Are you new to the world of Search Engine Optimization? You must have heard about ‘Do-Follow Links’ and ‘No-Follow Links’ quite repeatedly, but do you know what exactly these 2 variety of links are and how important they are to all of us?
Don’t worry even if you don’t know, In this blog, I’m going to clear up all the confusion about the Do-Follow and the No-Follow links.
Don’t worry even if you don’t know, In this blog, I’m going to clear up all the confusion about the Do-Follow and the No-Follow links.
What Is A Do-Follow Link?
Before we start discussing about Do-Follow Links, let us understand how links work in the world of SEO, Whenever a website page gets an inbound link, which is a hyperlink redirecting to that particular page, the web page gets a mini SEO boost. So, a link is just like a gift and the more number of times the page link is put somewhere, the more number of gifts your web-page gets.
Now, Google is smart enough!!, it takes note of all these points. Google knows it better than any of us, that if a lot of people are linking to a particular page, then it must be an awesome webpage!, hence Google will give preference in the search engines to that page over all the other pages with the similar topic. This is how Google delivers the most high-quality pages to our search engine users.
Google created a measuring meter called PageRank, to calculate all the URL links. Many of the SEO folks refer to the URL links/link points as “link juice”. Now, this link juice flows down through the websites into newer sites mainly through hyperlinks. The more renowned a particular website is, the larger amount of link juice will flow through to the linked-to site.
Hmm, So now you know that Do-Follow Links are, pushing the SEO link juice and boosting the page rank of the linked-to sites, thus helping them rank higher in the Search Engine Result Pages.
What Is A No-Follow Link?
A No-Follow link? What’s that?
It is a link that doesn’t count as a gift for the web-page. It’s not good for the WebPage, as No-Follow links are not in favour of the web-page. A No-Follow link doesn’t boost the PageRank and does not help place a page in the top Search Engine Result Pages. To be precise, No-Follow Links are abandoned (left out) links, which get no love at all. There is not much happiness in their life. They lead a sad and lonely life.
A no-follow link is made with the no-follow link HTML tag, which looks like this:
<a href=”http://www.website.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a>
The no-follow tag is simply a notice sign for the search-engines saying “Don’t Include This”. Isn’t that horribly mean and pathetic for a web-page?? There’s a specific reason for the no-follow attribute, and it’s a good reason! Let's find out the reason below.
In this imperfect world of ours, there are some SEO experts who surprisingly have no knowledge of SEO at all. They think they are over-smart and hence they try to trick the search engines and boost their rankings using black-hat SEO, or unethical methods, but before the No-Follow attribute came into being, link-building was the simplest way to artificially enhance the page rankings.
As soon as PageRank was discovered by the SEO black-hats, everything started going wrong! Suddenly it was only about ways to generate more and more links for Search Engine Optimization. More inbound links always meant improved Page Rank, and all sorts of unfair Search Engine Optimization strategies were being put to use, even if it meant spamming everyone on the web.
Blog comments and other comments on YouTube etc became a joke, topped over with self-promotional rubbish and all sorts of unwanted URL links.
No-Follow Tag: Isn’t Considered Important, But The Internet Cannot Completely Do Away With It
As soon as PageRank was discovered by the SEO black-hats, everything started going wrong! Suddenly it was only about ways to generate more and more links for Search Engine Optimization. More inbound links always meant improved Page Rank, and all sorts of unfair Search Engine Optimization strategies were being put to use, even if it meant spamming everyone on the web.
Blog comments and other comments on YouTube etc became a joke, topped over with self-promotional rubbish and all sorts of unwanted URL links.
No-Follow Tag: Isn’t Considered Important, But The Internet Cannot Completely Do Away With It
The requirement for a no-follow tag highlights the twisted and spammy mentality linked to SEO, but whatever we say, we just can’t survive without it.
The no follow link cannot be completely ignored because it has done a lot of good for the online world. Most of the SEO spammers wouldn’t be bothered about posting unnecessary links to blogs or forum posts if they knew that they won’t get to publish a follow link. WordPress assigns the no-follow link attribute to all user submitted links, and Wikipedia does the same for its reference portion.
The no follow link cannot be completely ignored because it has done a lot of good for the online world. Most of the SEO spammers wouldn’t be bothered about posting unnecessary links to blogs or forum posts if they knew that they won’t get to publish a follow link. WordPress assigns the no-follow link attribute to all user submitted links, and Wikipedia does the same for its reference portion.
- Blog spam still happens but No-Follow links have reduced them to a huge extent
Sometimes, as a web-expert, you might get confused about when to use the Follow links and when to use the No-follow links.
No follow links include
- Paid links (although it won’t be fair to buy link juice, would it?)
- comments
- Forums
No-Follow links provide valuable referral traffic, so they aren’t completely worthless. In the next blog, I’ll discuss a few other details about the "Follow" and "No-Follow" links. Hope you all enjoyed reading this.
Source Link: AppSierra Blog
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