Do No Follow Links have Value?

[Nigel Farage]

A guy on another forum said that no follow links were ignored by Google and so therefore had no SEO value, and some of his other opinions seemed really dated, so I posted disagreement saying that no follow links have value now, and he's called me out on this and wants a link.

So, I had to rethink the whole notion that no follow links have value and why I believe this, and I've remembered that the reason is that Google started punishing for "unnatural link profiles" and so the response to that was to mix no follow links in to make the profile look natural, but I also have the belief that Google looks at keywords/anchor text in no follow links in order to determine relevance (even if the no follow attribute does not directly feed link juice). Still having a no follow backlink with relevant anchor text is better than having no backlink at all, or one that has anchor text that is completely irrelevant.

But I really don't know why I think this. Something I read somewhere plus my own intellectual activity "filling in the details" and so I'm reluctant to respond to the challenge by saying "Because I said so." because then naturally HIS response is going to be "Well who the fuck are you?" and then I'll have to tell him that I'm Nigel Farage from BHW and then it will be all over because Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes is going to seize on any association with the evil, dark-hearted criminals on BHW as being condemnatory to my character, which will then give me no other choice but to hunt him down and kill him. And rape his wife. And their little dog Toto, too.

So that's my dilemma, Dr. Laura. How do I constructively engage in a discussion about the value of no-follow backlinks without opening the door to murder, mayhem and public ridicule and scorn? Why do I think this? I also sort of, kind of think that Google doesn't really care as much about the "follow" attribute as it used to, which is not the same thing as asserting that the no-follow backlink has suddenly acquired SOME value, but since there are only two kinds of backlinks, and if one loses "juice" it's sort of intuitive that the other one gains. My head says "intellectually false", but my instinct says "TRUE".

So anyways. I missed this week's Anger Management class, and while I don't miss sobbing uncontrollably while punching a pillow, I do miss "sharing time" and hopefully I can use this post as a substitute.

 

[GiorgioB]

Nofollow links don't pass any link juice, but they are still taken into consideration by G. I believe Scritty's case study a few months back seemed to indicate that its better to have a certain of NF links, i believe around around 5-10%... So I think yes, they have value in terms of ranking and having a natural looking link profile, but no, they have no value in terms of link juice.

 

[Furious George]

I believe no follow links can't hurt, at all.

Surely when someone (even google) searches for that site, no follow links show up.

I can't give empirical data as to why I think nofollows are valuable.... but, content has always been king. Surely google knows what a nofollow link is and can detect when content is has a link, whether no follow or do follow.

 

[GiorgioB]

that was the one... so more than 1, but less than 50%...

 

[Nigel Farage]

So I think yes, they have value in terms of ranking ... no, they have no value in terms of link juice.

See this is the part I don't get. It makes no sense to me. Maybe YOU are the reason why I think like I do, and don't know why? You present to me what appears to be two mutually exclusive truths. If "ranking" is determined by juice, then they either do or not not help with ranking, because they either do or do not pass juice, and it's either one or the other, but not both.

Is how I see it. Maybe someone could whip out the tri-corder and realign the resistors in my positronic brain?

 

[GiorgioB]

well, ranking isn't only determined by juice.. as shown in the little diagram i posted.

think about it like this. you have a brick and mortar shop, and you want more and more people to come in. putting big signs in your windows saying "sales -50% off!" (consider this as ******** link building), but you also sponsor a local concert party in your city (nofollow link building).

your ad in the magazine may help a little bit.. its not contradictory or harmful to your business or to your big sales signs.. but its not going to have a immediate and/or direct impact, but its still useful.

Actually, i''m not sure how relevant this example is, but i guess i see it as something like that...

 

[SEO_Alchemy]

All I know is noFollow links show up in Webmaster Tools Backlinks, so google sees them and google tracks them, and that's good enough for me.

 

[VinceC]

All I know is noFollow links show up in Webmaster Tools Backlinks, so google sees them and google tracks them, and that's good enough for me.

Yes it always good to mix it up more than I variable. Looks natural too.

 

[TehEpidemick]

Its amazing how much consideration we put into this. lets just go rob the government like all the rich people. But yes, No Follow links help make a link portfolio make legit, G is very....thorough.

 

[Nigel Farage]

well, ranking isn't only determined by juice.. as shown in the little diagram i posted.

Well, you see Dr. Laura, you seem to keep changing the definition of the word "juice" on me. "Juice", as I understand it, is the cumulative effect on all of those factors your nifty chart illustrates. Each page has juice.

But when we're talking about "backlink juice", that's not the juice itself per se, but rather how much of one page's juice gets "transmitted" to another page. So all those other factors contribute to the page's "intrinsic" juice (the juice that the page has all on it's own), while what I'm talking about is "transmitted juice" or "backlink juice".

Seems to me that these are two completely different things.

 

[anuj291]

Yes they are important.. They help to diversify your links...
All big sites usually are no follow... So will you not take their links?

 

[nanavlad]

About a year ago I ran a test on this
99% of the links I built where nofillow apart from a little bookmarking the rest where all no follow wikis

I basically hit 1st page on google for 30 keywords, with this site

The keywords when not overly Difficult, but where not easy by any means

I think we are reading the value of NoFollow wrong
The nofollow tag means no juice is taken from the outgoing link

But I Believe a equivalent amount of juice is generated by the link itself.

Now things have changed in the past year Google has devalued the alue of these links
Blame all the wiki bots, and have even gone so far as to penalize sites with an above average amount of nofollow

I believe about 10% NoFollow, is the most advantageous, above that you are heading towards the penaly

This is only my opinion, I have not proven it to my satisfaction yet. If somebody has tested this,I for one would be very interested in their results.

 

[Techxan]

Your question is do they have value in ranking a site, not do they pass link juice for PR.

Yes they have value for ranking, because they pass domain authority. DoF links pass page rank. Domain authority contributes to your trust factor, and to your page rankings.

Diverse linking, including NoF, contributes to your ranking.

Do they pass PR, no. Do thy have value? Yes.

 

[domainmadness]

I'm looking into this and it seems like there's really not definitive answer. All answers in this thread are just speculation and opinions without any facts - at least no sources.

I don't, by all means, believe everything what our friend Matt Cutts talks in his videos, but he just recently said that Nofollow links are dropped out of their link graph. If that is true, then nofollow link don't have ANY value other than if it drives traffic. If it's not part of the link graph, it doesn't contribute for you anchor distribution, don't add trust, authority or relevancy like some of you seem to think.

Problem is that how we know if Mr. Cutts is being genuine or is he just trying to mislead us? It looks like pagerank will be history soon and since nofollow attributes whole purpose is to control the flow of pagerank, whole nofollow attribute is becoming obsolete when pagerank is not used anymore. And of course that opens new holes in search algorithms and that would give Matt good reason to mislead everyone.

But I don't know. What you think?

 

[Tactician]

I don't think its bad idea to have a mild percentage of nofollow links but too many can hurt your site.

E: I just started working on a UKIP branch website this week

 

[SerpEvil]

nofollow links have more value than u can think.

 

[john1444]

You have said it all.

For your link profile to appear natural you need to get a consistent
flow of do and no follow links, diversify your anchor among others.

 

[GangsterWilly]

I wish i could read mats face when he is telling bshit and when he is telling truth like in tv serial "Lie to me"

 

[Nigel Farage]

...diversify your anchor among others.

Disagree, I think.

Define "diversify". On a site that sells sex toys, should the anchor text "penis pump" be diversified into "garden pump", "swimming pool pump" and "pump and dump"?

What about completely irrelevant text such as "aircraft design", and "wholesale bugles".

In this new environment, I don't think it's enough to simple avoid beating the keyword "penis pump" to death repetitively, and that's what the simplistic word "diversify" means. If one is going to blackhat game the Google algorithm, they are going to have to put some effort into achieving semantically relevant anchor texts. Sure, "Click Here" and "Website" needs to be thrown in for naturality (I just made that word up), but other than getting a +1 on the website naturality and diversity scale, they don't help with anything else.

Here's one ding-dong's opinion on the matter:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/content-marketing-optimisation-how-to-avoid-future-penalties/57322/

 

[untwisted]

They are an absolute must, but only as part of a healthy link profile. And might as well make them niche relevant.