Google brought up the huge discussion of paid links vs non-paid links; nofollow, or dofollow, or don’t use anything at all. This is a huge discussion among SEOs and webmasters around the world.
Today’s topic is about whether or not you should nofollow links within your posts.
The short answer is, no, you shouldn’t nofollow links within your posts. Here’s why.
The web is built up of links pointing to other sites. That’s how Mashable.com, or CNN.com, or Engagdet.com got to be as powerful as they are, as a domain.
Then with the introduction of a new eco-system, “paid links” were created.
So why “rel=nofollow”? This was created to discredit sites that were paying for links, to help normalize the search rankings. Nofollow has been abused, extremely abused.
The reason I strongly advise not nofollowing links is that it breaks up true authority within the web. Unless it’s a paid link, you really shouldn’t use nofollow. Links should flow freely for sites that you link to, to give them authority and trust, just like your own website is given trust and authority.
Here are what some of the folks on Twitter have to say about the topic:
Here’s what Google says … http://bit.ly/VPvxU
It gives suggestions on what to ‘no-follow.’
Seems like a ‘no-follow’ for ALL external links isn’t a good idea, though. Personally, for my own blogs, I use the plugin ‘External Links’ … I can set a ‘no-follow’ default for all links.
But, if I write a post and create an external link, I can add a local tag (see the plugin’s instructions) just for that link … giving my linked source proper link credit.
I agree, you shoulnd’t “never” put nofollow, but I think generally, it’s a good idea to link to out to sites you trust. I personally don’t really like wikipedia, so I never give them any link juice. But say, CNN.com, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t link to CNN, any link going there should be followed, in my opinion.
I am using no follow for all the external things now i need to re-think about it.
I think it’s very interesting that bloggers would choose to nofollow some links yet dofollow others.
Is there any rule that states a link must be included at all? I mean, if you’re going to quote a source (Google, CNN, Wikipedia) it tells your readers that you feel the source has some credibility – unless the reference is derogatory. Bottom line when it comes to major news or information sources most people will go and find the site anyway if they are interested enough. My blog is dofollow for the benefit of other bloggers not news sites.
I think this is a good conversation to have because there is a wide range of views on the subject. Thanks for getting it going.
@Ileane
Ileane,
I don’t think there’s any “rule” on the web that you must link, but it’s proper edicate and proper form. Just like when writing a paper in school, you must cite your sources. In the same circumstance, I feel it’s appropriate to cite those sources in a post online.
We still nofollow comment links here because it’s user contributed data and we don’t always vouch for those users. If I link to something in a post, I am vouching for it as it’s content that I wrote myself.
Your last point is head on, that yes, I wanted to write this to bring up some awareness to people and to get feedback from what people think on the subject.
There are reasons to nofollow links depending on their nature, content, position on your site etc.
You can’t just make a blanket statement that nofollow’ing links in posts is a bad idea as that is clearly not true.
Ryan, read my reply in the comments and you’ll see that I agree with you. I’m speaking from a general sense, not a complete blanket overall of everything.