Should I Do it? NoFollow (Recprocal) Link Request

[corinaw]

I just received a reciprocal link request from the following site:

http://www . saltlist . com

via link page http: //www . saltlist . com/ partners / partners6.php (remove spaces)

However, when reviewing the site using the searchstatus extension in firefox, I see that all (internal site) references from saltlist com to the reciprocal link page includes the nofollow tag.

I’m a bit confused on the proper usage of the nofollow tag.

Since my site reciprocal links does not use the nofollow tag at all, would this exchange be shortchanging my site?

The reciprocal links individually are not specifying a nofollow (just at the main page level)

Anyone know the specific ramifications of this? Would you exchange links with this site? Does the nofollow at the page level impact all the links in the page

Somehow I get an unethical feeling from the site and exchange request.

Look at all the link exchanges that the site has, with presumably recip links from unsuspecting sites.

What would you do?

[Will.Spencer]

I believe the proper response would involve the use of significant amounts of invective.

This person is trying to get something for nothing.

[Michael]

Would you exchange links with this site? Certainly not! Linking to a banned site (and this site is banned from the Google index) is a one way trip to disaster. Even if it wasn't banned you only have to look at it for a micro-second to realize it is a totally crap site and any link from it will be worthless.

- Michael

[fsmedia]

I personally use nofollow with care and precision. I will nofollow certain links if I don't want bots seeing that I'm linking to them (maybe for personal sites or just sites that I only want traffic to), but never would I give a link exchange simply for a link that had nofollow. Yeah, if you're getting an inbound with a nofollow, your'e just getting traffic and nothing else.

[ViciousSummer]

Any site seeking link exchanges and then uses the nofollow tag to the page where they place your link is shady. Don't bother.

[marvinniven]

That searchstatus extension on Firefox sounds great. I have recently installed Firefox and am just starting to use it - how do I install that extension?

[sufyaaan]

You can get it directly from http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/download.php

[seo_expert]

I have been using that tool for quite some time now and love it.

[corinaw]

Marvinniven:
in firefox, hit tools, extensions, then get more extensions. You will see a whole list of fun add-ons. After you install the searchstatus extension, restart firefox. Right click the blue searchstatus extension and select highlight nofollow links.

That's it. Another way to keep ahead of the bad guys!

Thanks everyone for the info!

[marvinniven]

Thanks for the links and instructions. I will give it a go.

[YoungSmeagol]

Yeah he is a link farm. The site is brand new 10/29/05 so it wouldn't have a page rank by now but it should have a PR of zero. Don't exchange links with him.

MSN and Yahoo still read links with the nofollow tag. If anything the nofollow tag would be good for Affiliate Links.

[Will.Spencer]

MSN and Yahoo still read links with the nofollow tag.

I do not believe this to be true.

See: Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728)

[marvinniven]

I installed the searchstatus extension and it is great. I am amazed to find how often nofollow is used. Including in the forum where most of the information in a profile is tagged nofollow. sufyaaan & corinaw - thanks for the directions on how to set this up.

[neof]

If you have lots of link partners, it can be tedious to check everyone periodically. In addition to nofollow, there are many other technques to block search engines, such as noindex, robots.txt, meta tags, etc.

Linkscitadel.com provides an environment that will check all link exchange partners for the items you have discussed here.
1. site index by google
2. noindex, nofollow
3. robots.txt
4. meta tags
5. others