Need Your Help with Google and NoFollow Links

[JBatman]

Ok, hopefully someone here can answer this, I can't post links yet so w3 is actually www:


How does GoogleBot process NoFollow links? Does GoogleBot follow html validation or not? For instance if a link has an invalid attribute will GoogleBot still process it or does it disregard the link entirely?

Example:

Flickr changed their outgoing links/comments, etc to NoFollow.... which looks like this now after you submit a link:

<a href="w3.MySite.com" rel="nofollow">MySite</a>

BUT they still allow for the "rel" attr when posting links in comments and such and if you add it into your link and post it comes out like this:

<a href="w3.MySite.com" rel="********" rel="nofollow">MySite</a>

Which correct me if I'm wrong but duplicate attributes is invalid, so does it get thrown out by Google or what?

If I use the Firefox NoFollow plugin the link shows up as normal (blue) instead of red for nofollow

 

[evamenders]

Hey JBatman
have you read Matt Cutts on Nofollow, Links-Per-Page and the Value of Directories about it
-http://www.seomoz.org/blog/questions-answers-with-googles-spam-guru

I do not understand why you want a nofollow ????
only 1 follow is enought

do it easy internet is Maths easy like 1 -0
no more
always human want to do it stronger
that give bots funny

good luck

 

[oldenstylehats]

Ok, hopefully someone here can answer this, I can't post links yet so w3 is actually www:


How does GoogleBot process NoFollow links? Does GoogleBot follow html validation or not? For instance if a link has an invalid attribute will GoogleBot still process it or does it disregard the link entirely?

Example:

Flickr changed their outgoing links/comments, etc to NoFollow.... which looks like this now after you submit a link:

<a href="w3.MySite.com" rel="nofollow">MySite</a>

BUT they still allow for the "rel" attr when posting links in comments and such and if you add it into your link and post it comes out like this:

<a href="w3.MySite.com" rel="********" rel="nofollow">MySite</a>

Which correct me if I'm wrong but duplicate attributes is invalid, so does it get thrown out by Google or what?

If I use the Firefox NoFollow plugin the link shows up as normal (blue) instead of red for nofollow

As far as I understand, Google would process the rel="nofollow" as the dominant attribute. You could test this by uploading an HTML file to a server you own and linking to it using an anchor tag with dueling "follows" and from nowhere else. See what happens.

Hey JBatman
have you read Matt Cutts on Nofollow, Links-Per-Page and the Value of Directories about it
-http://www.seomoz.org/blog/questions-answers-with-googles-spam-guru

I do not understand why you want a nofollow ????
only 1 follow is enought

do it easy internet is Maths easy like 1 -0
no more
always human want to do it stronger
that give bots funny

good luck

You are my favorite BHW user. I just wanted you to know that.

 

[JBatman]

err.. let me clarifiy,

I'm asking this question in regards to backlinks. If a link contains an invalid attribute does Googlebot: toss out the link completely, ignore the attribute that's invalid, or in this case scan the link for the "nofollow" and drop the link from indexing.

 

[JBatman]

hmm... I think I may try that idea, thanks! So far any tool/plugin I scan that comment with on Flickr reports it as being a valid outgoing link; however, I don't know how Google feels about it.

 

[oldenstylehats]

hmm... I think I may try that idea, thanks! So far any tool/plugin I scan that comment with on Flickr reports it as being a valid outgoing link; however, I don't know how Google feels about it.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say they've prepared for the possibility of disagreeing rel attributes, but there is only one way. I'll do a test too and we can compare results.

 

[JBatman]

If I had to take a guess, I'd say they've prepared for the possibility of disagreeing rel attributes, but there is only one way. I'll do a test too and we can compare results.

There are some discussions I found out on the google webmaster forums from late 2008 of site owners complaining about people posting links with duplicate rel tags and being indexed by Google; Google did not respond with a valid solution, which is why I'm a bit intrigued. I wish I could find the link to that discussion...

 

[squelsh]

Did anyone try this out? If not I could give it a go sometime and post any results here

 

[JBatman]

Go for it, I want to but I just don't have the time to do it right as of late

 

[squelsh]

Cool I will give this a shot over the next few days and let you know how I get on..

I'll set up a new web page with no links to the page whatsoever.. Probably try and make the page as unique as possible - text, titles, headers etc

Then I'll find a site that uses the nofollow tag (wetpaint perhaps?) and point a link from a unique article with a nofollow. Probably throw in some unique anchor text to see what happens to that.

Happy to try this once.