The search engines created no follow links a few years ago to fight blog comment link spam. This changed strategies for both big business and small business SEO. The links with the no follow attribute were thought to have little to no value because they don't pass link juice, or PageRank (PR) to the linked to site. It now appears that although they may no pass PR, they do have value.
SEOMoz recently reported in their 2011 ranking report that a correlation exists between ranking and the presence of no follow links.It seems that the search engines are looking at the ratio of do follow links to no follow links. If there are too many do follow links, the link profile appears to be unnatural. The search engines expect that in the normal course of link getting, links from both do follow and no follow sites are normal.
If your site link profile has a very high ratio of do follow links, you may need to get more no follow links from social media sites, no follow blogs and other sources to balance your profile.
What About Authority?
Okay, no follow is not supposed to pass PageRank and link juice and improve a site ranking. That may or may not be the case, but let's say it is. My question has been for some time now, even if no PageRank is passed, is a link from an authority site related to the linked to site valuable?
Many SEO specialists and teachers have been saying for years to ignore the no follow attribute. They say is a link is a link and their testing shows it doesn't seem to matter whether it's no follow. I'm wondering out loud, if link juice is not passed through PR, are other signals being used to determine authority and relevance.
The Search Algorithm
Search engines are looking for the best content to return for a search query. The algorithms look at off page and on page factors. Let's look at factors from off page. A link is a vote from one site to another. If the link is no follow, the PageRank (PR) is gone, but I'm thinking other signals in the algorithm are present that make the link from an authority site valuable.
Google says there are over 200 factors in the algorithm, others say it's more, why wouldn't they be including the relevance of the link in relevance factors.
Let's look at an example. Two sites have on page content and factors that are exactly the same. There's nothing to choose between them. They are in a tie as to which one would rank higher. Still, one ranks higher than the other. Why?
We eliminated on site factors, so the ranking choice must come down to off site factors. These sites have the same PageRank profile. Each has 500 links with the same anchor text, the same PR profile and the same distribution of do follow and no follow links.
I am submitting that where the links come from is an overlooked factor. The site with the best profile for links from authority sites relevant to the content of the keyword phrase will rank higher, all else being equal. Few would argue this point, but I'm firmly suspecting that no follow links are passing relevance signals even if they're not passing PR.
A New Life for No Follow Links?
So, just maybe, no follow links have value after all. I don't know how valuable these links are, but if search engines are not ignoring these links competely (there not), no follow links must be passing signals for some reason. We believe there's a link profile signal. The question is, are there relevance signals in the algorith for no follow links? While I won't advise ignoring the follow tag, in an SEO or local SEO program it now appears that those no follow links are more valuable than we thought.
SEOMoz recently reported in their 2011 ranking report that a correlation exists between ranking and the presence of no follow links.It seems that the search engines are looking at the ratio of do follow links to no follow links. If there are too many do follow links, the link profile appears to be unnatural. The search engines expect that in the normal course of link getting, links from both do follow and no follow sites are normal.
If your site link profile has a very high ratio of do follow links, you may need to get more no follow links from social media sites, no follow blogs and other sources to balance your profile.
What About Authority?
Okay, no follow is not supposed to pass PageRank and link juice and improve a site ranking. That may or may not be the case, but let's say it is. My question has been for some time now, even if no PageRank is passed, is a link from an authority site related to the linked to site valuable?
Many SEO specialists and teachers have been saying for years to ignore the no follow attribute. They say is a link is a link and their testing shows it doesn't seem to matter whether it's no follow. I'm wondering out loud, if link juice is not passed through PR, are other signals being used to determine authority and relevance.
The Search Algorithm
Search engines are looking for the best content to return for a search query. The algorithms look at off page and on page factors. Let's look at factors from off page. A link is a vote from one site to another. If the link is no follow, the PageRank (PR) is gone, but I'm thinking other signals in the algorithm are present that make the link from an authority site valuable.
Google says there are over 200 factors in the algorithm, others say it's more, why wouldn't they be including the relevance of the link in relevance factors.
Let's look at an example. Two sites have on page content and factors that are exactly the same. There's nothing to choose between them. They are in a tie as to which one would rank higher. Still, one ranks higher than the other. Why?
We eliminated on site factors, so the ranking choice must come down to off site factors. These sites have the same PageRank profile. Each has 500 links with the same anchor text, the same PR profile and the same distribution of do follow and no follow links.
I am submitting that where the links come from is an overlooked factor. The site with the best profile for links from authority sites relevant to the content of the keyword phrase will rank higher, all else being equal. Few would argue this point, but I'm firmly suspecting that no follow links are passing relevance signals even if they're not passing PR.
A New Life for No Follow Links?
So, just maybe, no follow links have value after all. I don't know how valuable these links are, but if search engines are not ignoring these links competely (there not), no follow links must be passing signals for some reason. We believe there's a link profile signal. The question is, are there relevance signals in the algorith for no follow links? While I won't advise ignoring the follow tag, in an SEO or local SEO program it now appears that those no follow links are more valuable than we thought.