Google rel = nofollow attribute

[mjzulfi786]

Hi.;)

Wat is the rel=nofollow attribute? hw to use it? wats the relationship of this tag in the ranking of website by google

thanks in advance........

[beu]

Webmasters use nofollow to stop links from passing PageRank. You could use nofollows in a to prevent comment spam from passing PR in a blog, to prevent paid links from passing PR if you are a link seller, to better direct flow of PR in your site or for a number of other reasons.

[j0nyDzine]

my understanding is that it literally tells the spider or bot to not follow a link, and hence not pass rank attribute from that link...

[JohnW]

>it literally tells the spider or bot to not follow a link, and hence not pass rank

Not exactly. Nofollow does stop the passing of PR, however bots will usually follow the links anyway.

[beu]

JohnW brings up a excellent point that I wanted to expand on! The main "mission" if you will for the nofollow attribute does seem to be PageRank related. There seem to be a number of cases where links are followed that contain the nofollow attribute.

When a webmaster uses the nofollow attribute for a link, what he/she is actually saying is "I don't vouch for this link". It seems to me that engines would ask why, what does that say about the "nofollower", the "nofollowee" and/or their relationship with each other. Basically it seems that engines would want to ask why doesn't this webmaster vouch for a site he/she is linking to. In my opinion, a webmasters use of nofollow at the link level provides an important signal for search engines. It seems that "signal data" would be lost if the engine didn't follow nofollow links. I think such data might be even more valuable if compared to other sites and that more data could be gleaned.

Anyone else agree, disagree or have an opinion?

PLEASE NOTE: There are two levels of nofollow, the nofollow link attribute and nofollow meta (tag) element. This post is about the nofollow link attribute and not the nofollow meta (tag) element.

:)

[j0nyDzine]

That seems odd. It seems to go against the idea I've heard more and more this last year that some people keep saying that PR does not matter anymore in the SERPs. IF it really did not matter, why is there so much push to clean the passing of PR. Seems at the very least it is an attribute or consideration, and definitely still affecting SERPs on some level, otherwise why would G still spend so much time on it?

[beu]

That seems odd. It seems to go against the idea I've heard more and more this last year that some people keep saying that PR does not matter anymore in the SERPs.

That was before Google announced that "Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736

[j0nyDzine]

Am familiar with that. I just constantly see people still arguing the point of "PR does not matter anymore". and just pointing out it seems by way of logic due to Google's actions, undeniable that it does , in fact, matter in some way. Or, Google would be setting about to waste a lot of their energy - and that doesn't make sense.

[JohnW]

>some people keep saying that PR does not matter anymore in the SERP

People who say it exactly that way without additional context are mistaken. A more accurate thing to say might be "the Google PR data that is publicly reported via the toolbar cannot be trusted fully".

The real PR may be very different from what is shown in the toolbar. PR is one of many factors, and is still important.

[Jazajay]

Yeah totally agree John
I use smartpagerank or something similar to do links back, indexed pages for both non and www. versions, price of domain etc..

One of it's tools is that it query's lots of different datacenters and returns the PR of each. Not sure how accurate it is but thought I would mention it due to the thread.

Disclaimer: I don't know the owner of the site, run it or vouch for it just use it from time to time.

But PR does still play a role IMO.
Don't relie on it by any means but use it as an indicator of how well your efforts are doing overall.
Would I get a link from a page with a PR of 9?
if it wasn't relevant no.

I think a lot of people who just get any links back and don't care about relevance, trust etc... just assume it doesn't play a role. Take the following example -

I have 3 links back and they are a PR of 7,8 and 9 and I haven't moved up the SERP's I should be moving up in the SERP's right? PR I can therefore say for sure doesn't play a role because if it did it would move me up on it's own automatically. right?

Now if we look at the links in more detail.
That fictional site sells flowers.
the pr 7 - is from an adult site
the pr 8 - is from a site selling JCB's (diggers)
the pr 9 - is from a forum about bringing up babies

Then no it's not going to play much if any role.

You have to look at the greater picture.
A PR 9 link from a authority site in my niche about babies containing this anchor text, and surrounding text, to my fictional site about babies would be an example of PR playing a role.

this is a well written article on babies containing relevant keywords in well written text.
we recommend you try the baby tools at baby ..... dot com (http://#) (dead link to this page) (http:///#)

Jaza

[JohnW]

>I have 3 links back and they are a PR of 7,8 and 9 and I haven't moved up the SERP's I should be moving up in the SERP's right?

Not necessarily.

>PR I can therefore say for sure doesn't play a role because if it did it would move me up on it's own automatically. right?

Again, not necessarily.

What would matter is also the relevance, particularly how the anchors are constructed.

A million links all PR9 wont help you rank for someting you are not relevant for. would you expect Google or Microsoft or Cisco to rank well for "atlanta real estate agent"?

[Jazajay]

Ha I got Marcia on this.
Ok not what I meant I think you misread -

John said:

>I have 3 links back and they are a PR of 7,8 and 9 and I haven't moved up the SERP's I should be moving up in the SERP's right?
That was a fictional example and wouldn't do you any good that was the example and my point.

John said: What would matter is also the relevance, particularly how the anchors are constructed.
Didn't I say that

Jaza said:

You have to look at the greater picture.
A PR 9 link from a authority site in my niche about babies containing this anchor text, and surrounding text, to my fictional site about babies would be an example of PR playing a role.


also-
jaza said:

Would I get a link from a page with a PR of 9?
if it wasn't relevant no.

John said:

A million links all PR9 wont help you rank for someting you are not relevant for. would you expect Google or Microsoft or Cisco to rank well for "atlanta real estate agent"?
Totally agree didn't I say that when I said

Jaza said:

But PR does still play a role IMO.
Don't relie on it by any means but use it as an indicator of how well your efforts are doing overall.
Would I get a link from a page with a PR of 9?
if it wasn't relevant no.

I think a lot of people who just get any links back and don't care about relevance, trust etc... just assume it doesn't play a role. Take the following example -

I have 3 links back and they are a PR of 7,8 and 9 and I haven't moved up the SERP's I should be moving up in the SERP's right? PR I can therefore say for sure doesn't play a role because if it did it would move me up on it's own automatically. right?

Now if we look at the links in more detail.
That fictional site sells flowers.
the pr 7 - is from an adult site
the pr 8 - is from a site selling JCB's (diggers)
the pr 9 - is from a forum about bringing up babies

Then no it's not going to play much if any role.

You have to look at the greater picture.
A PR 9 link from a authority site in my niche about babies containing this anchor text, and surrounding text, to my fictional site about babies would be an example of PR playing a role.

this is a well written article on babies containing relevant keywords in well written text.
we recommend you try the baby tools at baby ..... dot com (http:///#) (dead link to this page) (http:///#)

Jaza
Sorry about the john and jaza said just wanted to break the quotes up into more readable chunks.

I totally agree with you.

Jaza

[jewboy]

No one touched upon the use of the Nofollow tag to help sculpt the flow of linkjuice within one's own site. Anyone care to enlighten us on the subject?

[Jazajay]

I've been using this technquie to be honest. On things like privacy policy shopping cart etc... However I have stopped using it for several reasons

1. The SE still follow the link and request the page. This is evident via my tracking. Which had me up in arms to be honest untill I learnt more about the tag.

2. Added code bloat.

3. More approiate use of HTML tags ie meta noindex, no follow. This stops the bots from requesting the rest of the page. So if bandwidth is of concern this is the better solution.

4. Learning more about the tag. Matt's opinion, is one I will go with this time, and others about it use and saying that you don't want to trust the recieving page. If thats internally it sounds like it MAY be dodgy.

I dont trust some of my own pages. Hum...

Heres what matt says

The rel=”nofollow” attribute is an easy way for a website to tell search engines that the website can’t or doesn’t want to vouch for a link. The best-known use for nofollow is blog comment spam, but the mechanism is completely general. Nofollow is recommended anywhere that links can’t be vouched for.


Use meta noindex and nofollow instead to remove pages and stop the SE from using up your bandwidth, if pages are connected afterwards this has an added bonus. rel=Nofollow will still let the SE eat up your bandwidth and if you want to control equity by removing lesser pages use the apporiate meta in the head it's more efficent and was designed for that purpose so is automatically better - tags should be used for there orginal purpose.

Also heavy use could harm you. I'm talking about excessive code bloat and page weight meaning it takes longer for the SE to do it's job and index the content, G wont stick around for ever it is constrined by time and electricity needs do you know in 2005 it used the same amount of eletricty then a US state- the things you learn from blogs, also it looks spammy if it's used excessivly.

If you are using this technique just upgrade to the proper meta tag.
Also if you want Google to stay out I've noticed, through testing I've done, that the re-visit after meta works.

Set that to 100 days as G will request the meta noindex page once a month to make sure the tag is still inplace thus eating slightly into your bandwidth whereas if you set it to 100 days it wont request it for 100 days.

At the moment my results have been up to 30 days and sure enough it stayed away exactly for 30 days. I started at 2 days then 7 then 15 then lastly 30.

I've uped it to 60 days now to see if there is a set limit and i will keep uping it till I see any different in my tracking.

Jaza

[beu]

4. Learning more about the tag. Matt's opinion, is one I will go with this time, and others about it use and saying that you don't want to trust the recieving page. If thats internally it sounds like it MAY be dodgy.

Excellent, EXCELLENT point Jazajay!

This is the same question I've had since Matt started digging more and more into the topic of "nofollow" recently.:confused:

In my previous post, I used "vouch" (v. To give personal assurances; give a guarantee) to help explain the function of the nofollow tag in links. I chose the word "vouch", because it's the word Google uses in their own "Information for Webmasters" example explanation of the nofollow attribute.

14. How do I tell Googlebot not to crawl a single outgoing link on a page?

Meta tags can exclude all outgoing links on a page, but you can also instruct Googlebot not to crawl individual links by adding rel="nofollow" to a hyperlink. When Google sees the attribute rel="nofollow" on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. For example a link,

<a href=http://www.example.com/>This is a great link!</a>

could be replaced with

<a href=http://www.example.com/ rel="nofollow">I can't vouch for this link</a>.

- http://scholar.google.com/webmasters/bot.html#www


That being the case, it seems Google must "handle" internal "nofollow"s differently than external nofollows as in my opinion any webmaster would "give personal assurances" for his/her own page. Surely webmasters wouldn't want to infer a lack of personal assurance in their own website? For these reasons, it seems like internal uses of nofollow must be interpreted by Google as actions designed to sculpt the flow of PageRank as Jewboy mentioned.

If internal and/or external nofollow links are interpreted the same way by Google. If the use of nofollow isn't viewed as a possible signal of non-guaranteed content by Google. I hope Google will reevaluate their use of the word "vouch" and select a word that more accurately communicates the intent or intended function of the attribute.:)

Can anyone provide clarification or comment "Official" or otherwise?

[JohnW]

>the re-visit after meta works

hahaha that's funny. Really, there is no such tag...

>Nofollow is recommended anywhere that links can’t be vouched for.

It's also appropriate for PR shaping inside the site.

[beu]

>the re-visit after meta works

hahaha that's funny. Really, there is no such tag...

>Nofollow is recommended anywhere that links can’t be vouched for.

It's also appropriate for PR shaping inside the site.

Sure, we know that but "vouch" implies some level of trust and I think that fact is confusing a lot of folks that aren't up to their necks in SEM 24/7.:) Clients who don't understand PR see nofollow and think you are treating their internal links as if they are spam based on Google's Information for Webmasters. That is the issue I have.

Here is a bit of triva for everyone!

Q. Where were nofollow tags first used?
A. http://www.cs.unc.edu/~cutts/

Based on those pages Matt seems to "vouch" for his own internal URLs by not using nofollows but at the same time "can't vouch" for links to his alma matter?

Bottom line, I think "vouch" is a little strong and conveys the wrong message especially when it's translated from English into another language or when dealing with clients with a limited knowledge of PR.

[JohnW]

>Bottom line, I think "vouch" is a little strong

Yep, I agree. Matt says "No stigma".

BTW here is where Matt clears the air on using nofollows for internal links

"There's no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow'ed links are dropped out of our link graph"

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/cf504ffd28b6bb68/21b12da30e8b0de2

[Jazajay]

hahaha that's funny. Really, there is no such tag...
So you are saying this tag does not exist?
I just want to clarify this tag does not exist. right?
So I just want to make crystal clear that this tag does not exist? :D

Hum I cant understand it then if that tag does not exist what have I been using then?
Well here's my code maybe you could explain in laymans terms to me then what this does.
<meta name="revisit-after" value="60">

Hum do you know html?
I think you need a refresher you should check out
this meta tag guide (http://www.submitcorner.com/Guide/Meta/) it has an interesting link about 3/4's the way down called
Revisit META Tag

But I'll give you the direct link to the page to save time.
www dot submitcorner dot com/Guide/Meta/revisit.shtml

Also another good tag is the meta robots.
Now this does exist and to save you saying it doesn't here's the link to the description and it's use. :D
meta robots use (http://www.submitcorner.com/Guide/Meta/robots.shtml)

Also here's some good sites on the use of the non-existent tag.
this one is from
www dot webdeveloper dot com/forum/showthread.php?t=110551

Quote:
......
The "revist-after" meta tag is a hint to robots or spiders as to when your site is next likely to be updated so that they will put it on the crawling list for the right day. It's used by giving a value in days with the value attribute. For example: Code:
<meta name="revisit-after" value="2">

Tells spiders that they can expect some changes if they revisit your site after two days.....Intressting that was from 2004 but it doesn't exist?

Actually it was developed for the local search engine search BC, local search engine for British Columbia. It is meant to be out of date and obsolete.

However those who know me know I don't trust anything from an external source unless -
1. I can test it for myself
2. Some one who I class as an expert/ authority and have respect for tells me otherwise.

So I decided to test this non-existent tag for my self and see what results if any I got.

This is the test I carried out variables and constants if you notice a flaw in my experiment please let me know.

1. I created 2 pages added a little content to match my site and keep SE interested.
2. I set one page as a constant - no meta revisit to test if both pages where being indexed for one thing
3. I set the number of days to low result and then I kept uping them if the test proved positive - not an indication that it worked just that the SE came back on that day. It could just be covincdance that the SE came back that day.
4. Placed both the pages on the home page to get indexed. removed after wards, and made sure they where off a 1 level deep dir.

so mysite/dir/page1||2

5. Checked the cache date of the page when my tracking said the SE had been round.

6. Keep the content static.

7. The page that contains the links to those 2 pages has 17 internal links my main section of my site and 9 external links to it, 3 of those external links are not in Google.

These where to be keept at a constant.

8. External links to the page, if I could help it, would be none.

here are the results so far
page A - no revisit after - constant
page B - contained meta revisit - the tag that doesn't exist.

test 1
I started at 2 days
page A re-indexed 2 days
page B re-indexed 2 days
Result - inconclusive.

test 2
7 days
page A re-indexed 3 days
page B re-indexed 7 days
Result - IMO inconclusive. (That is by no means to me this tag works just a possibility it does)

test3
15 days
page A re-indexed 5 days
page B re-indexed 14 days
Result - Interesting not what the meta says but the time frame of the re-visit between the 2 pages is intressting. No content was added.

test 4
30 days
Page A re-indexed 4 days
Page B re-indexed 30 days
Result - Possibiltiy that it works

My Conclusion
This tag does work to a degree test 3 is a git of a result.
More testing is required to prove how well it works. But I will use it on pages like contact-us etc.. that never change or I want indexed. The time frame of being indexed for page B is just to much of difference to ignore this tag in my eyes.
Page A, the constant, has expected results from other pages in that section of my site. Page B should follow suite if this tag didn't work.
Also with the fact that G has massive amounts of electricity usage it would make sense, from a company point of view and cost cutting, to take note of this tag when the page never changes and this has a far expiry date as it would save them money.

Now I know you can find lots of sites saying this tag does not work and it is obsolete. Hell I could get you 10 right now. But as I said If I cant prove it myself or be told from some one who I have grown to trust in that area I will test it for myself. My test is above. If you chose not to believe it I couldn't care less. I know my results and I have changed my none indexed pages accordingly.

Things I didn't test. Externally linking to the main page where the links where off. If those 3 sites got in Google.

If some one has noticed a flaw in my experiment not your personal opinion an honest flaw let me know.

I will even admit that G says this tag is useless
code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html

...
More pages use the completely worthless <meta name="revisit-after"> than use the <em> element!
....
Fine but that's my test and my results make of it what you wish.
But saying it does not exist is a bit strong, even G admits it exists?
that's like saying Lee Harvey Osworld Killed JFK with the magic bullet theory
Please bullets don't make U-turns even though the government likes to think they do :D

[JohnW]

>Hum I cant understand it then if that tag does not exist what have I been using then?

Well, anybdody can use any <duh>made-up tag</duh> that they want to, that doesn't make it a proper tag.

Thanks for the link
www dot submitcorner dot com/Guide/Meta/revisit.shtml
Did you read what they have to say about the meta refresh tag?

>I think you need a refresher you should check out

Maybe you should do little more research on it:
http://www.seoconsultants.com/meta-tags/revisit-after.asp

Perhaps Danny Sullivan says it best, "How about the meta revisit tag? This tag is not recognized by the major search engines as a method of telling them how often to automatically return. They have never supported it."
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931

[Jazajay]

seoconsultants was the link about the background of the tag.
Also they admit it exists.
My quote from Google admits it exists it EXISTS. I know you can make up tags but this one isn't.

Perhaps Danny Sullivan says it best, "How about the meta revisit tag? This tag is not recognized by the major search engines as a method of telling them how often to automatically return. They have never supported it."
Again didn't I say that

I will even admit that G says this tag is useless
code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html
Quote:
...
More pages use the completely worthless <meta name="revisit-after"> than use the <em> element!
....
Fine but that's my test and my results make of it what you wish.
But saying it does not exist is a bit strong, even G admits it exists?
Also dan says it exists. the link you gave says it exists
IT EXISTS

Do you read the posts or just skim
Heres what I said

Now I know you can find lots of sites saying this tag does not work and it is obsolete. Hell I could get you 10 right now. But as I said If I cant prove it myself or be told from some one who I have grown to trust in that area I will test it for myself. My test is above. If you chose not to believe it I couldn't care less. I know my results and I have changed my none indexed pages accordingly.
What I'm arguing about is that you say this tag does not exist when 2 references you gave to back it, say it does.

[beu]

>Yep, I agree. Matt says "No stigma".


Exactly, I'd like to see Google change their wording for folks that don't know Matt Cutts.:)

@Jazajay
The revisit-after META tag was developed for and used by a Canadian engine. JohnW is correct, engines don't really use it for as a source of information. It was originally developed when engines only crawled every few weeks. Some sites have content indexed in minutes.

[Jazajay]

Ok explain the flaw in my experiment?

[Jazajay]

The revisit-after META tag was developed for and used by a Canadian engine

Didn't I say that search BC
search British Comumbia

[beu]

yes you did :)

[JohnW]

>What I'm arguing about is that you say this tag does not exist when 2 references you gave to back it, say it does.

I will concede that once you put it on a page, it exists.

Here's one I like even better that the meta revisit:

<META name="PageRank" value="10">

[beu]

<META name="PageRank" value="10">

Yes, it's been a long time since I've seen that one but, it's still one of my all time personal favorites!:D

[lovekissing]

Hi.;)

Wat is the rel=nofollow attribute? hw to use it? wats the relationship of this tag in the ranking of website by google

thanks in advance........

nofollow links are those which when crawled by spiders whatever the link is directing you to will no longer be crawled by the spider...