On Google Webmaster Central Youtube channel Matt Cutts answered a seo related question. The question was “Why are links used in ranking when they all have the nofollow attribute?” Matt says in the video that if we look at the web as a pie chart the majority of those links do not have the no follow attribute and they flow pagerank. Meaning the majority of links on the web are great for seo purposes.
I could not disagree more and think he is dead wrong. The majority of the web might be set to the follow attribute were we as webmasters can use this to our advantage but what he doesn’t say is the important part. That being, the majority of high pr websites in the top listings of Google are set to no-follow. That means the majority of websites found at the top of each Google listing are absolutely useless for seo purposes and linking to them because they set any link whether it be in form of commenting or articles to no follow.
SEO is very cut throat in that everyone loves to be linked to but the majority do not return the favor and if they do link they link it as no follow attribute. This means the Google bot will not follow this link making it just wasted space when it comes to search engine optimization. They do this for one purpose and that is to retain the spot of their listing. If they help other websites build pagerank then they can ensure the will never help their competition bypass them.
Although these links are great to get new visitors but for search engine optimization purposes they are a waste of time. Especially for webmasters looking to naturally enhance their own pagerank. These much needed links that have high pagerank are the ones that hold a lot of weight. One high pr website linking to you can increase your visitors exponentially.
Some of this is due to lazy webmasters. Webmasters that do not want to take the time to filter out spam comments. It is much easier to let people comment away than have to worry about who is linking to what and when. The easy way is just set your blog comments and links to no follow and do not allow any pagerank to flow. The reason I coin them lazy is the fact that there are easy solutions you can apply to combat against bots posting spam comments. So instead of learning the solutions it is much easier for lazy webmasters to set everything to no follow.
We here at Niche Website Strategy set our links to follow on our featured links page and recently on our main page. This allows other webmasters to benefit from our website pagerank.
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4 Responses to Majority set to No-Follow
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It was interesting to go through your post and the earnest voice that raises up from the deep heart-felt-feeling are easy enough to sense.
I am currently making a study about dofollow and nofollow, and the process brought me here in your post. I’m sharing my preliminary observations:
Nofollow attribute is being used not only as a lazy solution of combating spams but its a matter of ethics, wish for type of comments, monetizing options and PageRank value. You can be generous enough till you are quite popular, but when the time comes to monetize your blog, you’ll realize the value of links and you will feel compelled to turning them into nofollow.
We’ll keep talking. After all sharing experience is the wealth of world!
Thanks Suresh for the comment.
I did take into consideration that any link you use on your website can be a link for a visitors to click away. Which for monetizing blogs and websites might not be good but then again it would make for a poor website neighborhood. Meaning you would only be serving links that benefit you the most.
According to wiki nofollow…
With that said by webmasters applying no spam plugins to their website they reduce the amount of incoming spam comments. I would assume the nofollow attribute was built for like wiki implied to protect websites from losing pagerank by said spam comments.
I guess what I am getting at with the dawn of these anti-spam plugins we are effectively doing the job of the nofollow attrib. and we no longer need to use it especially if we deem to approve or deny comments before they go live.
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I am still learning about follow/no follow links. Thanks for the useful article, I learned a bit more about links. I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.
K Dupree