Do nofollow links help?
Just in case you don’t know what nofollow is you can find more information here. To cut the story short its an attribute rel=”nofollow” that was introduced in attempt to tackle the spam. Links containing this attribute do not have any effect on page rank.
I was never really a big fan of nofollow since it was introduced. I mean… 3 years later and did it reduce any spam? Do you see a reduction in comment spam? Not really… Not only the whole concept failed in terms of spam reduction, we are now told to stick nofollow on any link that we don’t quite trust. In the worst case you will get done for selling links and Google will take your precious page rank away. Whats really ironic is that in most cases your SERPs will continue to improve even though you clearly received a slap from Google for being naughty and your ever so green bar would now show blank. Yet, it’s not like PR matter anyway but that’s a different topic.
A while back i was fiddling with Google webmaster tools when i noticed that Google would still display nofollow backlinks. (Webmaster tools display most backlinks Google is aware off unlike link: queerie) So Google is definitely aware of these backlinks. We know they will not effect PR (According to Google) but do they have any effect of SERPs? Just a few weeks ago i would have said yes, they do help you slightly, simply making an educated guess. However something popped up recently that i found quite interesting. There was a little spammer application developed designed to spam nothing but a certain script. Whats strange is that even though every single backlink you would get from that script is nofollow, spammers were still able to achieve high SERP rank thanks to thousands of nofollow links. I don’t know how long their position will last but you can clearly see the benefits in the short run. I guess nofollow backlinks are not that bad after all. So the next time you get an opportunity to get a quality nofollow backlink… don’t just walk past it thinking that link is useless.
PS: Here is a good firefox addon that saves me a bit of time and can highlight nofollow links on the page you are visiting. Clicky
Tags: serps, search, se, firefox, page rank, tools, pr, addon, Google, engine
March 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I always believed that links with nofollow attribs still help improve the SERP. Even if they are not passing any link juice or helping in the serps, they still deliver traffic.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Nofollow seems to be in the mind of many, but in googles eyes it might be what keeps you out of the dog house. I still get spam comments, but I like that spam. It’s easy to moderate and adds what I call sloppy traffic.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Does Yahoo have similar weight on nofollow or not?
April 10th, 2008 at 12:24 am
wow sweet… thats a plugin ive been longing for. ive gotten so tired of having to click on ‘view’ then the ‘pagesource’ then search for the ‘no-follow’ tags. good stuff man
~John
April 10th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I was also searching different experiments on the effect of nofollow links… i think google doesnt count them for page rank but nofollow links effect the index and cache of the site. So want to be cached more? these links can be used
April 11th, 2008 at 8:16 am
A related topic is whether to add “dofollow” to your comments. I see yours are marked “nofollow” (I use that “nofollow” plugin, too. Any particular reason you made that choice, or did you just leave it on the default?
April 11th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
When you add nofollow to the link you are telling Google that you are not responsible for the content of that link. If i remove nofollow then i will have to start removing more comments as well or at least editing out the urls.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The entire thing is really confusing. It seems that more and more people are saying that the whole NOFOLLOW approach really didn’t work. What you are all saying here seems to confirm this. There is no doubt that Google treats the nofollow link differently, but the question is HOW different. It is also clear from many experiments that NOFOLLOW links DO count for something in SERP…
I like when someone above said “you won’t get any link juice but you will get SERP.” Maybe I’m missing something, but what is link juice then?
April 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
It looks like most seo experts agree that nofollow backlinks don’t parse PR but do help SERPs. I guess some people think of link juice as PR. Talking about PR, who cares anyway. This blog is PR0 yet it ranks in top 30 for “seo”, overtaking a whole bunch of PR6/7 seo schools and firms that were doing this for 10 years. And that’s after 2 months
Woot!
April 11th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Really useful articles, u have changed my opinion on “no follow” links,
April 13th, 2008 at 11:50 am
In answer to an above question to my knowledge Yahoo doesn’t use ‘nofollow’. . .
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think they still help!
July 19th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Ilia is the man! Hahaha, I always learn something when I come here man…keep it up!
July 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
I have always beleived that a link is a link, regardless of whether it is nofollow or not. A lot of the smaller search engines don’t even recognise the tag. A link is a link whether it passes PR, increases SERPS or provides click through traffic. It all helps!
September 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
You learn something new every day. Regardless, as noted above, a link is a link. That firefox add-on is a great time-saver too.