No Follow Checking

[clickxnet]

Does the scripting currently check to see if "nofollow" attributes are used on trading websites?

[jdoughs]

Does the scripting currently check to see if "nofollow" attributes are used on trading websites?

Yes it does.

[clickxnet]

Okay. Great. And since it understands the "nofollow" link attribute, does it count links with the rel="nofollow" attribute as outbound links or ignore them in this count?

[jdoughs]

Okay. Great. And since it understands the "nofollow" link attribute, does it count links with the rel="nofollow" attribute as outbound links or ignore them in this count?

No follow is counted as an outbound link still, because it is still an outbound link.

Search engines do not ignore them as links out, they are just supposed to not follow them. The attribute only tells them to not follow them and to not pass off link weight to that site, it doesn't say to not count them as outbound links or to save that link weight to the site using them.

No follow still counts as an outbound link, but no outbound link weight is passed to it.

The later fix was implemented almost a year ago by google to combat attempts at PR Sculpting.

[clickxnet]

Right. Agree. But link traders are using that outbound link statistic in LinkSpun to indicate the amount of PR "leakage", PR strength or lack of PR strength, a trade would be able to pass to them. Since the purpose of the "nofollow" attribute is to prevent PR passing, then counting links as outbound with this attribute means the true significance of the outbound links count on LS is not known.

[redwhiteandblue]

Right. Agree. But link traders are using that outbound link statistic in LinkSpun to indicate the amount of PR "leakage", PR strength or lack of PR strength, a trade would be able to pass to them. Since the purpose of the "nofollow" attribute is to prevent PR passing, then counting links as outbound with this attribute means the true significance of the outbound links count on LS is not known.

As I understand it, G DOES count the no-follow links in its PR calculation but DOESN'T pass the PR through those links, as jdoughs says this is to prevent PR sculpting. So the more no-follow links you have on your page, the lower the PR you will be passing through normal links, therefore they should be counted as outbound links.

[clickxnet]

As I understand it, G DOES count the no-follow links in its PR calculation but DOESN'T pass the PR through those links, as jdoughs says this is to prevent PR sculpting. So the more no-follow links you have on your page, the lower the PR you will be passing through normal links, therefore they should be counted as outbound links.

Thanks for that. That certainly clears it up for me.

[vrocks]

I have news for you.. PR sculpting still works. I have used it and use it still. If I have a site that is sitting at PR1 for a year and I didn't add any links and I sculpt the outbound links and internal links for that matter, it goes to PR2...

[Relentless]

I have had some success using no follow links as well... however I agree with Jdoughs there is a big difference between:

1) A site with 5 standard links
and
2) A site that has 5 standard links and 95 no follow links.

[clickxnet]

I think it depends on the purpose / function of the site in question. A blog's purpose is to inform / entertain "people" of / with it's internal content but a site such as a directory or link site has the function to show external, niche or subject related web resources thus directing "people" out of the site.

I use nofollow on the resources links in my directory sites because I don't want to pass PR to those sites, however, I do want the surfer's visit / click value to carry through to the external site, but at the same time I don't use nofollow on my reciprocal links on the same site because I do want to pass PR value to my trading partners.

I think the use of outbound links and nofollow have to be evalulated with an eye toward the site's intended function as well.