I'm curious if when Google sees a link that has a nofollow attribute, does it skip the text of that link? I ask because I have an eBay style store which has nofollow links, but the text of those links has a ton of good keyword data, by their very nature. Anyone have an idea?
It is generally understood that nofollow links are not followed by Google. However, I have come across some cases where google had followed the nofollow links and ranked the pages. I suspect, it could be because of some other factors too...!
Hey there, I read somewhere google may follow the nofollow links to index new content. However, PR juice is not passed to the linked page. If you do not want a page indexed, it is best to use a NOINDEX attribute in the robots meta tag or restrict the page in the robots.txt file. Sincerely, Travis Walters
Nope, the only difference between a link and a link with nofollow tag is, no PR is passed to the page your link is pointing to. Don't be confused by the term "nofollow" it does not mean that the bots won't follow that link, they do!
NOFOLLOW is suppose to help prevent SERP manipulation but it doesn't seem to be fully implemented just yet. Eventually it will be but when exactly that will be is anyone's guess.
as per my experience google will not follow that link but link anchor text will be count in your keyword density. and that will help in SERP
Thanks, but I understand the point of nofollow links. My question was if Google comes across the nofollow link, does it skip the anchor text of that link as well, not counting it towards page content?
I have seen Google and other search engines follow links marked as nofollow, with pages even getting indexed... Nofollow links are not supposed to be spidered by Search Engines so who knows why that happens.
If you use a link with "nofollow" why would spiders not index that page? That way I could block half of the internet's pages. Just create a million of "nofollow" links and block 'em all I think ANY inbound link is good for SEO. Even if it's a nofollow, I don't mind a thousand of these.
Hi, If Google sees nofollow as part of a link, it will: a) Not follow through that page. b) Not count the link in calculating PageRank link popularity scores. c) Not count the anchor text in determining what terms the page being linked is relevant for. The nofollow attribute DOES NOT mean that someone will prevent a page they do not actually control from being indexed, however, if Google finds even one ordinary link pointing at a page, it may then index that page. Have a nice day!
The answer is, don't worry so much about nofollow. It's possible that someone can use a "nofollow" attribute on the link and the linked page will show up. This is because there is nothing on the linked page to stop the search engines from indexing it. therefore, don't forget the "noindex" attribute in the meta tag of the actual page that you don't want indexed. This is where server side includes are really useful because you can set the header attributes for numerous pages in one file.
I appreciate the answer, but I didn't ask that question. I'm not asking about the linked page or how the nofollow attribute itself works. I'm asking if the ANCHOR TEXT of the link will get skipped/ignored in a link with a nofollow attribute and not count as page content. Let me illustrate, given this link: <a href="some/affiliate/link/goes/here" rel="nofollow">anchor text here with lots of keywords</a>; Google comes along, starts to index this page and sees this link. Will it: a) count the "anchor text here with lots of keywords" as page content b) skip that text since there is a nofollow. I'm not concerned with whether or not it will actually follow the link (although it shouldn't). I want to know if it will still see the anchor text. I want it to since that text has good keyword data, by design of the site (a store). Hope that better explains it. Thanks!
Matt Cutts just answered this question in-depth via an interview with Eric Enge today - http://www.voasi.com/2007/10/secrets-revealed-in-matt-cutts.htm