The Controversal NoFollow Tag Exposed!

The Controversal NoFollow Tag Exposed!

The NoFollow Tag… To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question!

There seems to be some controversy about the nofollow tag! There are many SEO Experts out there that have different opinions about whether the nofollow tag should exist or not.

Here is one link to endorse the concept to remove the nofollow tag: 13 Reasons Why the NoFollow Tag Sucks!

On the other hand, here is an endorsement to keep the nofollow tag in place and include it for your internal links also: Using the NoFollow Attribute!

Why the NoFollow tag was Created!

The nofollow tag was initially created to keep spammers from leaving links back to their sites on every possible forum, blog and social network with the hopes of creating better search engine rankings. This “Nofollow” attribute also provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or “Don’t follow this specific link.” Google appears to follow this rule more strictly than the Yahoo and MSN search engines.

Question is, Do We Allow it or Do We Not?

As mentioned above, using the nofollow tag in blog comments was actually the original purpose for creating the tag. Blogging communities have plugins that help weed out the spammers that will negatively affect your page ranking.

For bloggers, if you feel the necessity to get rid of the nofollow tag, then there is a question to ask yourself. Do you endorse the website that you will be linking to? If your choice is to recognize and reward trustworthy contributors, then you can decide to manually or automatically remove the nofollow tag for those that have made high quality contributions.

If you happen to have a site driven by WordPress, then you can get the DoFollow Plugin if you decide removing the nofollow tag is right for you.

NOTE: This plugin will only disable the nofollow tag from your comments section, you will still have the option to add the nofollow tag to individual links.

When Should We Use the NoFollow Tag?

You will want to use the rel=”nofollow” tag on links leaving your site that you cannot vouch for. Let’s say that you are a blogger, and you have the WordPress plugin DoFollow… what if you have a trusted commenter, but they leave a outbound link to an affiliate product… what do you do then? You don’t want to be rude by removing this outbound link, so now is the time to manually insert the nofollow tag.

This is where knowing how to add the nofollow tag to this link comes in handy. Here is how you would create a nofollow tag for a single link.

<a href=”https://beyondthinking15.blogspot.com/ ” rel=”nofollow”>beyondthinking15.blogspot.com</a>

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”https://beyondthinking15.blogspot.com/”>beyondthinking15.blogspot.com</a>

Either way is fine, there is no right or wrong.

NOTE: Do not allow outgoing paid links to negatively influence your site, so Google urges you to use the nofollow tags on such links. If you happen to link to a “Register Here” or “Sign In” type of page, you will need to use the nofollow tag, because the Googlebot cannot sign in or register on this type of site.

Closing Comments about the NoFollow tag!

Whatever your decision is about the nofollow tag, just remember that one high-level link can be more effective than several lower-level links. Having both in-bound and out-bound links adds strength to your site in the eyes of search engines (as long as there is site relevancy), and it also gives your site credibility and respect.

Good news for those in the blogging community. If you use the CommentLuv feature for your comments section, this feature does not have the nofollow tag attached to the link. To make a long story short, if you are moderating your comments, and you trust the author of the website, then you can trust the link attached to the CommentLuv because it should go to the same site.