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Do follow and no Follow links - confusion

by Graham Maddison
19 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Please bare with me, I am getting old and have forgotten a lot of what I have learned about do follow and no follow links.

Simple question really, as an affiliate marketer with an abundance of affiliate links on various websites etc., should I be setting these to no follow from an seo point of view?

What is the benefit of a "Do Follow" link versus a "No Follow" link?

thanks for your input.

Graham
#confusion #follow #links
  • Profile picture of the author Enuke
    Google gives the weight to the do follow link ,but not no follow. Do follow link are far better for us because Google allows these links as back links but not in no follow case.now a days do follow and no follow links are better as google says.
    I know only this because i am a new in this field . Correct me pelease
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  • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
    Do-Follow and No-Follow links are different now a days. Awhile ago, no one even attempted to get no-follow links as a source for SEO, but now things are changing. A no-follow link does have some weight on your rankings. Google does in fact "follow" the nofollow backlink, however it doesn't index the page it links to.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      Do-Follow and No-Follow links are different now a days. Awhile ago, no one even attempted to get no-follow links as a source for SEO, but now things are changing. A no-follow link does have some weight on your rankings. Google does in fact "follow" the nofollow backlink, however it doesn't index the page it links to.

      Don't listen to this. It is completely wrong.

      There is no SEO that is actively seeking out nofollow links.

      Google has always "followed" nofollow links. They have always indexed the pages the nofollow link leads to as well, and they still do.

      nofollow simply means you do not want to pass on any anchor text relevance or PageRank through the link. They are most commonly used for paid links. If someone buys a banner ad on your website, you should make the link to them nofollow. That is what Google prefers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      A no-follow link does have some weight on your rankings. Google does in fact "follow" the nofollow backlink, however it doesn't index the page it links to.
      Thats pretty much the opposite to what no-follow means.

      No trust is passed, No citation is passed, The link is dropped from Googles link graph instantly, But most importantly, no ranking juice is given.

      As for the OPs question. It might have been misunderstood by others. The way I readit was "should you make your Affiliate links do-follow". I would say absolutely not. As this would be passing on trust, citation and juice to the site you are trying to sell products for.

      By using Do-follow you will most likely end up helping them outrank your own pages in SERPs. Just makes no sense to give them any juice at all. So No-follow affiliate links without question, every time.

      A confusion between crawling and indexing. Indexing and page juice flow. Juice flow and crawling.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nittish Sharma
    Do-follow links are crawled by Search Engine whereas No-follow links are not crawled by Search Engine. Nowadays, You have to maintain a equal balance of Do-follow and No-follow links after the Google Penguin update.
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    • Profile picture of the author kindarthur
      Yes! I agree, You have said right thing about the search engine, but i didn't think we have to maintain the equal balance for the "do follow" as well as "no follow". The only thing we have to understand is where we have to use "do follow" & "no follow" in our blog.

      Originally Posted by Nittish Sharma View Post

      Do-follow links are crawled by Search Engine whereas No-follow links are not crawled by Search Engine. Nowadays, You have to maintain a equal balance of Do-follow and No-follow links after the Google Penguin update.
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  • Profile picture of the author BonganiS
    With "Do follow" it means search engines can crawl through and help in the ranking of your webpage, but with the other, it means search engines do not follow or crawl through. So it does not add to the ranking of your page.
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  • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
    nofollow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but it does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).[9][10]
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      Yeah that's pretty much exactly what I told you. Its a mix up between crawling and entering the link graph (links that pass PR).

      Its like, they will open the door and take a look at whats inside. But wont go in unless they've been there before.
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      • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
        Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

        Yeah that's pretty much exactly what I told you. Its a mix up between crawling and entering the link graph (links that pass PR).

        Its like, they will open the door and take a look at whats inside. But wont go in unless they've been there before.
        LOL, that's what I initially said:

        Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

        Do-Follow and No-Follow links are different now a days. Awhile ago, no one even attempted to get no-follow links as a source for SEO, but now things are changing. A no-follow link does have some weight on your rankings. Google does in fact "follow" the nofollow backlink, however it doesn't index the page it links to.
        Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but it does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).[9][10]
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Since OP is asking about affiliate links, it all depends on where the link on his own page is pointing.

    I have affiliate links that I don't nofollow but those links are pointing to SSL affiliate checkout pages that's also noindexed. The SSL & the noindex on the affiliate checkout page pretty much cancels out all SEO value of any link I have on my site pointing at those checkout pages.

    I could nofollow those SSL links but I don't care enough to do it, still ranking those pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Since OP is asking about affiliate links, it all depends on where the link on his own page is pointing.

      I have affiliate links that I don't nofollow but those links are pointing to SSL affiliate checkout pages that's also noindexed. The SSL & the noindex on the affiliate checkout page pretty much cancels out all SEO value of any link I have on my site pointing at those checkout pages.

      I could nofollow those SSL links but I don't care enough to do it, still ranking those pages.
      Sharper then me..to point that out..but I still just pwned you a minute a go...you go sleepy now..tomorrow new day..
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

        Sharper then me..to point that out..but I still just pwned you a minute a go...you go sleepy now..tomorrow new day..




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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but it does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).[9][10]
      That's from 2006. In SEO terms, that is ancient, ancient data.

      Google definitely indexes pages linked to through nofollow. That is how people get things indexed so fast with Twitter.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Mike, google now has changed nofollow into not indexing a site
        soley based on a nofollow link. They will not index a page from
        a nofollow link.

        Nofollow had to morph, because people are still spamming, and
        thought adding nofollow was somehow safe.

        Two major changes to nofollow. One, as stated above, will
        not index a page via nofollow. The second one was that
        putting nofollow on a link will NOT keep google from splitting
        PR among all links. That is, if you have 10 outbound links on
        a page, 5 nofollow, 5 without it, google will split the PR 10
        ways, but only pass it on to the 5 IF THEY CHOOSE TO.

        Idiots thought they could just cram links on a page, put nofollow,
        and sit back and relax.

        Google is under no obligation to count a link without a nofollow.
        There is no such thing as dofollow, do-follow, please-follow, or
        whatever.

        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

          Mike, google now has changed nofollow into not indexing a site
          soley based on a nofollow link. They will not index a page from
          a nofollow link.

          Nofollow had to morph, because people are still spamming, and
          thought adding nofollow was somehow safe.

          Two major changes to nofollow. One, as stated above, will
          not index a page via nofollow. The second one was that
          putting nofollow on a link will NOT keep google from splitting
          PR among all links. That is, if you have 10 outbound links on
          a page, 5 nofollow, 5 without it, google will split the PR 10
          ways, but only pass it on to the 5 IF THEY CHOOSE TO.

          Idiots thought they could just cram links on a page, put nofollow,
          and sit back and relax.

          Google is under no obligation to count a link without a nofollow.
          There is no such thing as dofollow, do-follow, please-follow, or
          whatever.

          Paul
          I know about the black hole of PR with nofollow. They had to make that change because of PR sculpting. That was like 4-5 years ago now that they made that change. However, they absolutely will index pages through a nofollow link. They do it all the time. Twitter, Facebook, etc.
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          • Profile picture of the author paulgl
            No, google will no longer index a page from a nofollow link.
            They can get it elsewhere, but if they will not now index a
            page based soley on a nofollow link. They have other ways
            of indexing, not only from links.

            Paul
            Signature

            If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        That's from 2006. In SEO terms, that is ancient, ancient data.

        Google definitely indexes pages linked to through nofollow. That is how people get things indexed so fast with Twitter.
        Actually? wtf your right...I've been indexing shit by social for a dogs age without realizing.

        I go sleepy now...tomorrow new day...
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I haven't put much effort into nofollow tags but I don't see how Googlebot couldn't help but notice a new URL that they haven't previously found while looking at a nofollowed link. They have to actually look at the HTML/URL in order to see the nofollow tag on the link.

    Really I don't see how anyone could test Googlebot to see If they index a page via a nofollowed link, how do you know If Google followed the link to index the page or followed some other link you didn't know existed. Even a new site can have backdoor links that are pretty much hidden (xml files, etc...).

    You could possibly test If Googlebot followed a nofollow link by adding a hashtag to the end of the URL & keeping an eye on the server logs for Googlebot entering the site via the hashtag link.

    Example: hxxp://mydomain.com/some-internal-page#googlebot1

    While watching the server log If you see Google enter your site via the baited link you would know If they actually follow nofollowed links.

    Maybe someone has already tested this? It's midnight, I'm too tired to test anything tonight, lol.
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