Wikipedia defines the nofollow link attribute as “an HTML attribute value used to instruct some search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index.” So why is this important to us as bloggers, and when would you want to use this attribute when linking to other sites?
Why are nofollow attributes important?
At their most basic, nofollow attributes control the flow of page rank or “link juice” between sites. When you allow your link juice to flow through to another site, a search engine takes that as kind of a personal endorsement from your site.
Where this gets tricky is in reviews, giveaways, affiliate links, and any other kind of sponsored content. Google’s algorithm does not look positively on follow links (any link not using the nofollow attribute) to any form of sponsored content because it is perceived as a paid endorsement which has all kinds of inherent problems.
When should you use the nofollow attribute?
That brings us to which instances you should use a nofollow attribute. You generally will want to use a nofollow attribute on your links in all of the instances named above: review, giveaways, affiliate links, basically any instance where a case could be made that you were influenced to link to a site by being compensated in some way.
How do I insert the nofollow attribute?
The nofollow attribute means you are simply inserting rel=”nofollow” within the HTML when hyperlinking to another site:
<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.yourlinkhere.com” target=”_blank”>Link Text Here</a>
If you’re really interested in this attribute, a quick search will turn up even more instances where you may want to use it to control link juice within your own site, but that’s really a little deeper than most of us will want to delve into this topic. My personal policy is to use nofollow on the instances I’ve outlined and to always use follow links for my fellow bloggers in my posts, and I believe that should be sufficient for most blogs.
Tara Kuczykowski blogs daily at Deal Seeking Mom where she helps others pay less for everyday necessities, with the occasional tip for saving on a splurge tossed in!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
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5 Dollar Dinner Mom Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
I “nofollow” any website that is not a blog, regardless of payment/affiliate link. That is what I do and recommend.
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I actually never saw my site rise above a pr 2 when I had the button. Then -even though I was experiencing more traffic than ever Google dropped me to a 1. Thats when I got rid of my PR button.
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Thanks Tara for the great article!
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Mommy Snacks Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
http://blog.bunkbedsnow.com/nofollow/
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Adam Melson Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I wouldn’t worry as much about javascript affiliate links. The engines have a hard time reading javascript and there’s a good chance they will not be able to access the link. In terms of CJ links, from my experience, they run through an unfriendly redirect and do not pass value. Because of this, nofollow or not, value will not pass and the engines do not care. Something very minor that I wouldn’t worry about.
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If you’re a review blogger and you’re reviewing the brand new huffy bike that your son/daughter is loving, you should absolutely link to Huffy’s site. They created an excellent product that you can fully endorse.
The grayer areas are when you’re a bike site and huffy sends you a bike with some cash to review positively. That’s where Google and blogging ethics can come more into play.
I feel like this is frightening people into using it when the main story is that Google is just against paid links. So – if a company or blogger is hosting a giveaway that is great and worthwhile, use a regular open link. If you’re reviewing a product you weren’t paid to review, use a regular open link.
If a company asks you to review a product and pays you, absolutely make the money, but if you want to be completely white and blameless in the eyes of Google, let them know you’ll review the product, but place the nofollow attribute on their links.
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This is truly a great post. The main question I have today is how you actually implement this in your WP posts.
I know there are plugins to add nofollow to all links in the post, but we definitely don’t want to do that. As you mention, we want to give as much link-juice to any fellow bloggers! Also, we have times that we want the link juice for our internal links as well. So, that option is out.
I have looked at one such plugin “Nofollow link” which places an icon in your Visual editor that you can click when you select each link, but there are some limitations with that. First, the plugin hasn’t been updated since 12/2010 (the plugin appears abandoned) as well as the plugin site showing that it works up to WP 3.0.5. Second, when you click a link you have no indication if you already applied the nofollow nor can you do so to a link on an image. I just feel uncomfortable applying the nofollow to links using this outdated plugin.
So do you mind if I ask how you awesome bloggers implement this in your own posts? Do you have a plugin you recommend or do you just go into your html editor and add it manually to all your links?
Thank you all so much! You truly give and give!
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