I've just been catching on to dofollow linking. Won't google catch onto this? It's obviously trying to manipulate the PR of whatever site you are linking to. I've just read about a new SEO method of using dofollow blogs to link to a google profile. This is in order to channel link luv to you profile page then you can link from you profile to your webpage. A question to SEO experts. Feel free to PM answers if you want. Is this something that has been used for a long time? Wouldn't google not sniff out this sort of thing? Or could it just be seen as a normal form of linkage?
99.999+% of the links on the web are 'do' FOLLOW links. There is absolutely nothing wrong with FOLLOW links. NOFOLLOW was invented to fight spam. You are free to use 'do' FOLLOW links as much as you want if you think the URL you are linking to will benefit your visitors. The fact that the link ALSO provides SEO benefits to the target URL is not important. Linking to other URLs for the SOLE purpose of manipulating the SERPs is, however, a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, so don't get caught up in participating in linking schemes unless you're willing to accept the conscequences if you're caught. Google simply recommends that if you cannot vouch for a site you are linking to then you should NOFOLLOW the link. Because if you link to a "bad neighborhood" site then you could be penalized. There is nothing wrong with you using a 'do' FOLLOW link to link to a Google profile page. Here is a good video by Matt Cutts on FOLLOW/NOFOLLOW that might help.
If everybody stops 'dofollowing' links, then google's algorithm collapses, because it's predicated on the 'a link to a site is a vote for that site' principle.
I've been a bit concerned about this myself but I finally decided to give it a try after one of my top sites disappeared from the listing on it main keywords. It would be hard for me to make much worse than it already is for that site so what the heck.
canonical, thanks, you sound like you know what you are talking about. What are your views on contextual link building using blogs....i'm looking for blog owners who would give a link back to my site in return for some free unique content.
I think contextual links are the best types of link building... whether 1-way, 2-way, 3-way, etc. It legitimizes somewhat the notions of link exchanges. It works very well for blogs as well as traditional web sites. Let me explain. If you write a guest post for another blog, it is to your advantage to write something that is going to be useful to the other site's visitors. If it provides their users some benefit (relevant info typically) then it does not matter that you gain SEO benefits from linking back to your site. I would use the following guidelines: 1) Decide which URL on your site you are trying to rank and for which keyword phrase you are targeting that URL to rank. 2) Identify blogs and traditional web sites which are complementary to the topic of your site. Avoid competitor sites - other sites targeting that same keyword. Competitor sites will be much less likely to take you up on your offer. For example, if you sell "solar fans" on your blog, don't bother trying to get other sites and blogs that sell solar fans to accept your offer for free content containing links back to your site. It's not going to happen. Instead, look for eco-friendly sites... green sites... or roofing companies with web sites to who might be responsible for installing the fans... or builders who have sites that promote green houses... etc. 3) Be SURE the title of the article includes the keyword phrase you are targeting. If they put this on their blog it will likely automatically get rendered as an <h2> while the post appears on the home page and and <h1> on the actual page where the post itself lives. It will also usually be used as the URI for the page... so you get a keyword rich URL for your page containing your targeted keyword phrase. 4) Write the post or article from the others site's perspective since it is their visitors for whom it is being written. But keep in mind the keyword phrase you're trying to promote on your site, and include that phrase (or sub phrases) several times throughout the post or article. Use slight variations (singular vs plural, different conjugations or tenses of keywords that are verbs, etc) of the targeted keyword phrase. Also use phrases that would be considered by Lexical Semantic Analysis throughout the article. So in a post about "car maintenance" include words like auto, automobile, vehicle, service, clean... You can find such words by setting your preferences to 100 results per page at Google and searching for "~car" and "~maintenance" and seeing which words they bold in the SERPs. 5) It's legitimate for you to include 1, 2, maybe 3 links back to your site within the post itself. Hyperlink the keyword phrase you're targeting preferably near the top of the article (1st paragraph or 2). If you include more than 1 link back to your site then I would suggest the links be to different pages on your site with different targeted link text. Avoid putting 3 links in the post or article back to the same page on your site with slight variations in link text. You'll get more benefit by promoting 3 URLs on your site for 3 keyword phrases than you will from having 3 links in the same post back to a single URL on your site. However, make sure that the 3 pages you link to are all related topics to the post. I think contextual links like these are the BEST implementation of link exchanges. It looks the most natural and I think contextual links provide a better SEO benefit than say a simple blog roll entry. Blog rolls typically want to link to you with the name of your site "Joe's Sports Cars" if your site is joessportscars.com... instead of "high performance sports cars" which might be the keyword phrase you're targeting. And they typically only want to link to your home page in a blog roll, footer link, links page link, and other places where links are typically placed in a link exchange. For reciprocal and other n-way link exchanges between sites, using contextual links within posts and articles make it next to impossible to prove that it was an exchange for SEO purposes only.
interestingly from my observation even no follow links seem to be given some (maybe lesser) importance by google
I agree with this and also I have to say what about a blogger that has a blog that writes u8nique articles abut other websites??/ now since I write articles here at Kauaimassages.com/blog Can I link to the website??? or will or is this violation? should I add the nofollow tag to the link??? or is this fine by Google??? I would not want it to look like link spam ... an such>??? S) nrn
I agree with you. Thanks for nice information. Do follow link will not be counted as black hat, directory submission is not black hat technique and lots of outbound links are are on directories with do follow tag.
I too agree above one-way linking is okay as long as you're leaving your links on a relevant blog about the types of products and services you are carrying just remember you need to know how and where to go and do one-way linking don't just go on a broadband trying to link the blogs leaving your links all over backing the spam to
Canonical has is spot on as usual. the links will be relevant and lets face it who wouldn't want want someone to write good quality content for our site free of charge.
nofollow links also counts as a link. It just doesn't pass the page rank so any kind of linking is good.