SEO: Those Nasty nofollow Links
February 11th, 2010 by Jon
Any site owner with SEO on their mind will be looking for quality inbound links. Usually, this means that finding a high-ranking site that is willing to give you a link is a cause for celebration. Many site owners celebrate after discovering how easy it is to post inbound links on sites like Facebook and Wikipedia, but that celebration comes too soon. They swiftly discover that these big social media sites have branded every single link a ‘nofollow.’
Nofollow is the word you do not want to hear when generating inbound links. It means that your hard work is not going to have a direct effect on your PageRank. Finding out that a potentially valuable site has branded all links ‘nofollow’ is a bit of a blow, but it doesn’t have to mean that the site is no longer of any use.
How does nofollow work?
‘Nofollow’ is an attribute written into a site’s code to inform the search engines not to follow the link the tag is applied to. For the bigger sites, this attribute has been applied across the board. Normally, when a search engine spider encounters a link, it would crawl along and make note of the kind of site it leads to. The nofollow attribute basically tells the search engine spider not to bother, and the link essentially disappears for the search engines.
It’s important to note that the link only disappears in significance. Hopeful site owners have been fooled by the fact that Google will still acknowledge the link. Google’s knowledge of the link doesn’t mean that it will be taken into account in your ranking, unfortunately.
Why do websites do such a cruel thing?
Outbound links lend some credibility to the site they link to. This is what site owners count on when seeking inbound links from high-ranking sites. At the same time, site owners are naturally cautious about giving outbound links to sites because it means sharing their PageRank. If you’re a small site, you can rarely afford to be as ungenerous as to nofollow all of your outbound links. If you’re a large site, you can afford to protect yourself.
How to save the situation
Short of hacking into the big site’s servers and erasing the nofollows, there is nothing you can do to get back the link juice potential. This means that for big sites like Facebook, Digg, Wikipedia and Twitter, all of the links you post will have no effect on your PageRank. This is enough to make many search engine optimisation experts throw up their hands in despair, but the situation is not completely dire.
What is frequently forgotten is that links have a value beyond link juice. Links can direct traffic from these big sites straight onto your pages. They can spread word about your site throughout the net. Better yet, the inferred popularity that links imply can lead to internet users re-posting your link elsewhere, meaning that you do end up with some link juice after all. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about the roundabout benefit of all links.
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It’s the traffic from this link that is important. I think we just have to forget about Page Ranking, in which I think is rather unnecessary.
Any link building campaign should first and foremost focus on targeted traffic it may or may not generate, not on nofollow, dofollow or what google wants.
Nofollow links don’t have benefits to the PR,but it may still useful to the Search ranking.
I think this feature has created a lot of confusion. But if the whole idea of no follow is conceptually clear then it will definitely boost your site’s ranking
I was not aware that Facebook had “Nofollow”. I was trying to figure out how I could start using FaceBook for marketing. However; it looks like it wont be as easy as I thought. Thank you so much for the information.
I think that nofollow links indirectly useful. Direct and indirect aspects should not be ignored.
Even though facebook has no follow links they are capable of bringing a large amount of traffic to your site.
nofollow links is useful somehow, it’s at least a link, which can send you traffic.
Thanks for simple and clear explanation. Yes I agree that somehow event the link with nofollow has no good result for SEO page rank, but somehow the link itself can lead to possible new link by reference from others.