DOFOLLOW vs. NOFOLLOW - DONT CARE!!!

[iAmNameLess]

Okay, since everyone asks this or mentions it at least 10 times a day, might as well have a place for them to come for the next day or so to find some answers.

First off, people suggest going for ONLY dofollow links. Well, this is not right. Something most people don't realize, dofollow, is not a tag, it is non existent. People confuse a regular page with a link, with the term dofollow. The term itself is just created by SEO'ers and people in internet marketing.

The tag nofollow, DOES exist unlike the fictional dofollow tag. What does this tag do? Well, it is a tag used only by google, so if you have a contact form, or a register link, you add a nofollow tag, to prevent points against you.

If you post on a site that has nofollow links, you STILL GET CREDIT FOR THOSE LINKS! With yahoo and bing paying absolutely no attention to the nofollow tag, why are you trying to be picky about back linking? The next major point is, Google likes things that are natural, right? WHAT IS NATURAL ABOUT 5,000 BACKLINKS OF WHICH NONE ARE NOFOLLOW? Not only does google still credit those links, it adds variety of your backlinking.

If you are getting 100,000 comments on blogs, and 0 profile links, 0 bookmarks, 0 articles, don't you think that looks suspicious?

So here is the VERDICT!

Wherever you can get a back link, get a back link. It doesn't matter if it is nofollow or not, get the back link. It DOES boost you up in the SERPs and it DOES get you traffic.

[jessica.n]

i agree with you. i never care about dofollow and no follow
i just work and work
and i get result

[dvduval]

More important is the quality of the links on the site. If it is junk, your link won't mean nearly as much.

[shayaristore]

Yaa ,Don't look for dofollow or nofollow .Just creat backlinks

[sushil]

yes , balance of nofollow and dofollow links can also build a batter link profile of your site .

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by stevenjohn

3. Focus on getting links for traffic and you won’t have to worry about it at all. This is often lost with link builders. So much emphasis is placed on getting link juice for search engine rankings, that many forget that the best links of all bring real traffic to your site. If you get a link that sends you meaningful traffic, do you really care if it is “no follow” or “do follow”?

Right, there is a blog I post on that is nofollow but every link I put on there gets about 40 visitors.

[jhonsean]

Its not just no follow and do follow links but the quality it has to become effective in google rankings.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by jhonsean

Its not just no follow and do follow links but the quality it has to become effective in google rankings.

a link is a link... What is the purpose of SEO? To get more traffic right? I post nofollow links all the time, especially when I know I'll get traffic from it. Facebook is nofollow, twitter is nofollow, you can get good traffic.

Everything you do, you should think about, does this give me traffic? Anything that doesn't get you traffic, focus less time on.

[LawrenceTam]

i treat it like a buffet. sure i want some dofollow (main course, steak, lobster...) but you gotta throw in some variety to balance it out with nofollow.

those that can't rank get stuck in the "must get high quality" or "must be dofollow".... blah blah blah. Variety wins and sure they do matter to an extent but as the OP stated just "Come Get Some"

[markowe]

Well, it seems we all agree! What happened to the 'dofollow' camp, come on lads, you're not just going to let this go are you?

Same here, I realised long ago that nofollow links were perfectly usable and have never looked back.

[InitialEffort]

Actually no-follow links are unnatural to get. Most of the links on the internet are follow. IMO they are only good for traffic and have no Google SEO benefit.

Twitter and Facebook also have a special API that Google uses to track social stats for SEO ranking. This has nothing to do with the facts that their links are no follow.

You may also want to read my case study: http://backlinksforum.com/main-backl...backlinks.html

[SeoWizzard]

you would rather look into the quality of the links, not the tag... as you said both are required to look natural, however it's not the same story when it comes to quality...

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

Actually no-follow links are unnatural to get. Most of the links on the internet are follow. IMO they are only good for traffic and have no Google SEO benefit.

You may also want to read my case study: Case Study: No-Follow Backlinks

Really? You think so? With a higher priority placed on social networks, which are almost all nofollow, how do you explain that? Myspace, facebook, twitter, hubpages, squidoo... A lot of blogs are nofollow.

How is it unnatural? LOL... so since google is the only one to have the tags nofollow, it is unnatural to others? Since do follow is not a valid tag and made up, how do you explain this? They do benefit your SEO.

[LAF Riot]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Really? You think so? With a higher priority placed on social networks, which are almost all nofollow, how do you explain that? Myspace, facebook, twitter, hubpages, squidoo... A lot of blogs are nofollow.

How is it unnatural? LOL... so since google is the only one to have the tags nofollow, it is unnatural to others? Since do follow is not a valid tag and made up, how do you explain this? They do benefit your SEO.

I think lenses that you create on squidoo are dofollow. If you leave a link on someone else's lens, than that is nofollow.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by LAF Riot

I think lenses that you create on squidoo are dofollow. If you leave a link on someone else's lens, than that is nofollow.

Yep, you're right. My mistake. But the fact is there are so many sites that are nofollow, and to say nofollow is unnatural, is just not correct.

[LAF Riot]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Yep, you're right. My mistake. But the fact is there are so many sites that are nofollow, and to say nofollow is unnatural, is just not correct.

Totally agree with you there. In fact, 100% of any kind of link is unnatural. Variety is not only the spice of life, but the spice of google as well

[Steve Crooks]

I agree largely with a lot of what has been said on here. Namely, natural backlinking is the goal and should contain a mixture of nofollow and dofollow (yes, it's not a tag)..

It is worth pointing out to the uninitiated though the reason why the nofollow tag exists in the first place and the truth behind it.

Nofollow was created as a tag recognised by Google to prevent Page Rank being passed via a hyperlink. The idea that you can vote for a webpage with a link and pass traffic but not valuable Page Rank or anchor text.

A quick point about Page Rank that everyone should realise is that the number system from 1 to 10 does not actually exist. Page Rank is actually a very complex equation.

The simple way to understand it is to realise that there is only a certain amount of PR (Page Rank) in the world. Think of this as a big pie. This PR pie is spread between the billions of web pages that Google know about. If you have a webpage that already has a share of this PR pie, you can share a tiny proportion of that page's pie by giving a hyperlink to another webpage. The more pie that is shared from various web pages to this page the bigger the slice!

The reason why it is important to know this is because this pie does not grow and does not shrink, it just gets shared proportionately between web pages. The common misconception with putting a nofollow tag to prevent this share of PR pie from being passed is only partially true! The fact is that yes, the PR is not passed to the recipient but also it is not conserved on the original web page either!! PageRank sculpting

The question is what happens to that Page Rank? Does it just evaporate? It cant because PR does not grow or shrink.. This is a real misnomer and probably deliberate from Google to help keep their secret sauce a mystery.

The point is, the OP is right, you shouldn't care about nofollow or dofollow just link and get links because that is what the web is all about and always will be. The rest is just noise..

[markowe]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

The simple way to understand it is to realise that there is only a certain amount of PR (Page Rank) in the world. Think of this as a big pie. This PR pie is spread between the billions of web pages that Google know about. If you have a webpage that already has a share of this PR pie, you can share a tiny proportion of that page's pie by giving a hyperlink to another webpage. The more pie that is shared from various web pages to this page the bigger the slice!

It's a pie now! I thought it was some kind of juice Future-Phobia: Google Pagerank leakage is actually link juice!

Mmmm, pie and juice...

[hearme]

I totally agree all it matters is a quality back link i have alot of back link which are no follow.

[InitialEffort]

Again look at the word social. Social is meant to drive traffic, not optimize you for Google. No follow links are fine for getting traffic, but they don't help you for Google.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

Again look at the word social. Social is meant to drive traffic, not optimize you for Google. No follow links are fine for getting traffic, but they don't help you for Google.

Yes they do.

[InitialEffort]

Do you have any proof? Do you have a case study that you have personally conducted?

Please make sure it's not one where they try to rank for a misspelling of a random, low/no competition keyword. Obviously you will come to the top just with a title tag.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

I agree largely with a lot of what has been said on here. Namely, natural backlinking is the goal and should contain a mixture of nofollow and dofollow (yes, it's not a tag)..

It is worth pointing out to the uninitiated though the reason why the nofollow tag exists in the first place and the truth behind it.

Nofollow was created as a tag recognised by Google to prevent Page Rank being passed via a hyperlink. The idea that you can vote for a webpage with a link and pass traffic but not valuable Page Rank or anchor text.

A quick point about Page Rank that everyone should realise is that the number system from 1 to 10 does not actually exist. Page Rank is actually a very complex equation.

The simple way to understand it is to realise that there is only a certain amount of PR (Page Rank) in the world. Think of this as a big pie. This PR pie is spread between the billions of web pages that Google know about. If you have a webpage that already has a share of this PR pie, you can share a tiny proportion of that page's pie by giving a hyperlink to another webpage. The more pie that is shared from various web pages to this page the bigger the slice!

The reason why it is important to know this is because this pie does not grow and does not shrink, it just gets shared proportionately between web pages. The common misconception with putting a nofollow tag to prevent this share of PR pie from being passed is only partially true! The fact is that yes, the PR is not passed to the recipient but also it is not conserved on the original web page either!! PageRank sculpting

The question is what happens to that Page Rank? Does it just evaporate? It cant because PR does not grow or shrink.. This is a real misnomer and probably deliberate from Google to help keep their secret sauce a mystery.

The point is, the OP is right, you shouldn't care about nofollow or dofollow just link and get links because that is what the web is all about and always will be. The rest is just noise..

Great post about PR. You're absolutely right, the PR does not get passed on the nofollow links. But PR also isn't as big as it once was in determining SERPs.

[paulgl]

Nofollow is not unnatural. In fact, the whole natural nonsense is just BS.

Why would I go out of my way to get 10 nofollows for 10 regular ones?
Makes no sense.

Google is not the only one to abide by nofollow, which is an error the OP made.

I do agree that the backlink mania is a bunch of bull also. Just because a link
is nofollow does not mean it is valuable. Google won't see but a fraction of
any links whether they have the nofollow or not.

I stopped worrying about getting backlinks for PR and SERPs and concentrated on
links that will drive me targeted traffic. This has helped me tremendously. Not
only are my visitors targeted, this has "magically" made the adsense ads more
targeted as well, upping my bottom line and CTR.

And those links are nofollow and non nofollow. I don't give a hoot.

BTW, technically, it's pagerank, not page rank. Well, PageRank, actually.

Paul

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by InitialEffort

Do you have any proof? Do you have a case study that you have personally conducted?

Please make sure it's not one where they try to rank for a misspelling of a random, low/no competition keyword. Obviously you will come to the top just with a title tag.

Nofollow Does Pass Anchor Text

SEO Experiment: Nofollow Links DO Pass Value & Rankings in Google | SocialSEO.com

[iAmNameLess]

Apparently a thread with this title doesn't stop the new ones popping up 5 times a day. lol.

[Mike Anthony]

This is one of the most worthless threads I have seen in this section for a long time. Anyone who has done any real link building knows that the natural vs unnatural in regard to followed links is nonsense for the sheer reason that if you do enough followed links a portion of them will be no followed anyway.

So in that scenario of 40-50,000 links its guaranteed that even out of those that you think are followed a portion fo them will become unfollowed

As for the SocialSEO study cited - Its total garbage as an experiment because it refuses as far as I saw to reveal the main data of the actual keywords that were used. They will only tell us the "type' of keywords not the real keywords themselves.

Without the keywords themselves we can't make any determination of the competition fo those keywords. Your site can move up in a weak competition field with ZERO BACKLINKS. Surprise backlinsk are not the only thing that can make your site move up in the search results.

for traffic sure in a social network,article, video. For forum and blog comments. Profiles will get almost no traffic and comments are mostly curiosity clicks when you do get them. Individual exceptions of course but generally holds true

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Google is not the only one to abide by nofollow, which is an error the OP made.

correct which is why this thread is so off its more misleading than enlightening

[Benguy]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Okay, since everyone asks this or mentions it at least 10 times a day, might as well have a place for them to come for the next day or so to find some answers.

First off, people suggest going for ONLY dofollow links. Well, this is not right. Something most people don't realize, dofollow, is not a tag, it is non existent. People confuse a regular page with a link, with the term dofollow. The term itself is just created by SEO'ers and people in internet marketing.

The tag nofollow, DOES exist unlike the fictional dofollow tag. What does this tag do? Well, it is a tag used only by google, so if you have a contact form, or a register link, you add a nofollow tag, to prevent points against you.

If you post on a site that has nofollow links, you STILL GET CREDIT FOR THOSE LINKS! With yahoo and bing paying absolutely no attention to the nofollow tag, why are you trying to be picky about back linking? The next major point is, Google likes things that are natural, right? WHAT IS NATURAL ABOUT 5,000 BACKLINKS OF WHICH NONE ARE NOFOLLOW? Not only does google still credit those links, it adds variety of your backlinking.

If you are getting 100,000 comments on blogs, and 0 profile links, 0 bookmarks, 0 articles, don't you think that looks suspicious?

So here is the VERDICT!

Wherever you can get a back link, get a back link. It doesn't matter if it is nofollow or not, get the back link. It DOES boost you up in the SERPs and it DOES get you traffic.

Nonsense, nofollow tags don't matter?

"The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results."

-Matt Cutts : PageRank sculpting

...er...but he's trying to trick us right?

Well I'm off now, gonna grab my sandals and granola, I've got some "natural" link building to do dude

[edricwage]

My theory to have a backlink counted in Google is PR2+ site an DoFollow. But, it is good to have a natural way in link building. 100% backlinks should be made of 60% dofollow and 40% nofollow links.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by Benguy

Nonsense, nofollow tags don't matter?

"The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results."

-Matt Cutts : PageRank sculpting

...er...but he's trying to trick us right?

Well I'm off now, gonna grab my sandals and granola, I've got some "natural" link building to do dude

Nice try with the "clever" response, but no, nofollow tags don't matter. I'm not talking about PR, I'm talking about overall results. People can argue with me all they want, I really don't care. Don't waste time with nofollow links then, I'll take the extra traffic

[charu.seo]

yes you are absolutely right.jst concentrate on creating backlinks...dnt care abt nofollow or dofollow...

[seattleseo]

If you're targeting Google, do a dofollow linking, but if your targeting Yahoo or Bing it doesn't matter if your linking with dofollow or nofollow sites.

[craigcdz]

it doesn't matter the link is do follow or no follow. because the no follow links are not worthless. but yes they can't generate the results like do follow does.

[nimmysnv]

Originally Posted by seattleseo

If you're targeting Google, do a dofollow linking, but if your targeting Yahoo or Bing it doesn't matter if your linking with dofollow or nofollow sites.

Yes, I am completely agree with you as, Google give preference to Do Follow links and not No Follow. No Follow links can be much better in terms of Yahoo/Bing. But our look out is more for Google and we give more preference to it.

[GeorgR.]

Google Rank = MOST traffic
NoFollow = No Google Rank
Ergo: NoFollow has no value for rankings

There might be something to it that mixing NF and normal links looks "more natural", but this happens automatically since if you do article submission etc. some will always be NF.

[The Blueprinter]

Finally someone that have created a thread about this BIG issue ! A big thanks to you.

[Steve Crooks]

With all due respect Mike, if this thread is worthless then I would hate to think what you think of all the other threads here at Warrior! In fact your point about natural vs unnatural is just confirming the point of this thread anyway.. You shouldn't care about whether a link is nofollow and just get on with it.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

This is one of the most worthless threads I have seen in this section for a long time. Anyone who has done any real link building knows that the natural vs unnatural in regard to followed links is nonsense for the sheer reason that if you do enough followed links a portion of them will be no followed anyway.

So in that scenario of 40-50,000 links its guaranteed that even out of those that you think are followed a portion fo them will become unfollowed

As for the SocialSEO study cited - Its total garbage as an experiment because it refuses as far as I saw to reveal the main data of the actual keywords that were used. They will only tell us the "type' of keywords not the real keywords themselves.

Without the keywords themselves we can't make any determination of the competition fo those keywords. Your site can move up in a weak competition field with ZERO BACKLINKS. Surprise backlinsk are not the only thing that can make your site move up in the search results.

for traffic sure in a social network,article, video. For forum and blog comments. Profiles will get almost no traffic and comments are mostly curiosity clicks when you do get them. Individual exceptions of course but generally holds true

[A P Geofrey]

Well I am not an expert with dofollow or nofollow what ever so I just do mt backlinks and I usually see the results so guess you are right and from the explanation it seems pretty clear that you are.

[khenmhike]

We are all focused on getting do follow links. This is just a reminder for us that every backlinks are worthy.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

With all due respect Mike, if this thread is worthless then I would hate to think what you think of all the other threads here at Warrior! In fact your point about natural vs unnatural is just confirming the point of this thread anyway.. You shouldn't care about whether a link is nofollow and just get on with it.

Wrong. You target followed links knowing some will fall off. There is no point in going after nofollow links because in essence they are already fallen off. By doing that you are only increasing the percentage of near worthless links. If thats your concept of confirming the point of this thread I don't know what kind of logic you are using but its faulty.

The fact that you will inevitably get some followed links that will go nofollow destroys the purpose of going after nofollowed links to look natural (if you buy into the totally unsubstantiated claim that google is monitoring links they don;t count in ANY part of their algo) because there is going to be a mix ANYWAY.

Thread is more worthless than others because it tries to backup the whole idea with misleading and faulty tests. A proof test that does not reveal its keywords to verify competitive level of the keywords is worthless. its a test that reveals none of it underlying data.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

. Don't waste time with nofollow links then, I'll take the extra traffic

Seeing as how most auto blog comment spammers don't do a good job in sorting out followed vs nofollowed everyone using them must be dripping with great search engine placement with the tens of thousands of nofollowed blogs there are.

Why is that not the case? That fact proves you are wrong. Not picking on you or your thread but people read these threads and end up wasting a lot of time and money. Doing Competition research is the cornerstone of my business and I have NEVER seen any site rank in a truly competitive niche on the strength of nofollowed backlinks. Top spots always have significant juice coming from followed links.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Seeing as how most auto blog comment spammers don't do a good job in sorting out followed vs nofollowed everyone using them must be dripping with great search engine placement with the tens of thousands of nofollowed blogs there are.

Why is that not the case? That fact proves you are wrong. Not picking on you or your thread but people read these threads and end up wasting a lot of time and money. Doing Competition research is the cornerstone of my business and I have NEVER seen any site rank in a truly competitive niche on the strength of nofollowed backlinks. Top spots always have significant juice coming from followed links.

I get 200 visits a day from one particular nofollow blog comment. The traffic and business I get alone is worth it. There are tens of thousands of people who aren't ranking because they're so worried about checking to see if a blog or whatever it is, is nofollow or not.

[theseoguys]

I'm starting to wish that the no-follow and do-follow tag was never invented...

[dark witness]

Originally Posted by carremovalperth

Thank you very much for explaining things about no follow and do follow in this detail, but the problem still exist that clients insist for more do follow,

very true which is why if possible we need to educate them. It won't always happen, some people are just stubborn, or choose to only believe what they want.

Still we try... I work for an online retailer. At one point our manager demanded nothing less then PR5 links from the link building company. I had to explain why it didn't make sense to only have pr5 links etc.

there can be a lot of confusion with this sort of stuff and so many people have so many different ideas on what works and what does not. plus a lot of the time they seem to not look at all the factors that could account for why they are/are not getting results.

[Steve Crooks]

Whoa there a second and backup a bit please.. I think you are being a bit disrespectful to both the OP and myself Mike. My logic is not faulty, my logic is spot on because it works for me.

My logic and the point of this thread is that I don't care about PR sculpting or chasing after links that are don't have the nofollow tag because it is a waste of energy. A link is a link is a link the rest is just noise! By discounting some links you are potentially cutting off some potential referral traffic and that is crazy!

Why stress over this.. The web was built on links and always will. Nofollow may mean something to Google and maybe some other search engines but they mean nothing to me because I am too busy creating great content and working on making that content go viral by whatever means I have at my disposal. The OP is right, it is not worth wasting time over nofollow.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Wrong. You target followed links knowing some will fall off. There is no point in going after nofollow links because in essence they are already fallen off. By doing that you are only increasing the percentage of near worthless links. If thats your concept of confirming the point of this thread I don't know what kind of logic you are using but its faulty.

The fact that you will inevitably get some followed links that will go nofollow destroys the purpose of going after nofollowed links to look natural (if you buy into the totally unsubstantiated claim that google is monitoring links they don;t count in ANY part of their algo) because there is going to be a mix ANYWAY.

Thread is more worthless than others because it tries to backup the whole idea with misleading and faulty tests. A proof test that does not reveal its keywords to verify competitive level of the keywords is worthless. its a test that reveals none of it underlying data.

[Steve Crooks]

Agreed, nofollow is a pointless tag.

Originally Posted by theseoguys

I'm starting to wish that the no-follow and do-follow tag was never invented...

[JasonB]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

If you post on a site that has nofollow links, you STILL GET CREDIT FOR THOSE LINKS!

nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results. <------- Straight from the horse's mouth.

So, if that's the case, why bother going after them?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Nice try with the "clever" response, but no, nofollow tags don't matter. I'm not talking about PR, I'm talking about overall results. People can argue with me all they want, I really don't care. Don't waste time with nofollow links then, I'll take the extra traffic

I agree,

That comment sums up the entire thread.

People get focused on high PR pages for the wrong reason (unless your selling links).

The only thing high PR is good for is Google is very active with those individual pages, If my link is on a nofollow high PR page, then they'll keep sending Google my way!

Don't use nofollow pages, leave them for me, less links on the pages the better. Thanks!

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by GuruCreation

nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results. <------- Straight from the horse's mouth.

So, if that's the case, why bother going after them?

Because it's a lie

Anyway, the point is, why waste time checking to see if it is nofollow anyway? If you believe nofollow won't benefit you at all, great, but why waste time checking to see when it only take a few seconds to post anyway and get some extra traffic?