Does External Nofollow Work?

Hey guys,

I have been looking at a few platforms for building backlinks and came across one that uses a rel="external nofollow" in the link. My general understanding is that this makes the link nofollow and thus provides little benefit to the site being linked to.

However, my Seo for Firefox and Search Status add-ons both neglect to highlight links with this attribute, which means that they do not recognize them as being nofollow. I have verified on several pages and each one comes up as a **************** link in both these plugins.

Any ideas, is the "external nofollow" ignored by SE or is this just a bug in these plugins?

Thanks

correct me if Im wrong but the rel= "external nofollow" opens the link in a new window right?
Based on what Ive read, this is just another preventative measure by blogs, forums and message boards to stop spammy comments, and Im pretty sure the SE's dont recognize them as significant so they wont count.
Like I said, Im not entirely sure that this is correct, maybe some more feedback from other members to get some opinions...

Posiedon said:

correct me if Im wrong but the rel= "external nofollow" opens the link in a new window right?
Based on what Ive read, this is just another preventative measure by blogs, forums and message boards to stop spammy comments, and Im pretty sure the SE's dont recognize them as significant so they wont count.
Like I said, Im not entirely sure that this is correct, maybe some more feedback from other members to get some opinions...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think you are correct. I believe the "external" tag serves the same purpose as target="_blank". However, I am wondering if the addition of nofollow in that rel tag is actually being considered nofollow by the SE's.

It is not being shown as a nofollow by the major firefox seo add-ons. Anyone else familiar with this?

Firefox SEO add-ons are easily fooled. If you put rel="d0follow" i a link on a nofollow blog, the firefox SEO tool will show relation:d0follow, despite there being no such tag in existence.

External nofollow is treated in the same way as other nofollow links.

I had the same prob. here is a way to customise stylish plugin to see all sorts of no follows, not just the common ones...
works like a charm.

http://www.inlineseo.com/blog/2008/06/10/how-to-easily-spot-nofollow-links/

I wish someone knew how to set it up to hilite the domain im currently working on doing backlinking as well...

If anyone is more familiar with this firefox plugin it would be a great share.

Sometimes when dropping links I look and find I already left one there earlier. .. would keep me from doing double work.