NoFollow vs. Dofollow backlinks -- The Truth?

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Adam G. Katz

98% of links on the internet are nofollow. Why would Google NOT want their robots to follow 98% of links?? Why would they NOT gather popularity/authority information from 98% of links on the internet.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Wrong section. However the answer is pretty easy. the 90 percent plus backlinks you talk about are not necessary to the index. Very rarely will you find any site without at least one followed link and in content backlinks (which google is most concerned about) is nowhere hear 99 percent no followed. You don't need hundreds of trillions of backlinks to find great content for a search term you can do just find with billions especially since you never display more than a few hundred at a time and no one really goes past page two.

Its no head fake. the nofllow tags usefulness was proven when webmasters used to use nofollow tags to sculpt pagerank to certain pages and away from others. Its a practice no longer useful but it did prove that the tag worked.

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cashcow

14 years ago

You might be interested in this case study on nofollow links:

Can NoFollow Links Hurt You? | Fast Blog Finder

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4morereferrals

14 years ago

Originally Posted by cashcow

You might be interested in this case study on nofollow links:

Can NoFollow Links Hurt You? | Fast Blog Finder

Interesting "test" - but a failure none the less.

The guy found 20 NoFollow blog sites and linked the keywords "wesite submissions" to a url. www.blah.c0m - waited 7 days and said - looky here - nothing no change nada. These links are worthless.

Then - he comes back and uses the same keywords and same URL/Site and links on 17 DoFollow blogs. Waits 2 weeks and comes back and says - viola! Now Im on page one for everything. DoFollow works - noFollow doesnt.

You cant do that and call it a test - its flawed.

Im not saying i disagree with the conclusion - but the test used to determine the conclusion negates its viability.

The 2nd set of results was contaminated by linkbuilding done in the 1st set of results.

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Tom Goodwin

14 years ago

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

The guy found 20 NoFollow blog sites and linked the keywords "wesite submissions" to a url. www.blah.c0m - waited 7 days and said - looky here - nothing no change nada. These links are worthless.

Then - he comes back and uses the same keywords and same URL/Site and links on 17 DoFollow blogs. Waits 2 weeks and comes back and says - viola! Now Im on page one for everything. DoFollow works - noFollow doesnt.

Another reason why the educational system here in the U.S. has failed

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4morereferrals 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin

Another reason why the educational system here in the U.S. has failed

LOL .. me or the guy doing the tests Tom ?

"we dont need no edu-mikashun!"
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- Tom Goodwin 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by 4morereferrals
  
  LOL .. me or the guy doing the tests Tom ?
  
  "we dont need no edu-mikashun!"
  
  The guy doing the tests of course ...and i just assumed the tester was an American. If not, I apologize to whatever his country of origin is:rolleyes:
  
  I can't believe anyone in their right mind would think that test would show anything.
  
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  Adam G. Katz 14 years ago
  
  Also-- when I searched, it's only still ranked if you do the search with quotes. But without quotes, you can't find the site.
  
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Groovystar

14 years ago

I find it hard to believe that 98% of links are nofollow. Since I started checking, i see regular, tag-free links all the time.

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Adam G. Katz 14 years ago

Not hard to believe, at all.

Wordpress blogs are all, by default, nofollow. When I check the dofollow directories, I'd say that probably half are nofollow, even though they are listed as "dofollow".
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GeorgR.

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Groovystar

I find it hard to believe that 98% of links are nofollow. Since I started checking, i see regular, tag-free links all the time.

They are. And no one ever stated that getting a nice DOFOLLOW PR5+, let alone PR6, PR7++ link which is not spammed is EASY. Its tedious and really hard to find such links.

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jazbo

14 years ago

Nonsense. Around 10% are.

How do I know?

From harvesting over 1,000,000 URls for a variety of reasons, and then running them through a mass "nofollow" checker. No way on earth is the figure higher than around 10% - and I was investigating CMS and forum software that are more likely to have default nofollow....

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

They are. And no one ever stated that getting a nice DOFOLLOW PR5+, let alone PR6, PR7++ link which is not spammed is EASY. Its tedious and really hard to find such links.

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RR111 14 years ago

I dont think so.. if search engines not bot the nofollow links how can we get the links when we search for our site backlinks.. the search engines will be crawl all links/sites.. they don't consider that link nofollow or dofollow...
So getting back links is important to website...

For More Info: birminghamseouk.co.uk
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GeorgR.

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jazbo

Nonsense. Around 10% are.

How do I know?

From harvesting over 1,000,000 URls for a variety of reasons, and then running them through a mass "nofollow" checker. No way on earth is the figure higher than around 10% - and I was investigating CMS and forum software that are more likely to have default nofollow....

I am talking about OBTAINABLE links, where i/you can place links.

Of course the majority of links "on the web" are "follow", the majority also might be INTERNAL links. Talking about EXTERNAL links to other sites where a 3rd party has a way to place them, eg. blog comments.

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JackPowers

14 years ago

Depends on if you believe Matt Cutts or not.

Most links are not No-Follow either. It's just the easy, spammable links that are.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

98% of links on the internet are nofollow.

Where did you get this number from?

Wordpress blogs are all, by default, nofollow.

Only the comments. Blogrolls and content links are NOT nofollow.

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Adam G. Katz

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jasonmorgan

Where did you get this number from?

Only the comments. Blogrolls and content links are NOT nofollow.

Really? I'm not seeing this.

Are you using the nofollow plugin for Firefox?

When you look at:
SurvivalBlog.com

... all of the links in the left hand column are showing as nofollow in the FF plug in. Same for you?

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Adam G. Katz 14 years ago

Okay-- I'm glad I started this post. LOL.

Apparently, I've been misusing the Nofollow 1.1 Firefox plugin, all this time. I was under the impression that the blue links were nofollow and the pink links were dofollow?

Now I'm reading on some of the sites about this plugin that the blue links are dofollow?

To compound my confusion, I had purchased a piece of software that scans google and yahoo looking for dofollow blogs. When the software didn't return any results for the niches I was researching, I contacted the developer who told me that it was because 98% of sites are nofollow.

Can anybody else please confirm that I'm understanding the 1.1 FF plugin correctly? Blue is "dofollow" ?

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paulgl

14 years ago

You are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Why should a site be listed in the SERPs first, just
because they posted a whole bunch of links?

Nofollow cuts that down. Way down.

Who knows what google really looks at? But the premise
is to not give a boost to spammed links.

Many of here don't really count total backlinks. We count
backlinks that count. My sites win out on just a handful
of high quality, not nofollow backlinks.

People are always wanting to disbelieve google. Why, I
have no idea. It called SEO by feelings.

I don't care what google says, I feel...........
I don't care what google says, I feel...........
I don't care what google says, I feel...........

Paul

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Adam G. Katz

14 years ago

I'm really confused, now.

I've got the semiologic plugin:

Do Follow
Removes the evil nofollow attribute that WordPress adds in comments.

Deactivate | Edit
Version 4.0 | By Denis de Bernardy | Visit plugin site

... on this site:
RecessionAnxiety.com | Survival Strategies For Hacking The Recession

Yet, all of the links are appearing pink in my Firefox plugin??? Anybody else seeing this?

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Adam G. Katz 14 years ago

Which addon are you using, Jason?
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Tom Goodwin

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Adam G. Katz

I'm really confused, now.

I've got the semiologic plugin:

Do Follow
Removes the evil nofollow attribute that WordPress adds in comments.

Deactivate | Edit
Version 4.0 | By Denis de Bernardy | Visit plugin site

... on this site:
RecessionAnxiety.com | Survival Strategies For Hacking The Recession

Yet, all of the links are appearing pink in my Firefox plugin??? Anybody else seeing this?

pink vs. blue...seems all too confusing to me.

I just use the SEO Quake firefox plugin and it puts a nifty strike-through no-follow links.

Tom

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Adam G. Katz 14 years ago

Hi, Tom:

I just downloaded that plug in. Where is the option to show the nofollow?

[edit: Nevermind. Found it. You need to show toolbar.]

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- Tom Goodwin 14 years ago
  
  I just click on the cute little SEO Quake icon in the lower right of the browser and scroll up to the "Line through no-follow and no-index" item :-)
  
  Originally Posted by Adam G. Katz
  
  Hi, Tom:
  
  I just downloaded that plug in. Where is the option to show the nofollow?
  
  [edit: Nevermind. Found it. You need to show toolbar.]
  
  Thanks.
  
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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

*edit* I see this was resolved

Actually, my nofollow tool didn't show any nofollow links and I took a look at the source code and I couldn't find any nofollow tags.

I'm tellin' ya, the only thing with wordpress that comes nofollow out of the box are comments. I'm not even 100% sure about those since I strip the comment code out of all of my themes.

Free wordpress hosting may be different.

Yes, there may be wordpress themes that are uber-nofollow themes.

Yes, there are plugins that will make links on a site nofollow.

All I run are wordpress sites and they are all (do)follow backlinks.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

Can anybody else please confirm that I'm understanding the 1.1 FF plugin correctly? Blue is "dofollow" ?

I'm using a different nofollow addon but that sounds about right. Most of them will highlight the nofollow links with pink or red and generally leave (do)follow links alone.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

Can anybody else please confirm that I'm understanding the 1.1 FF plugin correctly? Blue is "dofollow" ?

I'm using a different nofollow addon but that sounds about right. Most of them will highlight the nofollow links with pink or red and generally leave (do)follow links alone.

Test it out on this forum. Your name should be nofollow and your sig links are (do)follow.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

... on this site:
RecessionAnxiety.com | Survival Strategies For Hacking The Recession

Yet, all of the links are appearing pink in my Firefox plugin??? Anybody else seeing this?

index page is (do)follow, individual post pages are nofollow

I think you are seeing everything correctly. Your comment link is unfortunately nofollow

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Tom Goodwin

14 years ago

My opinion-

Nofollow links likely pass no link juice, although I am not 100% sure. Call me an agnostic if you will. Matt Cutts could post a video tomorrow saying that if you jump off a 100 story building and you will live, and everyone on this forum will start jumping off the Empire State Building

Originally Posted by Adam G. Katz

I've been thinking about this for quite awhile, now. Please feel free to contribute your own thoughts, as this post is intended as an open brainstorm:

I think the dofollow/nofollow backlink issue is just a head-fake by Google, although I have not personally collected enough data to prove one way or another.

But I do know that:

98% of links on the internet are nofollow. Why would Google NOT want their robots to follow 98% of links?? Why would they NOT gather popularity/authority information from 98% of links on the internet.

Doesn't make sense to me.

My contention is that they manufactured the "nofollow" issue as a head-fake, to stop all of the comment spammers, but the reality of their view of backlinks is (most likely) quite different.

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Fraggler

14 years ago

Right Click and go to View Source...look at the hyperlink and see which has the rel="nofollow" tag in it.

I use the "SEO For Firefox" plugin to check for nofollow. SEOQuake needs a reload to draw the line. I turn it on than off for a quick check.

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JackPowers

14 years ago

Search Status plugin also shows no-follow and is otherwise awesome.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

The reason behind why Google idoesn't index those nofollow links is i guess that it will be very difficult to find the accuarte pages out of all of those. and Google will loose its accuracy for which it is so populat and the search resulst generated by Google will be confusing. That is what i believe why Google is not indexing the nofollow pages in its searches.

WTF?

The reason google doesn't follow or give credit for nofollow links is because google created the rel="nofollow" tag

There is nothing secret or confusing about it. They created it for the exact reason it is used, to not follow and ignore links.

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robert25

14 years ago

You have to go to basics, link is a vote and every vote counts. I personally believe, No-Follow niche specific links do give a positive results as far as ranking is concern.

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BacklinkBadass

14 years ago

I'm in the business of providing Backlink To My Clients.

And Build 1000's of backlinks per month for 100's of clients.

I'll tell you this, getting backlinks that are no follow do matter.
Especially when it starts to be a numbers game.

think of it this way if you have more no follow backlinks then your competition,
who will get the higher rankings?

YOU

althought my service is a mixture of both,
we do get do follow and no follow backlinks.

another great example is yahoo answers,
they are no follow links but weight very very heavily with google.

Hope that helps
Good luck
and send me a pm if you think
building backlinks is mindless,boring,tedious monkey work.
and that you shouldnt be building them any more.

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paulgl 14 years ago

Of course the nofollow links matter.
The question is, for what?

They matter for a little publicity and trickle traffic.

They don't pass PR. That's all they don't do.

Too many people think nofollow is some nefarious tag.
It's not.

If you care about PR and think PR is the end all, then
nofollow is meaningless.

Paul
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Groovystar

14 years ago

Yeah nobody wants to use a search engine whose first results are all useless spam pages full of poorly written and/or plagiarised content. They want quality websites. I know I do. But Google really created a monster--not by installing nofollow, but by giving backlinks so much weight.

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Orkhan Ibad

14 years ago

There have been some experiments about this and some experts could get ranking just using no followw links which proves they give value to your SERPs.

I personally tested no-follow, too and ironically they work.

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jason_simpson

14 years ago

A Nofollow link is meant to reduce the indexing and spam that comes across in search results.

Google for example, states that the no follow link is taken literally and the link will not be followed at all but in information done for seo purposes it shows some conflict to this. Yahoo will follow the link but doesn’t include it in any of its ranking calculations, while MSN Search treats the no follow link as not counting it or following it.

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balamasti

14 years ago

Google do ignore no follow links. They use this attribute not only to prevent spammers but also to avoid unnecessary links. I don't think they are doing differently from what they have claimed.

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website-design-seo

14 years ago

nofollow links is good to attract traffic but google ignore nofollow links.

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jasonmorgan

14 years ago

Too many people think nofollow is some nefarious tag.
It's not.

you mean rel="nefarious", and don't forget rel="devious" and rel="mischievous" and my favorite, rel="bootylicious", it always draws in traffic.

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jazbo

14 years ago

Around 10% of links on the net are nofollow. Without opening up the "value" debate again, all I can say is I have tested quite a lot with this, and nofollow does add weight to the contextual relevance of the target page in my experience. They do build relevance through anchor text and the page content the links appear on from my own testing - ie they are followed and taken into account for relevance purposes.

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Mike Anthony

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jazbo

Around 10% of links on the net are nofollow. Without opening up the "value" debate again, all I can say is I have tested quite a lot with this, and nofollow does add weight to the contextual relevance of the target page in my experience. They do build relevance through anchor text and the page content the links appear on from my own testing - ie they are followed and taken into account for relevance purposes.

Jazbo You said they were useful four months ago. Asked for some proof and- crickets chriped. From what I can tell at least two studies have been presented when these debates come up that indicate that no follow doesn't work for Serps. on the other side ZILCH. but it hardly matters.

The reality of the matter is that the nofollow tag working just as Google says it does has been confirmed over and over again in past practices such as sculpting.

Those of you arguing that point are just leading the newbie on a merry dance. HOwever it doesn't even matter nowadays. The new Warrior rules indicate that even conversations about backlinking can be deleted. If you are talking about white hat backlinks who would even bother with nofollow?

Are you ging to write an article in order to get nofollow links? (for serps I mean not traffic)
Are you going to do a press release in order to get No follow links?
Are you going to ask a webmaster to give you a nofollow link?

Be my guest. Royal waste of time. So really this is about no follow from sites that we aren't allowed to talk about anymore or promote in any manner.

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seoforu

14 years ago

No follow links do not pass any value or reputation(any pr value) to the site which has no follow tag and no quality backlinks gets counted but google would surely follow those without passing any pr.

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Mike Anthony

14 years ago

Originally Posted by seoforu

No follow links do not pass any value or reputation(any pr value) to the site which has no follow tag and no quality backlinks gets counted but google would surely follow those without passing any pr.

True they are crawled but no PR or anchor text weight is given to it so given that getting indexed is pretty easy with other links that are followed they are worthless for that use in Google (and Yahoo and BIng will get there as well since they have said they are committed to the same tag).

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Brankas

14 years ago

Link is link no matter where it from!! Matt Cutts

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NoFollow vs. Dofollow backlinks -- The Truth?

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