We will show you how to use Google nofollow tags to fend off-link spam.
Nofollow tags are snippets of HTML code that can be inserted into a document’s HEAD section. They tell search engines not to follow the links in the document when calculating its ranking for any given keyword or phrase. This tag is used to protect your blog from being spammed by automated bot submissions or malicious comments, which are programmed to automatically create links back to their original post.
A “NoFollow Link” is a way of preventing spammers and scammers from building spam and scam sites that link back to yours. Whenever you see a NoFollow Link on our site, that means we don’t trust who’s linking to us and want to keep them at bay.
Introduction: What is a Google Nofollow Tag? How does it Work?
A “nofollow” tag is a simple HTML tag that functions on both websites and blog posts. It is usually included at the end of the code for a webpage or blog post, after the tags. The nofollow attribute instructs Google not to follow any links on the webpage or blog post when crawling content. This means that Google can’t index any of your website’s pages, nor your blog posts if you have these instructions in place on them.
The idea behind it is to stop spammers from linking to you in order to get their content indexed by Google. If you don’t include this tag, then there’s nothing stopping people from spamming your site with links, which can lead to duplicate content issues and lower SEO rankings than desired
A summary of what Google has to say on nofollow links
“In general, we don’t follow links. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. In other words, by using nofollow, we exclude target links. This way, they’re outside of our entire graph of the web.. Google does not index page targets if they are included in a nofollow tag. This prevents those pages from being indexed and ranking for keywords elsewhere. Other search engines may potentially take advantage of this for their own rankings, but it’s important to be aware that you might also appear in their rankings without a nofollow tag.”
What is a Follow Link?
To really understand what is going on with follow vs. no-follow links, you should understand how links work in terms of SEO. When a site page gets an inbound link (hyperlink), it receives a small SEO boost. More links mean more points which means you win.
Google takes note of these points, watching how many inbound links a page has and from what sites. We know Google’s search is often excellent. In this case, it figured, “If a lot of folks are linking to a website, it must be really good.” It then made sure to place the most relevant pages on the very first page of its searches for people looking for content on a particular topic.
Google came up with a metric called PageRank to evaluate link points. Many SEO experts would call these “link touches.” The link juice flows from site to site, through hyperlinks. The more reputable the website, the more valuable the link it provides to other sites. Get links from The New York Times or BBC and your site will get a big boost!
Follow links are links that are also registered as points, driving more SEO link juice and boosting the page rank of the linked-to site, which in turn raises their ranking status in SERPs.
What is a No Follow Link?
No follow links are followed by no one. They do not affect a page’s PageRank or help with SEO. They are ignored by the whole wide world.
You can insert a ‘nofollow’ into the Html code of any URL, making it link to a webpage that won’t affect your website’s ranking. This is often used for footer links, blog comments, and other areas on your site where you don’t want an outside site linking to your web content. To do so, use the following code:
<a href=”http://directcybertech.com” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a>
The ‘nofollow’ tag is essentially a way to tell search engines not to count this.
Yeah, this is a horrific and mean way to do business. And for good reason – there’s a reason the Nofollow attribute came into being.
A World Without No Follow = Spam a lot
As we discussed earlier, Google’s algorithm uses do-follow links to measure PageRank.A higher rank means more link juice, which means that the page will be ranked higher in search engines. It is like an un-altered PageRank that can tell what pages are the most popular and deliver them to search
Well, I know nobody’s perfect. so, as you might have heard, some so-called “experts” try to trick search engines & inflate their rankings with black-hat, unethical methods, and in the times before the nofollow attribute, link building was a very easy way to artificial.
Once PageRank was discovered by spambots, all hell broke loose! Suddenly it was all about the links for SEO. More inbound links meant better PageRank, and SEOs were determined to get as many links as possible, even if it meant spamming everyone they knew on social media. Blog comments – a tool once loved by many online users – have fallen into disrepute with the emergence of new social media platforms.
Wikipedia always gets messy as well, as people try to add their own sites as references on hundreds of Wikipedia pages all for the sake of the coveted link juice that comes with it.
Bloggers were at their wit’s end ever since the emergence of spammers on blogs. Spammers were destroying any chance that blogs had at fostering a true community & discussion. In 2005, Google stepped in to help combat the issue. Google’s Matt Cutts and Jason Shellen from Blogger explained.
Nofollow: the tag the internet needs, but not the one it deserves
The nofollow tag is a testament to the crooked and spammy nature of SEO techniques, but it sure has its place.
The no-follow link tag has done a lot of good for the online world. Most SEO spammers won’t bother posting irrelevant links into blogs or forum posts if they know they won’t get any kind of benefit out of it. WordPress automatically assigns the no-follow attribute to all user-submitted links, so Wikipedia does too.
While blog comment spam happening, the introduction of the no-follow attribute has greatly reduced it.
As a webmaster, you might be unsure of when to use no-follow and when to allow for do-follow links. When we added nofollowed links, we focused primarily on:
-
Paid links (it wouldn’t be fair to buy link juice, now would it?)
-
Comments
-
Forums
-
Anything involving what Google calls “untrusted content”
A few webmasters may disable the nofollow attribute as a reward for blog commenters who are contributing to the blogging community or online discussion, but it’s up to individual discretion.
According to a study done by Searchmetrics, social media nofollow links still rank highly and can provide SEO value.
Despite the fact that popular social networks include nofollow tags in most of their external links, social networks still have an important role to play in SEO. In addition to their contribution to other key aspects of digital marketing strategy, such as content creation.
Social media is a valuable tool to spread your business’s message across the internet quickly and with greater word of mouth.
Social media links are a critical part of your SEO success as they help to build your Social score.
This link is a way of preventing spammers and scammers from benefiting at your expense. If you ever see this type of link on our site, then it means we don’t trust the people linking to us.
That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t rely on Google to rank your site.
Not at all! While they don’t provide SEO link value, no-follow links still deliver crucial referral traffic.
A blog comment or a post on a forum will send you an influx of traffic. If it’s well-placed, that traffic can then turn into leads and conversions.
So, there’s more than just link juice and PageRank these days. Search engines also look at social media signals like those coming from Twitter and Facebook. Despite this, you should still maintain the best SEO practices for your company though.”The key is to build your brand – don’t focus on the SEO implications of every link you build, but instead focus on building links that are good for your company, help establish you as an authority in your industry, and align with what you stand for. Remember that the “no follow” attribute won’t affect your SEO.
It’s important to still pursue Wikipedia links when they are appropriate, but you have to be at the top of your game. Writers need unique, niche content to get accepted by Wikipedia. If you can get a link, however, your work will be rewarded with results that are very cool in some cases.
How to Get Follow Links
Yes, we know the best links come from real people, but you probably want a few other links to boost your rank.
The best way to get do-follow links is by creating awesome, original content that others will want to share and link to. Other ways include guest blogging on relevant sites or creating your own blog.