does google follow rel='external' links??

I know google doesnot follow no follow tag..but what about rel='external' ???

 

Of course google follow links with rel='external'. Otherwise how can it discover new websites?

 

well, i thought it crawls those links which have no rel tags..

 

This article should help.

http://ankitrawat.com/blog/relexternal-tag/

 

There is also a thread here at DP about this: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=61308

 

i think rel="external nofollow" can be used. of course it will be nofollow in this case...

 

Yes it follows them all

 

All links will be followed by Google Bot no matter what tags are assigned, the only difference is the 'nofollow' links wont pass PR value

 

No follow and rel='external' are the same. Pr value and weight will not be passed.

 

I am not sure but I think external and nofollow tags are the same. So I am not sure if google bot follow such links. May be you will find the answer in google webmaster groups.

 

No follow and rel='external' are NOT the same.

rel="external" is the xhtml valid code of the old (non xhtml valid) target="_blank"
target="_blank" is not supported in xhtml strict

It opens external links in a new window/tab but to use it requires the use of javascript as well.

function externalLinks() {
 if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return;
 var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
 for (var i=0; i<anchors.length; i++) {
   var anchor = anchors[i];
   if (anchor.getAttribute("href") &&
       anchor.getAttribute("rel") == "external")
     anchor.target = "_blank";
 }
}
window.onload = externalLinks;

Code (markup):

You can also use CSS as well if to place a small icon next to your links marking them as external such as...

a[rel="external"] { background-image: url(/pics/external.png)}

Code (markup):

 

External links works same as normal links.

 

I don't think so... I think Google bot don't follow any links with "nofollow" tag.

 

If it says "external" but NOT NoFollow, it's fine.

 

No any Different in external links and normal links

 

Hi,

In Google no matter what tags are assigned, the only difference is the 'nofollow' links wont pass PR value

 

So it means we have wasting our time on saying comments to any one.

 

I won't stop the robot to follow the links with external tag.