Why Nofollow Still Matters
With all of the focus here on dofollow, I thought it would be important to remind everyone that nofollow sites still matter for the following reasons.
1. There are important social networking sites that are nofollow.
Think about the most popular social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and so on. While all of these networks are nofollow, they do provide a lot of other benefits, including making social connections and building an online presence and reputation.
2. There are high traffic generating social bookmarking networks that are nofollow.
StumbleUpon is the main social bookmarking network that comes to mind in terms of nofollow networks that generate a lot of traffic when used properly, and should not be ignored.
3. There are great blogs in every niche that are nofollow.
Most of the biggest blogs in every niche are probably nofollow. Getting a valuable comment in first on a high traffic blog might give you greater exposure to others interested in the same topics that you write about.
4. Link building should look natural.
For those just interested in the dofollow movement for link building, remember that search engines like natural link building. Natural links can be both dofollow and nofollow – having a nice mixture can be beneficial in a successful link building campaign.
Your Nofollow Campaign
While I’m sure a lot of readers of this site focus on dofollow, are there any other reasons you can think of to add some nofollow to your list as well?
One of the first parts of my link building campaigns is to submit to places that might actually bring me relevant traffic in their own right, so I completely agree with you. I only really worry about nofollow in this context if I am paying for the link.
David Leonhardt’s has talked a bit about whether nofollow links are actually given value in “Look who follows NoFollow links!” and recently on SEOmoz there was a test by Danny Dover “An Update to Our Testing on PageRank Sculpting with Nofollow” which wasn’t broad enough to be conclusive, oh well.
I think there needs to be a shift in thinking regarding the nofollow tag, lets hope that sites such as this can make a difference.
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Most often I start writing comment on what I read on the page. I rarely check whether the blog is do follow or nofollow. I know dofollow will allow me to gain bit of linkjuice but the traffic advantage from nofollow sites can never be ignored.
Regarding Stumbleupon, it used to be one of the largest source of traffic to my blog, but gradually organic (search engine traffic) started to grow to a considerable number and stumbleupon interface changed that made it different how you can share your links, made it less useful.
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I agree with you, I only leave comments on posts that I enjoy and have something to add to. The whole nofollow vs dofollow thing never really enters my mind.
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I can’t wait for the day when the Search Engines ignore and dofollow, and nofollow. This would remove this debate and help level the playing field for those who don’t know so much about SEO.
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Well, Thanks for the tips. I am trying my maximum to get both nofollow and dofollow links.
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I really dislike the nofollow tag. I think it’s a way to change the content of a website and make it something other than the surfer sees. It’s not much different than cloaking to me.
I think Google should develop ways to devalue some links, such as the ones in bookmarking sites or anywhere where there is no actual human editor overseeing the link quality. It’s their issue and should be handled within their algorithm. I don’t think it’s up to webmasters to artificially manipulate the way the internet is shaped.
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I agree. There is value in writing comments on websites that have no-follow links because it’s engaging in the conversation and quality blogs and sites attract real followers. I’ve built some good relationships with people via commenting which has nothing to do with whether their site is no-follow or do-follow. Ultimately it’s all about people in the end.
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Well guys & ladies of course,
I have to say that this subject is a pet hate of mine, it annoys the hell out of me that all the big social networks switch to using the nofollow meta tag, under the guise of dealing with spammers hahaha ! What utter rubbish, the best method I have found to deal with & reduce spammers is to use captcha code, which I think I’m correct in saying, every single social network is already doing. Furthermore, if we, “bloggers” suddenly all decided to apply nofollow to our site links for the likes of Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc they would soon sit up & take notice! These large social networks very quickly forget who it was that put them where they are now & as Gordie rightly points out, it is high time we had a level playing field.
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Hi
I know search engines do not follow links that are rel=”nofollow”
but what about the anchor text
I read that search engines will consider the anchor text of the dofollow links although will not give you any page rank benefits
I am not sure about this but if any one know real information about this issue please consider reply
Regards
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I notice you said that Twitter is ‘nofollow’ — well I posted one of my own web links in a tweet then Google advised me – either in webmaster central or in a link: search that Twitter was a back link to my page. Google selectively ignores the ‘nofollow’ attribute?