments are dofollow on blogs anymore – if I like the post, I comment. No worries past that point.
Also, thanks for the plug to the directory!
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Yeah, that’s a new feature I’m working on. The content is still a bit up in the air and might change a little, but for the most part I think it helps convey some good info regarding each field. I’m calling it a prototype…lol It’s jquery driven go along with what’s already being loaded here.
I don’t check either…in fact, I only comment if I have something to say. Link building is too boring, and I find it a waste of my time to be honest. Perhaps if I only had one site, I might whistle a different tune.
You are most welcome for the plug, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize it was yours when I did so. Nice work on the SEO, Kristi! haha
I’ve stopped checking too. If it seems like a worthwhile post to contribute to the conversation then I do it anyway. There are also the points that dofollow attributes change at the whim of the webmaster and updates of the comment plugins.
Anyone else heard that Google are going to start penalising blogs that use a nofollow attribute? Not sure where I was told that – but if it’s true it’ll make things a bit spicy until it all settles down.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I have not heard of that at all. Nofollow does have it’s purpose though, so I doubt that Google will penalize anyone for using it…or even using it too much. I could be wrong, but I just can’t make it make sense why they would do that.
Thanks…I think. I was just thinking about a problem. I’m to create a website/blog for my high school 40th reunion. I want everybody to be able to post about themselves. Lots of them will also be working findClassmates sites and I can see the possibillity of a lot of spam here because the comment section will outweigh the posts.
Many of the popular ones don’t remember each other let alone jerks like me. So I was wondering how to deal with folks that I’m not sure about. This could help a small bit. It may give me a gentler approach to the ones that raise minor suspicion.
See my son do the wrong thing very well
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
What is there to think about, Dave? Not sure what you mean by that, want to elaborate?
I’m not sure what the rest of your comment has to do with this post, Dave. It appears to be way off topic. Please use my contact form for stuff like that as I want to keep the comment section related to the post that it’s attached to and not stray into individual problems and questions.
Besides, I don’t really understand if your asking me a question, or if you are just working something out for yourself.
I was trying to be on topic! I was not asking a question. I was indeed trying to work something out in my mind. I truly thought this nofollow thing would be a way of allowing a questionable user’s reply/post stay up until others can adjudicate them yet relegate impact of questionable user to some degree.
I apologize.
dave
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
No apologies necessary, Dave. Just wanted to find out what’s going on.
You have it a bit confused I think.
If you create a blog for a 40th reunion, exactly how many comments do you expect to have that are from others not related to the 40th reunion? One way you can help to reduce the amount of unrelated spam is by not promoting it via Google at all. If it’s for a reunion, I don’t see why you would promote it in Google or any other search engine to begin with. So by not doing that, spammers are less likely to find you.
Now, if you have 40th reunion members spamming your blog, I’d say you be that jerk they remember and just let them know what’s up. hahaha
Totally kidding, playing off your words there. I’m wondering how much of a problem this will really be for you though…I don’t see it as that big a deal. Perhaps I’m missing some view on the issue?
Thank you very much for your keen insights. However, you are off topic. I was not asking you how to handle my reunion. I was just thinking out loud about how I might personally apply one of these fascinating ideas you always write about and that jerks like me never have a clue about.
Thanks for your arousing post and concern about my project. I do indeed value your keen insights.
Twitter: easyPblog
says:
Hi Wayne
Your pagerank is 4 so you are doing something right.
“The default state of a link is dofollow though.”
But I thought that the default state for comments was nofollow – is that right?
All my links in posts are dofollow but my comments are running on the default setting, which is…..
“That’s just how I roll a yo-yo.”
I love that – might steal it.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
You are correct, the default state is nofollow on comments due to WordPress modifying the comments during the rendering of the page (preparing the page for you to view). This is something WordPress does, and Blogger. It’s proactive and modifies the default state of a link into a nofollow link.
Street slang, got to love it eh? Use away!
Twitter: codedigitalcom
says:
Great post again! I am using Disqus on my website to handle all the comments. It’s a great tool but I am thinking of switching to dofollow comment system if I will not hack the current one to make it happened. Currently, I don’t see anything in my Disqus options how to change it ;/
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I’m not familiar with Disqus beyond doing a comment here and there on sites that use it. I suspect though that you won’t be able to mod it unless they provide a way to do that through their admin screens.
Twitter: codedigitalcom
says:
yes, you are probably right. The free account on disqus doesn’t offer any modification to the template. I like the system but don’t really want to pay for this…
Twitter: sticky_business
says:
The nofollow/dofollow link debate has been raging for some time. In my experience, a link is a link – or rather – a backlink from a good site is valuable whether it’s nofollow or dofollow.
I like to check out the value of backlinks using the free “Link Diagnosis” tool – you will find that many of your nofollow backlinks are actually more valuable than your dofollow ones.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
That’s how I do it too. I don’t care about linking, so I never check unless it’s part of what I’m doing for someone. To me, a link is a link is a link. I like them all.
Twitter: easyPblog
says:
Not heard of the “Link Diagnosis” tool.
Is it a Firefox addon?
Twitter: codedigitalcom
says:
I just discovered this tool too. Looks very useful, worth checking for sure.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I’m not familiar with it either, but I don’t think I’ll be checking it out. I need my time for other things and don’t really care if a link is dofollow or not. But for those focused on SEO, yeah, it might be a good tool from what I’m hearing you guys say.
Twitter: codedigitalcom
says:
It’s always good to know. I like new things..
Twitter: sticky_business
says:
Well, you do have to download an extension for it to work within firefox – but otherwise the control panel is right on the Link Diagnosis site.
Hi! I agree with Amy about all this nofollow/dofollow debates. Besides, it is more valuable for your site to have one nofollow link from a nofollow site than to have 5 dofollow from the “junk” blogs.
Heh, thanks for links to dofollow directoryes – i knew just about dofollow.info. Btw, do you think Google will like too many links from the page of comments?
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
That would be a different topic entirely, but yes, too many outbound links will hurt your page rank. According to Google, we should “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.” (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#1) The magic number I hear is 100. However, I believe there might be a little play in that number. I don’t think Google will say “Oh, this page has 101 links…that’s going to cost ya”. No, I think it’s more a general rule for usability instead. Too many links will cause the page to appear spammy. In the right context though, it might be appropriate for a page to have a few hundred links (can’t think of an example, directory?).
I think it comes down to common sense really.
Twitter: danielrmitchell
says:
To be honest this subject is one I had never thought of before. I always thought that all my links were dofollows, yet you outline a different case for blogger blogs, which DieselTekk is built upon.
I would be interested to find a method to make all of my links dofollow by default since I rarely do but want Google indexing those pages that I do link to.
Thanks for highlighting this issue for me, once again you are a source of great information.
On another note, have you now completely abondoned your Blogger/Blogspot help? That content was what spurred me originally to use Blogger for DieselTekk and I would love to read more here.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Apparently, changing to DoFollow in blogger is pretty easy: http://dailytechpost.com/index.php/835/ Give that a try and let me know how it goes.
Blogger. Yes, it was the first blog system I targeted to write on. Fairly popular, and I felt the audience would find some use in what I wrote. That, and it’s the only other popular blogging system that I had some relative familiarity with at the time. If you recall, I was running BlogEngine.net, a lesser known, but written in a language that I use daily. I couldn’t write about that since the user base was so small, so I chose Blogger. Time passes, I discover the beauty of WordPress, and my life changed forever. I can’t go back now…I’m too far beyond Blogger at this point.
All that said, I feel responsible to some extent, and that’s part of the problem I see with blogging. People trust, follow and do, and yet when things change and the author moves on, part of me feels like I am leaving people to fend for themselves. Silly perhaps, but I can’t help but feel that way. What I’m doing now is trying to focus more on the general topic that apply to all bloggers and web site owners. Sure, I’ll have some specific posts in the mix that target specific systems still, but for the most part, I’m trying to write more posts that are applicable across systems. Appealing to a wider audience.
As for writing specific posts about Blogger, I can’t. Not only do I barely have time to write anything these days due to a huge spike in clients recently, but writing towards a specific system that I don’t use myself will cause me a huge problem down the road. One I hadn’t seen when I started.
Daniel, I’m glad you brought this up. I’ve thought about this exact issue many times, and I’m not sure how I can make it good. Other than telling you that if you ever decide to switch to WordPress, I’d be more than happy to help you make that move. In fact, I’ll announce it here, I’ll help you for free! You’d have to cover all the expenses of course, and go with the self-hosted option as WordPress.com doesn’t allow all the flexibility you might need or want. I don’t care if it’s a host I recommend or one you decide on, it’s not about money, and I want to make that clear. Going self-hosted is the best way to do WordPress to get the best out of the system, and maintain control over the whole thing.
If you decide to make that move, let me know and you’ll have me in your court to help you out.
Twitter: danielrmitchell
says:
Thanks for the offer Wayne. Although I can see the benefits of moving to a hosted WordPress format I can also see a few negatives,, namely of which – Doing so involves costs that I am not prepared to lay out on what is effectively nowt more than an occassional hobby (if I were making any kind of income from DieselTekk.co.uk then I may reconsider) nor am I prepared to learn an entire new way of doing things since I am far too busy these days myself.
However, having searched the wonderful world of Google and following the link you provided I noticed that it seems to be only comments and profile links that can be made dofollow. Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick from your article, but I had the idea that you were saying that NONE of the links I publish in my blog are dofollow?
If thats the case then the links within my posts are the ones that I want to make dofollow; I am not particularly concerned by the ones in the comments although I do see the benefits of making them dofollow. At this time though I use Disqus and have no ability to change the follow status of the links within that system.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
That makes perfect sense too. If you’re not making the dough, don’t go spending it unless you know you will. Hope you continue to hang around!
Twitter: weddinggifts3
says:
Good job Wayne! For now, I am looking for dofollow sites so that I can increase the PR of our site. But there are some no follow sites that are helpful though especially with their articles.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Why thank you! I’d be interested in hearing the overall results of your efforts, Ann. Please come back and share them with everyone here.
Twitter: pc_prima
says:
Yea! The long-awaited new post!
I loved the analogy you made to resume references – it made the concept of dofollow vs. nofollow much easier to understand. I, personally, am picky when it comes to dofollow vs. nofollow links. Whether or not I should be so picky…well, I’m still not sure I guess. Whenever I comment on a site and I see my link was set to nofollow, I tend to shy away from commenting on that blog again (unless, of course, I know that I need to comment a certain number of times for my links to be changed over to dofollow). This is not to say that I think commenting on nofollow blogs is a complete waste of time (which, of course, it is not), but I feel as though my efforts are best spent getting dofollow links, as these are more highly-valued in the end.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
It’s a personal reason for all of us to seek these types of links or not. It entirely depends on our goals, right? And yeah, it’s been a bit between posts…I’ve been a busy guy lately with clients and my own stuff, but I always come back and try to do something awesome. heh, I’m trying to write “epic” posts….so far, I think I need to work on that some more.
Twitter: brianaflores
says:
Hey Wayne,
I just wanted to clarify your statement about nofollow tags not allowing Google to index those links. Nofollows do in fact prevent the transfer of page strength, but Google can still index those links. Noindex tags are the ones used to prevent Google from indexing links and keep them from showing up in the search engines. So, it’s important to use, “NoIndex, NoFollow” tags .
Great post, nonetheless. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.
- Brian Flores
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Hi Brian,
You are correct, because the destination page could be linked to by any other site, nofollow does not prohibit EVER indexing the destination, it only specifies that you don’t want any of your strength counting towards the destination. Noindex is simply a meta tag that tells bots not to index the page it’s found on, not as you say. See: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93710&from=61050&rd=1
Twitter: brianaflores
says:
Hey Wayne,
Great post! I would probably want to clarify something though. Nofollows do not allow for the transfer of page strength but do get indexed by Google.
If you don’t want a link to receive page strength or be indexed, you have to specify”noindex, no follow” in the source code.
I look forward to reading more of your articles!
- Brian Flores
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Did you forget you already posted a comment, Brian? hahaha See my response to you other comment. You have the noindex incorrect sir.
Twitter: AboriginalMama
says:
Hi Wayne!
This post reminded me a lot of the saying about “Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.” From what I’ve seen, it seems the bigger bloggers who have built their blogs and know what they’re doing don’t really care about the DoFollow vs NoFollow. The bloggers that are the diehard “only posting on DoFollow blogs” types aren’t as focused on networking or helping others, but are focused on how they can help themselves.
Just goes to show, I think.
Delena
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
That’s a good way to look at it, and that quote is one that has stuck with me for a long time. Just wish I can remember it in certain circumstances, lol
Twitter: Johndimo
says:
Interesting post. I’m rather new to learning the intricacies of blogging and SEO and things of that nature. I had no idea about the dofollow and nofollow tags for links. Now you have me curious. Time for me to check out what my theme is doing on my site (wordpress powered blog). Thanks for sharing!
Well written Wayne, it’s always a pleasure to read your posts. Topics on Do follow Vs No follow is interesting but what matters most to me is how important and juicy the post is. I’d care less about a Do Follow site which doesn’t make me well informed.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I agree with you, Ken. Thanks for letting me know you’re enjoying the posts! Feels good to know that. Cheers!
I really like this post. Great content and subject! Hmmmm, I tend to agree for the most part. I am going to have to give this post some further consideration. I will be back with a comment I am trying to organize in this not so organize Saturday morning mellon of mine! Dave
Twitter: dayafterstore
says:
Cutts seems to address this issue time and time again. Here are several more videos of him on the topic:
http://dofollow.info/blog/matt-cutts-on-dofollow-and-nofollow/
Twitter: dayafterstore
says:
Matt Cutts seems to address this issue time and time again. There are several more videos of him on the topic…
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Yeah, he has a few that are really interesting. I haven’t had time to watch them all, but they are always worth it, it seems.
Twitter: tecbloggers
says:
I rather like those videos don’t you?
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I do!
We just moved our whole site over to “dofollow” and have had great success is getting more Google pages indexed. I think there is a direct correlation on our real estate website.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Were you nofollowing your own pages? There isn’t a direct correlation between Google indexing your site and being nofollow or dofollow on outbound links. But, if your internal linking structure includes nofollow…heh, that will create some problems for you I suspect.
Interesting post and discussion. But I’m pretty sure that Google prefers DoFollow links. I’ve tested this number of times and Google will rank posts with outbounds dofollow links higher. I always link to authority sites in my posts.
What u are saying is absolutely true. I too experience and realize the same. Some of the sites which ranks well without any google back links.
Does google creates a myth about nofollow links?
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Myths can be great PR I guess, who knows!
Nice post, one interesting thing with nofollow is that there is a lot of talk with regards to the pagerank side of things but there is no mention of trustrank. We know when a domain is trusted by google it ranks more easily for terms, however, gaining the trust is little discussed but perhaps one of the most important things. I wonder if nofollow links pass trust even if they dont pass pagerank. Do you have any thoughts on this?
When you’re small or just starting out it’s easy to keep an eye on no follow links, but as time passes and the traffic increases, you’re gonna have to let some things slide, if you catch my meaning. I found out that in the end Google is pretty much like God, in the sense that it balances things out.
Twitter: matt5409
says:
An even more prominent argument for the dismemberment of the nofollow/dofollow argument is that after the Panda update, some sources report that nofollow links are now as effective in the rankings as dofollow. The premise being, if a site is getting truly natural links, it will have a variety of both types of links.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
And that’s exactly the point I was trying to convey, in not so direct terms perhaps. Considering the many sites available to comment on, and the variety of knowledge levels that webmasters will have across all those sites, it just makes sense that Google will expect to find a mix, and not just one type of link. Or even links heavily weighted towards one side or the other.
I browse and participate in many interesting blogs, some dofollow and some nofollow. But guess which ones I’m looking for when I’m doing link building?
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I give up, which ones?
Twitter: WiredWebDesign
says:
To be honest with you I stopped worrying about do/no-follow a long time ago. If a site is not credible then I will not link to it. I stopped worrying about where my link juice go also. There is just to much to do to market my sites that I can not worry about it anymore.
Iv always thought that a no-follow link still has weight and im sure Search Engines will think the same of it as another link that has a dofollow. A site linking to yours is still kinda saying “look at the content on this site”
Twitter: minyakzaitun
says:
i think Google’s page ranking is best considered as a hierarchy system for websites. It uses different sets of variables to rank a page according to how popular and useful it is. Pages or websites that are the most popular will usually have a higher ranking.
search engines like Google do not index nofollow links. This rumor has continued to be circulated by SEO experts and webmasters alike.
Hi wayne,
Interesting article here. I once confused about no follow and do follow blog actions. And then, I search about it, on Google, and then I find it in your post here. Thanks. Now, I get the enlightenment.
I’ve read so many articles debating the importance of no follow and do follow attributes. However, for this, I can say that it has a much clearer explanation as to how Google bots treat each attribute. As for me, like you, if I am uncertain with the significance of the link on my blog, I attributed it as a no follow and those that I feel that can give something to my site, I do credit it as do follow.
Thank you very much for sharing this one. This only shows that i have to learn more about this kind of stuffs since i am just starting my life as a blogger. Am afraid there’s so much more that i have to learn and understand in order for me to become a better blogger in the near future. Better read more articles like this one. Thanks for the info! Great work!
Twitter: findrealaustin
says:
When I originally set up my first site, I didn’t know about Do/No follow, so all links were DoFollow. Later, I changed most to NoFollow. Now, I decide on a per-link basis.
I use a different approach – if I am linking to one of the Big Guys, someone who does NOT need additional PR, I NoFollow them. If I’m linking to a site where I found genuinely relevant information, I make sure to DoFollow, to Pay It Forward, in a sense.
At some point, Google will ignore the whole mess and make their own decisions based on PILES of information we will never be privvy to.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I like your last comment there, so true eh? Thanks for taking time to leave your thoughts, Alison!
In my opinion both nofollow and dofollow has their disadvantages and benefit… great tips!
Twitter: arunii1
says:
Most of the time i think to change my comment url’s into dofollow but my site page rank is just 2 so i think it can badly impact my site. Is i am right ? I think bloggers with low page rank should think twice before doing this !
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Depends on who you ask. I tend to not really care what Google thinks and do what I feel will benefit others instead. So far, I’ve only gaining in rank, so if that’s an indication of how Google interprets it, it doesn’t matter.
Twitter: tecbloggers
says:
You know our policy Wayne, Technology Bloggers is a 100% dofollow blog! No changes being made by us
Trying to figure out the Google algorithm is a losing proposition. Although I subscribe to the notion that most comments should be made on do follow blogs and forums, I think it looks more natural in the eyes of Google to comment on a few no follow sites as well.
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
I agree and go with simply ignoring the whole concept altogether. A more natural approach is better in my opinion…looks less “gamey”.
After reading this post I’m a little bit unsure of what to do; I have a number of links on my sites to external sites that I know to be very trustworthy and credible sources of information, and would like to dofollow these links; however, at the same time, I’m competing against them in the rankings, which makes me want o nofollow the links. Any advice for me?
Cheers
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
The thing is, if you want to micro-manage your links, you’ll be spending a lot more time doing so when you could be spending that time building more content which in turn could help you out-rank your competitors. Passing pagerank to them might help them out more than you’d like to perhaps, but if you know them to be trustworthy sources of information, maybe you should embrace the competition at that point? I’m not sure what I would do either to be honest. All my links here are dofollow…I just try to make sure the sites I link to are worthy, so I’m very cautious of what I approve etc… Tomato tomato perhaps…
I’d also keep in mind that you are just one of many other sites…so really, how much weight can your links really carry in the grand scheme of things?
Hey, just read your great post. I was under the impression that you would use nofollow so your ranking doesn’t go down because someone link a porn site or something like that.
Twitter: TedGWL
says:
On the topic of your post – I agree with your premise that Google doesn’t really care if your link is dofollow or not. I have seen too many websites where a link was appeared beneficial anyway even though the link was nofollow. I just wish I knew the exact litmus test that they use to decide exactly how beneficial any given link should be.
Your explanation of your policy on comment links is also well taken. I have built a number of blogs before and often used blog comments as a way to get some PageRank flowing to them. Yet I find that because my latest blog is in a niche associated with heavy spamming that even when I leave a thoughtful comment, some bloggers still refuse to approve it. Even blogs that look like they approve everything and ones that use rel=nofollow still sometimes don’t approve them. But, I guess that is the downside to trying to run a clean blog in a niche full of spammers.
I readily admit that I found your blog by looking through a list of commentluv enabled blogs on one of those lists that you linked to in this post. The problem with most of those directories is that they aren’t maintained well. In my experience, about half the blogs listed in them either no longer have dofollow comments, no longer use commentluv, no longer use keywordluv or are simply abandoned. I’m glad to discover that your blog is not one of the ones that has changed.
Twitter: barrywheeler
says:
Great explanation.
One point that does impact sites is the number of nofollow/dofollow links pointing at a site. Natural linking means not all sites will be “dofollow”, there will be some that will of course contain the nofollow tag.
If the search engines (particularly Google who is apparently the only engine respecting this tag right now), sees a flood of dofollow links to a site, it raises flags. I’ve tried this with several sites and have seen a ratio of 4:1 (dofollow/nofollow) that gives the best results thus far.
I may be wrong as I’m only about 3 months into this experiment right now and other factors may be affecting the SEO.
I have been doing linkbuilding for my site for the last six months and I don’t care whether I get a dofollow or nofollow as far as my goal is concerned; it is the SERP for my keywords and the keywords are going up in the SERP.
In my case I use chrome and have SEO for chrome plugin for me to know that the blogs are no follow or not. Do follow blogs must before making steps in SEO.
Twitter: blog2thebank
says:
Hey There Wayne,
You seem like a pretty intelligent guy. I can tell by your writing style. I do like the way you write. I always like to read posts that sound like the person is talking to me.
After reading this post, I have a question: I was wondering how you know if Google cares or doesn’t care about a site using the do or no follow links.
I’ve read a lot about do follow and no follow, and I’ve heard that Google has 80 some algorithms or more they use … and also about the news that Google doesn’t like affiliate sites.
If Google’s algorithms are as safely guarded as the ingredients in Coke, how would anyone know if Google gives any clout one way or another? I wonder if the people working with Google’s algorithms have highly classified security clearances like the CIA and FBI imposes on some workers. Wouldn’t you love to get your eyes on those algorithms?
I have to wonder where all of this information comes from to start with? Who would even know what Google likes and doesn’t like?
If we all can only speculate about Google’s algorithms, do you think it would be more safe to bank on the side of cleaning up your site as much as possible and not allow the do follow to anything questionable or worth nothing, like images, and to allow follow to anything decent and relevant?
I’ve heard that the more professional your site html appears, the more credit you get from Google. Like for instance, using a favicon and making sure you use the proper meta tags. I wonder if Google looks at all of those tiny details in a site and gives you credit because your site looks more like a professional programmer put it together? Like adding the no follow to images.
It would seem like, the more you clean up your site for the search engines to crawl, the more credit you will get for having a clean site. Like an inspector who has to constantly visit someones house and having it be totally clean and easy to walk through, as opposed to trying to get through a messed up site with a bunch of stuff and dead end doorways I disagree with.
Just all food for thought.
There is so much information out there, what can a person believe?
I’m going to bank on the side of thinking it makes a small difference with Google in some cases, and only because of all the information I’ve read. If it seems logical from a spider’s standpoint, I’m going with it.
But, I would be really interested in hearing more about how you came up with the conclusion of why you think Google doesn’t care one way or another. Would that be an opinion or do you know something we don’t?
Thank you for posting those do follow blog directory links above.
Dave Drew
Twitter: waynejohn
says:
Hi Dave! Thanks for the kind words. I always think of myself talking to someone when I write, so perhaps that explains the style, and hopefully it works! hahaha
Of course, I have no clue what Google does behind the scenes. I only know what I’ve read and experienced through trial and error. It stands to reason though that a site that conforms more to standards, is more efficient in providing the user what they want, and does so without a lot of messy code will be favored more by Google. This also translates to Page speed now too. The more clean and concise your code, the faster it will travel down the tubes to the user. The more bloated it is, the worse it will perform during load. But that’s only in the context of user experience, however, Google knows this, and that’s why I believe Page Speed is now a big factor for Google. I think I’m straying a bit off topic though, so let’s switch back to the spider.
The spider itself doesn’t care if a link is nofollow or not…it only follows instructions. Google doesn’t care either. Why? One way or another, that nofollow link destination will be indexed…one way or another. There is bound to be another site out there, not so in the know about nofollow that places a natural link without the rel=nofollow property value, so of course Google will ultimately decide what it’s going to do with that page/site, irregardless of a nofollow on Joe Blow’s blog. It’s in that context that I mean Google doesn’t care about the nofollow attribute.
However, that’s not to say that Google doesn’t listen to you when you nofollow a link and decides to not count that link as a vote for the destination. They do, I’m sure of it…in fact I believe if you look at the webmaster guidelines you’ll find something to that effect.
At the end of the day, you should strive to provide the most efficient experience for your users, and the best content you can. That’s the winning formula.
Of course, like I said, I only know from what I myself have read, and experienced. I don’t try to game Google, but I do perform tests to see what works and what doesn’t. I just go with my gut in the end and tweak things along the way and hope for the best. Trying to get an edge on Google is a never-ending, and tiring battle. lol My hat is off to those that have that kind of time to bang their head day in and day out and finding the holes in a system that won’t last very long.
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment, Dave, much thanks, and best wishes to you!
Twitter: blog2thebank
says:
I think what it boils down to is reading a lot and following your gut.
Speed is definitely a factor. I think my site could use some improvements there.
Thank you again for the do follow. I’m off to playing with my new web cam.