Compendium: Is There SEO Value in Nofollow Links?

Is this the message nofollow should send to webmasters?

“Compendium” posts are where I take a question and assemble the answers from various blogs and authors in an attempt to create something of a balanced and varied view on the matter.

For a lot of webmasters, “nofollow” is the equivalent of “don’t bother” when it comes to links. If you’re not familiar, “nofollow” is an attribute of a link that, in theory, tells search engines to ignore, or “not to follow” that link. Nofollow was introduced as a way to combat link spam; its acceptance in both the SEO community and the online community as a whole has been mixed.

That’s a separate article, however; what I’m concerned with is whether or not nofollow links have any value when it comes to SEO. Obviously nofollow links have other benefits, such as brand building and actual traffic, but that’s not my concern. What I want to know is if getting nofollow links can help boost my search rankings.

Here’s what others say. Note that we’re just c/p’ing, not endorsing or claiming these ideas as our own:

RealWebSEO.com
http://www.realwebseo.com/google/seo-myth-nofollow-links-google

Google changed how the NoFollow tag works; it now passes on a fraction of page rank through the link and makes absolutely no promise not to index the page that has been linked to even if it’s linked to by a single NoFollow link. Want to see the power of NoFollow links? Twitter links from profile to profile are NoFollow tagged yet having millions of followers give the profile page an incredible Page Rank, just look at these examples:

William Shatner – 0.25 Million Follower – Page Rank 7 – http://twitter.com/williamshatner
Stephen Fry – 1.5 Million Followers – Page Rank 8 – http://twitter.com/stephenfry
Barack Obama – 4 Million Followers – Page Rank 8 – http://twitter.com/barackobama

There’s a strong rumor that you could get sandboxed by Google by having too many DoFollow links; if you were to gain links naturally you’d have a mixture of Do/NoFollow links so always make sure to get a healthy amount of NoFollow links in your SEO strategy… just in case.

SEOverflow.com
http://www.seoverflow.com/blog/link-building/why-you-should-build-nofollow-links/

There is More Than Link Juice That Determine Link Value
Going on the assumption that nofollow links don’t pass much link juice, they still pass relevance. Just because Google doesn’t “count” the link, doesn’t mean that they don’t see what anchor text is being used. The anchor text is still showing the search engines what your site is about and is passing relevancy.

Some NoFollowed Links Are Very Trust-worthy
I (and others) also believe that nofollow links pass trust. If you have a link on Wikipedia for example, do you really believe that the search engines won’t pay attention to that link? If you can get links on highly trusted domains, whether they are nofollow or not, they will be taken into consideration by the search engines.

VanSEODesign.com
http://www.vanseodesign.com/seo/how-does-google-really-treat-nofollow-links/

Last week Loren Baker asked the search engines how they treat links with the rel=”nofollow” attribute added to them. MSN didn’t respond and Ask said they don’t support nofollow and so treat those links the same as any other. Yahoo responded by saying they do follow the link and will index the page on the other side, but the link won’t pass any juice to the page being linked to. Google claimed they don’t follow the link at all and thus won’t index the page on the other side assuming no other links (internal or external) point to the page. But is that how Google really treats nofollow links?

I have a hard time believing Google’s claims. When I check links in Webmaster Tools I can tell you that they show backlinks to pages where the only inbound link has rel=”nofollow” applied. If Googlebot didn’t follow that link how could they show it as a backlink?

PTC PAL Blog
http://www.pokeraffiliatelistings.com/forums/blogs/ptc/1023-value-nofollowed-links.html

- nofollowed links might not always be nofollowed. Plugins can change, people change platforms etc. Don’t forget that the opposite can happen as well.

- Google might not always treat all nofollowed links the same, and google might not always be the #1 search engine, things can change, if you are building a site on a 5 + year time horizon, this aspect should be considered. In general; I believe a diversified link portfolio is important for sites planning on a long term horizon.

GoogleWebmasterHelp
The official word from the seach giant:

Hopefully this list gives you some starting points for thinking about nofollow links and how they might work as part of an overall SEO strategy.

Tags: Compendium, nofollow links