Should I use the nofollow attribute on internal links?

Regarding “nofollow” on internal links: Does it hurt? Does it help? I read different comments from Matt on this matter over time. What’s the latest?  I know that the attribute use to work but I’m wondering if it does what it was intended to do anymore? Some of my testing suggest that nofollow actually hurts your sites indexing more than it helps.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Enthusiast

Nofollow Attribute and Internal Site Sculpting

Over this past weekend I was visiting a popular forum where a new member asked if external  links they created counted to the overall link count of their page. The first answer they got was “only if the link is a dofollow”.

Up until now I haven’t really weighed in on the nofollow debate but I just can’t sit on the sidelines when advice is given based on just opinion. I’m of the thinking that if your going to offer advice at least back it up with some proof.

Like I said no proof was offered that the nofollow attribute actually is bad for your site. Rather I think it was offered based on mis-information that the user offering the advice has read somewhere in the millions of pages on the topic.

IMHO this kind of advice is total crap!

I’m not going to get into the history of nofollow as there are as many theories on the attribute as there are theories about the Tunguska Event. Instead I’m going to offer “proof” that the attribute has little effect on ranking position. To be totally clear this is not about page rank (PR) it’s about ranking position.

So let’s get to it…

I chose the search term “personalized gifts” and since everyone seems to be fixated on Google I used their search results.

Next I used the Majestic-SEO tool to find the total count of external links to the top 2 ranked sites including the nofollow data. Although this tool might not be the greatest for discovering data I used it because a) it’s free and b) so you could check the results for yourself.

As you can see from this  screen shot the #1 ranked site has over 1 million external links of which 12,492 are reported as nofollow.

The #2 ranked site has 224,616 external links of which 9,968 are nofollow.

Clearly the first site has a lot more nofollow links pointing to it but yet it’s in the #1 position in Google.

Looking a little closer at this data the first thing that jumps out is the total number of backlinks for site #1. This alone may be why they hold the #1 position for the given search term but that’s a post for another day.

Now a day’s I really don’t give a rats butt about pleasing the search engines(sorta). I care much more about the human visitor. Besides, less than 1/100th of 1% (or less) of the people that visit your site even know about nofollow/follow. The normal visitor to your site is there for the content.

If you’re business is new to the web do yourself a favor and don’t get caught up in the nofollow party. If you write/offer great quality content that is worthy of a link people will come check you out regardless of your SEO manipulation.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Enthusiast

Enough With This Nofollow Crap

What is “no follow”?

Back in 2005 Google adopted the no follow attribute (rel=”nofollow”) as a way to combat link spam. Basically is was a way of saying you don’t vouch for the content of a particular site.

Since then the no follow attribute has been used in pagerank sculpting to outgoing link relevance. In my opinion the whole thing is over blown.

Many people simple do not know what or how the attribute effects a sites reputation. They are either grossly misinformed (reading old post that are outdated) or simply just following the crowd because they don’t know any better.

I’ve read post that call people “scum bags for not following” a link in comments  to “I’m not going to use this site because “they don’t follow my links”. Phooey! I believe these folks are just plain illogical in their thinking and are missing the bigger picture.

In my opinion “no follow”  is the lowest ranking criteria. If your content is worthy of a link, people will link to it. Whether they no follow it or not is not the point. The point is when they link to your content it increases your chances of getting more visitors. That’s the whole idea right?

My partner Glen and I run a fairly large directory for Squidoo lenses and we have plenty of data that shows no follow means little when it comes to links. In a later post I will share some of this data with you.

Want more views on “no follow”?

Should You Still Use Nofollow?

The New Use (or non-use) of the “No Follow”

How Do We Plug the Nofollow Leak?

If you want up-to-date thinking on “no follow” I suggest you create a Google alert and compile your own list of  information and make your own decision. The alerts will give you fresh information on the subject and not some old post from 2005-2006.

Don’t follow the crowd just because a certain group says you have to do this or that. Be wise and draw your own conclusions.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Enthusiast

The No Follow Effect