What is rel='external nofollow'?

Google, Yahoo and MSN are all to be using the rel=nofollow tag, now the rel='external nofollow' is an incorrect version of the tag, that might be support by some but not all se's.
external nofollow works the same as nofollow tag but this tag opens links in a new window instead of the same window. If you want to try just add rel="external" it will open the link in a new window. it sort of works like target=_blank. Target blank opens all hypertext links in the new window and rel=external nofollow, blocks all link juice and opens the link in a new window.

 

The main difference I feel is citing the fact that the following link is not within the existing site and you are not responsible for the content relevancy or quality. Whereas when you mention only nofollow it says that though the page is within the existing site but you don't want search engines to share the link love with the following link. In this way you mention that the content in the following link is of quality and related.

 

I agree - many blogs are using this tag!

 

Not true. Without any "tricks", e.g. JS, rel="external" does nothing. The browser does not know if it's a link to an external site or not. Try out yourself.

If you use some jQuery then it is easy to achieve.

For example:

$('a[rel=external]').attr('target', '_blank');

Code (markup):

 

I totally agree with you pal. But.. what do you want? Message from multippt was posted in 2007. Almost 4 year ago. It's way too old message and maybe something changed for 4 years. Don't you think?

 

Doesn't matter, people are still getting this thread via Google. People believe garbage, so let's mix it up for them by adding a bit of truth here and there to liven it up.

No, it won't.

 

I am using "external" only with jQuery snippet like

$("a[rel*=external]").attr( "target", "_blank" );

Code (markup):

I do it because in that case my XHTML is valid and the site opens in new window then.

 

Anyone know if this external nofollow helps move up in search engine rankings

Thanks,
Gate Opener Guru
http://www.automatic-gate-depot.com

 

No, it doesn't.

 

Regarding my personal experiences, I have checked some of websites that are very high in Google (top 3) for the phase I am interested in.
I have checked their back-links and there are a lot of "nofollow" links there.
So I am wondering whether "nofollow" really does not have any influence on position of a website in Google?
I can guess it does not help you to increase PR, but how about its position?

 

Pardon my butting in, but rel="external nofollow" no longer works. At least not for me. Not sure exactly when it stopped, but once I removed the nofollow, the rel="external" started working again.

 

Almost all blogs use this tag.