{"id":2296,"date":"2014-04-26T16:39:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T16:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2014-06-05T02:42:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T02:42:17","slug":"nofollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/nofollow\/","title":{"rendered":"To Follow Or Not To Follow (That Is The Question)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2298\" alt=\"follow_preview\" src=\"https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/follow_preview.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/follow_preview.jpg 600w, https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/follow_preview-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/follow_preview-400x200.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While scanning through twitter yesterday I was drawn to a new post on Enstine Muki&#8217;s blog titled &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/enstinemuki.com\/backlinks\/\">Backlinks can ruin your SEO<\/a>&#8216;. In a nutshell the post is about being careful: &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who you get links from<\/li>\n<li>Where you link to<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sounds sensible right? Well, unfortunately there is a problem with the message here and this passage in particular was something I felt I had to respond to: &#8211;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The danger is not only with dofollow links pointing to your blog. As a matter of fact, one of the things Google will kick you for is when you dofollow your external links. \u00a0Well, that doesn\u2019t mean a few dofollow external links will attract penalties but if Google thinks that you are selling those links, be ready for a hard knock on your cranium.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s recommended to strictly regulate the links you give out. Don\u2019t just dish out dofollow as this is like preparing a hot seat for your \u201cbehind\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So what&#8217;s the problem?<\/p>\n<p>Well, let&#8217;s dig into the nofollow attribute a bit and find out why (in my opinion) advice like this is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the attribute and a potential problem for the citational link based model of ranking web pages.<\/p>\n<h2>The Beginnings Of Nofollow<\/h2>\n<p>Back in the mid 2000s, commenting on blogs was seen as an easy way to build up links to your site (thereby increasing it&#8217;s search rankings) and the practice was being abused on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n<p>To maintain the quality of search results something had to be done and in early 2005 google&#8217;s Matt Cutts and Blogger&#8217;s Jason Shellen proposed the introduction of a new attribute (rel=nofollow) which could be used by search engines as an instruction: &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Not to follow (spider) the link<\/li>\n<li>Not pass pagerank to the linked to site<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Use of the new attribute was widely adopted by most \u00a0popular blogging software and google and the other major search engines updated their algorithms accordingly.<\/p>\n<h2>Wider Implementation<\/h2>\n<p>As part of google&#8217;s continued battle against manipulative linkbuilding, they decided to expand the use of nofollow and decreed that paid links (including links in sponsored posts and adverts) should have the attribute applied.<\/p>\n<p>The penalty for not adhering to this (if you were caught) would be a manual penalty and a reduction in the seller&#8217;s pagerank.<\/p>\n<p>The attribute could also be used as a general &#8220;I&#8217;m not vouching for this site&#8221; flag and applied to any link at the discretion of the webmaster.<\/p>\n<h2>When Should The Nofollow Attribute Be Applied<\/h2>\n<p>Any user generated content should (generally) have the nofollow attribute addedto external links. Examples would be: &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Forum posts<\/li>\n<li>Profile pages<\/li>\n<li>Social networks<\/li>\n<li>Wiki pages (all wikipedia links are rel=nofollow)<\/li>\n<li>Links in comments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As this content \u00a0is not under the direct editorial control of the webmaster it is correct to apply the attribute to any external links as they cannot be vouched for.<\/p>\n<h2>Don&#8217;t You Trust Yourself?<\/h2>\n<p>We now come round to my problem with Enstine&#8217;s post and the way many people are now looking at links.<\/p>\n<p>Enstine is correct to state that nofollow should be applied to paid links &#8211; that is one of the attributes primary purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that though, if you are linking out from within content which is under your direct editorial control, then you should <strong>not<\/strong> be adding nofollow to those links. Basically that&#8217;s like saying to google &#8216;I don&#8217;t trust myself!&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming you are linking out to quality content and the links are contextually relevant (if they are not you have bigger problems) those links should <strong>absolutely be followed<\/strong> and should <strong>absolutely be passing pagerank<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The citational link based model of ranking web pages is still a good one, but it will cease to be as effective if we all start nofollowing everything. That&#8217;s not what the attribute is for.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen a lot of confusion about this and a fear of linking out spreading over the last couple of years due to horror stories of penalties and google slaps. Believe me these penalties do not come from a couple of followed external links.<\/p>\n<p>Far from being a thing to avoid, in my opinion (and experience) linking out freely to quality, related sites in your niche will help your rankings.<\/p>\n<p>So link (and follow) away!<\/p>\n<h2>The Guest Post Conundrum<\/h2>\n<p>One area which is a little grey is guest posting.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Why I Support MyBlogGuest\" href=\"https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/support-myblogguest\/\" target=\"_blank\">MyBlogGuest&#8217;s recent hammering<\/a> has resulted in many worried webmasters adding the nofollow attribute to external links contained in guest posts.<\/p>\n<p>For me the issue here is again one of editorial control.<\/p>\n<p>If you are just publishing guest posts willy nilly then you should either stop doing that (ideally) or yes, add nofollow to the links.<\/p>\n<p>If however you publish the occasional guest post and have strong editorial and quality guidelines then I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s something you need to worry about.<\/p>\n<p>Google&#8217;s problem is with low quality guest posting as a scaleable link building tactic, not the practice of guest posting itself.<\/p>\n<p>You can read <a title=\"How To Succeed With Guest Blogging In 2014\" href=\"https:\/\/top5seo.co.uk\/guest-blogging-2014\/\" target=\"_blank\">my guidelines for guest blogging in 2014<\/a> for more on this.<\/p>\n<h2>There&#8217;s No Such Thing As Rel=Dofollow<\/h2>\n<p>One final point&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Links are followed by default and there is no such thing as a rel=dofollow so you don&#8217;t need to add that anywhere . You would be as well adding a rel=goldfish attribute.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not a secret SEO ninja tip btw&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; or is it \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.memegenerator.net\/instances\/500x\/49040127.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Over To You<\/h2>\n<p>What do you think of Enstine&#8217;s post? Do you agree with my opinion on the misuse of the attribute, or do you think it&#8217;s safer just to nofollow everything? Let me know by dropping a comment below!<\/p>\n[bigsignup]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While scanning through twitter yesterday I was drawn to a new post on Enstine Muki&#8217;s blog titled &#8216;Backlinks can ruin your SEO&#8216;. In a nutshell the post is about being careful: &#8211; Who you get links from Where you link to Sounds sensible right? Well, unfortunately there is a problem with the message here and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>To Follow Or Not To Follow (That Is The Question)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When should you add the nofollow tag to external links? 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