Nofollow Links Exposed

Myths are found in every field. SEO is no exception. Unless Google reveals its algorithm, the myths around SEO can never be busted. However, here I will try to bust some myths about Nofollow links.

Nofollow OBL links to increase ranking

The internet has no lack of inaccurate information and conjecture. Even the Google webmaster forum has some members who do not seem to be operating with a full deck of cards. Many webmasters/marketers are seen advising people to Nofollow their Outbound links to increase ranking. I did a small experiment. I run a forex site, which links to several forex brokers. For the keyword ‘forex no deposit bonus’ it ranks 12^th. All the links were dofollow. Later, I nofollowed every link. Its been a month. My site ranks the same. Not even a change of single position.

Affiliate links should be nofollowed?

This is another seo myth. Google has does not hate affiliate links. However, 10/20 outbound links to the same site triggers an alert. Such practice is definitely unacceptable. Use affiliate links in moderation and your site shall not be penalized

Nofollow links are never crawled

Seriously, that is up to Google to decide. Though in their guidelines Google says that Nofollowed links will never be crawled, yet they get picked up sometimes. Therefore, do not assume that Nofollow links will categorically not be counted as links.

I can use paid links

Selling and buying of links is prohibited by Google. If you are placing paid links in your site, then better make it nofollow. How can Google find it? Well, I am not sure how they find paid links. But if caught then your site will be lost in SERPs and become oblivion. So never, indulge in selling or buying of links. If you do sell links, then make sure they are nofollowed. If not, be prepared to face Google’s penalization in future.

Hundreds Of Links Can Be Included In Posts If They Are Nofollowed

Rand Fishkin of SEOMOZ did a post on Nofollow links. He had pesterd Matt from Google with some questions. Here is a question from Rand and answer from Matt:

Google has noted in the past that a maximum of 100 links per page was wise and would insure that all of the links on a page would be crawled. Does this rule still apply or is there some flexibility?

• A) The rule is still a good one – even very important pages with lots of PageRank should stay away from linking to more than 100 other pages.
• B) There’s some flexibility. If you have a high PageRank page with lots of link juice, we may spider well beyond 100 links per page – possibly even 2-300 depending on how valuable we feel that page to be.
• C) The rule really only applies to pages of low importance/PageRank. Googlebot now regularly can crawl 150-200 links per page without breaking a sweat and those numbers can be even higher for pages we consider particularly important.
• D) Although we may crawl more than 100 links per page (maybe even many hundreds), we don’t recommend linking to that many because of the dilution of link juice that occurs. Instead, use sub-navigation pages to help ease the link per page burden.

There has been no mention of Nofollow or Dofollow. If commonsense is applied then it is clear that Matt Cuttts meant both Dofollow and Nofollow. Had there been a need to differentiate Matt Cutts would have done it. So do not consider that you can send tons of links without hurting your SEO if they are nofollow.

Finally, we have busted some of the myths surrounding nofollow links. If you have any experience please do share with us in the comment.

Richie Richardson is passionate about SEO. He also runs a forex site wherein he writes on tradefort review. The other topics that are discussed involves forex no deposit bonus, deposit bonus and forex bonus in general.