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Backlink question about PR and No-follow

by AllanWard
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'd like to understand more about getting quality backlinks to my site. Here's my line of thinking so far.

I can get backlinks for two purposes -
  1. To get more traffic to my site i.e. someone reads my EZA and clicks through to my site, and
  2. To help increase my page rank.
I want to learn more about option 2. When I use Market Samurai to look at other pages, I can see the number of links they have, both to their domain, and to the relevant page that's ranking for the search phrase I'm researching.

I know that backlinks can be follow or no-follow. I also read that it's preferable to get backlinks from sites that have a high PR.

What I want to learn more about are your opinions on the following:
  • How important are backlinks when Google determines the PR of my site?
  • How important is the follow / no-follow factor?
  • Is a no-follow backlink from a high PR site worthless?
  • How important is anchor text? Is it more important for backlinking from low PR sites?
  • What other factors contribute to increasing my page rank?
Thanks in advance for your help.
#backlink #nofollow #question
  • Profile picture of the author Shaunman
    How important are backlinks when Google determines the PR of my site?
    PR is basically the measure of the number and quality of the backlinks pointing to your site. It is the only factor considered.

    Note: PR doesn't mean higher traffic or higher rankings, just that you have sites linking to you.

    How important is the follow / no-follow factor?
    Nofollow doesn't count

    Is a no-follow backlink from a high PR site worthless?
    Yes it doesn't count

    How important is anchor text? Is it more important for backlinking from low PR sites?
    Anchor text isn't better/worse for your PR, but it will help you rank higher for that keyword. In short it tells Google what your site is about.

    It is probably more important then PR as far as ranking for that specific phrase goes.

    What other factors contribute to increasing my page rank?
    Number of and quality of backlinks you get.
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    • Profile picture of the author AllanWard
      Thanks Shaunman,

      From reading your answer, you're saying the no-follow links won't count towards PR, but obviously they can be helpful to drive traffic to my site.

      So, all things being equal, a site with 20 do-follow backlinks from PR 2 sites should gain a higher PR than if it has 20 no-follow backlinks from PR 4 sites?

      The no-follow backlinks are worthless, but still show up in Google and Yahoo's figures for the number of backlinks to a site?
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      • Profile picture of the author Shaunman
        So, all things being equal, a site with 20 do-follow backlinks from PR 2 sites should gain a higher PR than if it has 20 no-follow backlinks from PR 4 sites?
        Correct 20 dofollow links from PR 2 sites will boost your site's PR. 20 nofollow links from PR 4 sites will be ignored.

        The no-follow backlinks are worthless, but still show up in Google and Yahoo's figures for the number of backlinks to a site?
        apparently
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    • Profile picture of the author AllanWard
      Originally Posted by Shaunman View Post

      Anchor text isn't better/worse for your PR, but it will help you rank higher for that keyword. In short it tells Google what your site is about.

      It is probably more important then PR as far as ranking for that specific phrase goes.
      So is the value of anchor text influenced by both do-follow and no-follow links? Will good anchor text from a no-follow link help me rank better for that keyword, or does Google only consider anchor text from do-follow links?

      Thanks for answering my questions so far.
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by AllanWard View Post

        So is the value of anchor text influenced by both do-follow and no-follow links? Will good anchor text from a no-follow link help me rank better for that keyword, or does Google only consider anchor text from do-follow links?

        Thanks for answering my questions so far.
        Hi Allan,

        Shaunman's advice was spot on.

        No follow links do not pass PR nor anchortext value. They are only good for direct link traffic, nothing else.
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        * Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management |
        *         Don Burk Advertising & Marketing - www.donburk.com

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        • Profile picture of the author AllanWard
          Thanks folks, you've all helped me understand this better. My thoughts are:

          When I'm evaluating my competition I need to pay more attention to their do-follow links and the anchor text from those links.

          For my backlinks, I need to find high PR pages that are do-follow, and I need to pay attention to my anchor text on those pages. I'll still generate more no-follow links through blog commenting etc, but I don't have to worry about anchor text for those (although it will still be useful to encourage people to click through).

          One more question. I asked a few weeks ago about the difference between using the www version of my domain in backlinks v's the non-www version. General view was pick one or the other and set up a redirect in htaccess. How does this affect my existing backlinks? Say I elect to use the non-www version of my site, but I have existing backlinks to the www version (from do-follow links). Do Google and Yahoo look at the redirect and take this into account, or do they still see the backlinks as pointing to the www version?
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    If you never get any nofollow back links, how natural do you think that would be? In my mind, that would not be too natural. Natural will always look more better to Google, as far as I have learned. Matt Cutts has stated that Google does not pay a whole lot of attention to the nofollow tag. You can Google that if you want more information. matt cutts on nofollow - Google Search

    It is always better to get higher PR back links if you can.

    Anchor text is what you want that link to get you the juice for. So if a searcher go to Google to do a search, they put in the keyword and what comes up are the results. If you have got enough links for that keyword 'with that anchor text' then you will end up in the SERP for that keyword.

    The higher the PR the better, but when all else fails, lower PR is better than no links at all.
    Signature

    Tim Pears

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