This is a Guest Post written by Eugene Aronsky. If you would like to write for TechieMania, check our guest posting guidelines.
There are different links that can help boost your website’s performance such as the “do not follow links” and the “no follow links.” If you want to bring your website to the top of the page rank views with quality keywords, top quality backlinks, or nofollow links are still the best way to go.
The no follow link simply means that search engines are not giving enough weight to that link. This kind of link was invented for the purpose of cutting down the use of spam links. It is advisable then that you understand no follow links in order for you to build your own website strategy while at the same time benefiting from it.
A no follow link is referred to the sign “rel=nofollow”. This code signals the search engine not to follow the link. Google launched this website feature for the purpose of controlling the way link building was used as a tool in increasing search engine rankings. You may think that the no follow link will decrease your website views, which might not actually be beneficial for you. This is not the case. No follow links actually can help.
One of the attributes of this link is that not all search engines acknowledge it because the term was only an invention of Google. There are actually several search engines that do not follow the nofollow guidelines when constructing the algorithm for their search engines. What most people also do not know is that traffic can actually drop by your website even if you have this kind of link. This happens when another link from your site is included in a high-ranking website or when you comment on some other person’s blog or post, which happens to be popular, and then visitors can see that particular link. In this case, a no follow link is just as good as a follow link.
In either case, just because the term is coined that way means that it is already generally bad. This kind of link present in your website will still be better than having no links at all.
Do share your views about the term “Nofollow”, with us here in the comments section.
Sathishkumar Varatharajan is an Online Marketer and a Full time blogger from Salem, India and he is one who launched this blog on June 10, 2010. After working alone on this blog for almost 7 months, he finally found a partner by the name John Rampton, an experienced Affiliate Marketer who helps him to uncover the true potential of TechieMania.
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Great Eugene Aronsky,
Could be much useful for newbies. Looking forward more good posts. Thanks you.
Excellent article about “no follow” attribution and its usage, Thanking you mate…
Thanks for the wonderful post.
noindex is also there right. It tells the search engine not to index right?
Good description of no follow. The point is not to give it too much weight. If you see a good post or article, you should still leave a comment even if it’s no follow. People will still go through the link.
Nice post! Although NoFollow can’t help you increase Google page rank, but you can get more traffic.
To check Nofollow for Dofollow, using NoDoFollow- the Firefox plugin is great.
cutting down the use of spam link seems to be a good idea and this is actually new to me , loved what it is about and i will be reading more about this topic , thank YOU
this is a awesome post regarding “no-follow”
i had never bothered about it!
thanks buddy!
Eugene, I agree when you say it’s a mechanism supported only by Google. Other Search engines may NOT be supporting this nofollow feature.
Good basic SEO tip covered in a detailed manner. Thanks for this.
I have positioned some of the sites to the Top-10 of Google. But till now I’ve not given any such emphasis on nofollow or dofollow.
Great article.. I would also like to add that two 0ther major search engines (bing and yahoo) also follows the nofollow guidelines.
i did not knew that nofollow links also helps, thx Eugene Aronsky..
Finally someone has explained the real meaning of the no follow title. It now makes sense to me. Thank you
good explanations friends, actually I’m not too concerned with nofollow or dofollow because they both provide benefits such as traffic
Is Google still considers nofollow and dofollow…
Are nofollow links considered as backlinks?
Ya, they are considered as backlinks by Google…
I use seo quake plugin to check nofollow and it awesome
I thought nofollow links are of no use. But here I have got a new philosophy to ‘nofollow’ links. Your article is very informative in this case. It’s true, we can draw others attention by commenting even on a ‘nofollow’ article. I must pay attention to this term ahead. Thanks for sharing.
So do nofollow links to my site still count as votes? Or it’s of use only for getting some traffic from people clicking it?
Though nofollow helps with PageRank leakage, some PR is still passed on nofollow links and if a page has dozens of them you still could lose PR for the page. In general though nofollow everything unless you specifically want to share link to search engines and not just readers. Readers don’t care if link is nofollow/dofollow so use it sparingly and as a credit/prop for the site you are linking to.
Some ppl have blown this nofollow stuff completely out of proportion so thanks for telling the other side of the story here
I knew most of this already and even posted a case study of content on a nofollow site making it to googles first page results, but I didnt realize other search engines do NOT even recognize the Nofollow tag!
Hi Caleb, thanks for your kind words. Hope to see you soon.
Sathish
Nofollow links certainly still have value. While dofollow links will pass on link juice, any link is worth direct traffic and having a link profile. Getting dofollow links is certainly preferable, but that does not mean that the nofollow are without value, by any means.
This is a highly misunderstood subject! No follows are still definetly worthwhile. The only difference being is that they do not pass page rank!
There are many benefits to be gained from a no follow link that people should bear in mind. For instance if you comment on blog site which has a relevent subject to your own, the likelyhood is that because this is a shared point of interest the nofollow link could generate traffic to your own site. Therefore nofollow links should not be discounted but embraced!
Well said, Mauro. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us. Talk soon.
Truth be told, No-Follow is often a misconstrued subject . Good thing you come up with this post. But then again, I think it would have been better if you write a new and separate discussion of No-Follow and its impact to online users and to search engine rankings.
“hello Eugene Aronsky.,
you explained very nice about no follow .. thanks for let me know about use of nofollow links . “
thanks for your guest article
Excellent article. I knew what “nofollow” was, but had no idea how to find out whether a site was “dofollow” or “nofollow.” NEEDLESS TO SAY, now I know! Thanks!
Great guide Eugene, I’m sure it’ll be very much helpful for all the newbie’s who are looking for this answer.
It was a nice post. But here I would like to ask you a question that, on many websites I have seen a rel=”external” attribute with links, is it same as rel=”nofollow”?
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