Do follow and No follow

[maxlazermarketing]

I’ve come across this dofollow and nofollow topic quite several times in many forums and I’ve replied to them as per my knowledge. What I know is secondary, but I want to know clearly about the topic and how far they would impact in popularizing the website.

[freddie_fireman]

Links marked "nofollow" don't contribute to the rank of the linked page (in the eyes of some search engines such as Google and Yahoo). Links not marked "nofollow" are known colloquially as dofollow.

You can read more here ...

nofollow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[dburk]

Originally Posted by freddie_fireman

Links marked "nofollow" don't contribute to the rank of the linked page (in the eyes of some search engines such as Google and Yahoo). Links not marked "nofollow" are known colloquially as dofollow.

The nofollow attribute is used to prevent the influence of PageRank, not rank, on links that cannot be trusted. PageRank is no longer a significant factor in SERPs.

You would be wise to consider the true value of a link and disregard PR and nofollow/dofollow attributes. Targeted traffic is good no matter whether it comes from a "nofollow" link or not.

[sauravverma]

Do follow link is considered as a vote for the linked page and is considered by search engines while ranking the web page. However it is imperative to understand that not all votes/links are equal. A vote/link from an authoritative website will be valued more than a link/vote from a newly established website.

On the other hand, no follow links are not considered by search engines for rankings. Its like you have abstained from voting for the linked page. Webmaster usually do it when they are not sure about the web page they are linking too. Also no follow attribute is used in page rank sculpting. I still believe that Page Rank (not tool bar page rank) is included in the ranking algorithm.

[askloz]

nofollow now doesn't index the pages in google, before they did, now they don't. Unless you point links to it.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by sauravverma

I still believe that Page Rank (not tool bar page rank) is included in the ranking algorithm.

Hi sauravverma,

Yes, I agree it is still used in the ranking algorithm, but my tests have shown it carries very little weight, It has been deemphasized due to prolific spamdexing. Google uses many other factors that clearly have much more influence than PageRank.

The only practical use it has these days is if you are trying to swindle some unsuspecting purchaser of links/websites. However, targeted traffic from highly relevant backlinks is of great value, regardless of whether it comes from a "nofollow" link or not.

[xboss182]

i always cross some services dat offering dofollow comment on some site.so they offering to make comment on sites that make their url popular on search engine.is that true?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by xboss182

i always cross some services dat offering dofollow comment on some site.so they offering to make comment on sites that make their url popular on search engine.is that true?

Hi xboss182,

Generally, folks that are seeking nothing but dofollow backlinks are attempting to artificially manipulate PageRank. PageRank is a metric Google uses to determine "link popularity".

Its an important distinction to realize that "link popularity" is not the same thing as making your "url popular on search engine". Your web pages can have above average PageRank, while having very little traffic and poor search engine rankings for the keywords that are important.

Most folks that hire out these services labor under the mistaken notion that PageRank manipulation will bring targeted traffic via the search engines. There are very good reasons to build high quality links to your website, but PR manipulation is a rookie mistake in my opinion.

[wboster]

Great answers everybody. You obviously want dofollow links to pass on some pagerank to your site for Google's sake. Better PR often means better ranking in google, or at least they give more credibility to your site. You definitely want that.

But, in my experience nofollow links can produce some great results in terms of traffic and sales. I have a site that I haven't touch in over a year earning $100/month from basically zero search engine traffic. It's all coming from yahoo answers that I posted well over a year ago, and those links are nofollow.

It just really depends on your goals. I go for both.

[Jon Alexander]

Originally Posted by dburk

PageRank is no longer a significant factor in SERPs.

perhaps you'd like to justify that statement.

[MarQueteer]

Originally Posted by Jon Alexander

perhaps you'd like to justify that statement.

Pagerank always only was a side effect of incoming links that made sites rank, so it's no more than an indicator. Most sites ranking well for competitive terms have a good PR, since they have loads of incoming links, but that doesn't mean buying a a single PR6 link and getting PR5 this way gets you anywhere.

Link power and pagerank are two totally different things, often mixed up because strong sites tend to have a high PR, but the backward conclusion, high PR means better ranking, is and always was wrong.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Jon Alexander

perhaps you'd like to justify that statement.

Hi Jon,

There are countless examples of web pages that rank number one for search results with little or no PageRank. This simply illustrates that in Google's index, relevance is far more important than PageRank.

So, I enter into evidence, exhibit A: Google's SERPs.

At no time in the recent past have I seen search results that have shown a less than relevant page out rank a more relevant page that could be explained simply by PR. Again I'd like to direct the jury's attention to exhibit A for supporting evidence.

Prosecutor Alexander, you may cross examine the witness!

[Liquidgraph]

I have a theory that NoFollow links are still counted towards one's ranking, although not counted towards one's PR. I've noticed that Google indexed NoFollow links to my site. In webmaster tools, I see a bunch of NoFollow external links, and I bet it helps my ranking, albiet less so than DoFollow.

In my experience, the most important factors are:

1. Unique content
2. Title and Meta Description
3. # of relevant backlinks with exact match for keyphrase
4. Domain that's exact match for keyphrase (.com and .net is best)
5. Number of unique pages (100+ is very good)
6. PageRank

Those 6 factors account for 95% of your ranking in my experience. Everything else is 5%. Of course, although not part of the Google algorithm, the number of competitors for a keyphrase is HUGE factor, which skews results. That's because competitors = need for a lot more backlinks (#3). So, for highly competitive keywords, #3 becomes the most important factor, although everything else has to be in place as well.

[ahefner33]

I really don't know much about the rules with "no follow" and "do follow", but I have some sites that I work with that are indexed within Google and the site that has my my link and mainly every single backlink to that site (mine) are "No Follow". The PR is decent, and the only true "Do follow" links to them are a couple of article directories. So I do not know to what extent how much weight they carry, but this is what I have come across.

Adam

[butternyk]

do follow --carry weightage in term of pr but no follow also help u get traffic if not pr juice.