Posted 10/8/08
The other day someone pointed out to me that a few newer sports blogs were using "nofollow" links when they were running their daily link lists. To tell you the truth, it irritated the hell out of me. What's the point of that? Are you really that worried about your PageRank that you've decided to give zero link love to your friends and fellow sports bloggers? If there is one way to completely tarnish your image, keep using those "nofollow" tags. Tools.
Link lists are a Good thing
The basic idea of a link list is to shell out links to your friends or nice posts that you really enjoyed and thought your readers would also enjoy. These lists are also a great way to let other sports blogs know that you exist. (Obviously as long as your links are "dofollow".)
And how can you tell?
Firefox has this nifty little add-on that will highlight anyone's "nofollow" tags in pink! The add-on is called Search Status and does more than just highlight "nofollow" links so it's definitely worth installing on your browser.
I'm not necessarily telling you to run around now and check to see if all of the blogs you read are holding back the love from you, but I am telling you to at least check it out and decide which blogs you should really be getting close to.
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17 comments:
Totally agree with you. There's also a Firefox add-on called "SEO for Firefox" that I use for this same purpose. It also shows a whole bunch of stats on search engine result pages. I'd highly recommend it.
This is crazy. I was actually going to do away with my blogroll so my link posts would help out more.
I am going to switch it over to a link page, except for any professional bloggers that have me on their blogroll, like Awful Announcing.
I have added a link for everyone that has asked and now it is too long. I am sure it is starting to hurt my page rank power for my link posts. On NESW sports, My Page Rank 4 can only go to so many links. :-)
On SEC Football Blogger, I have a link page called "SEC Football Blog Directory" it has every SEC Football Blog link I know about, and it gets 20-50 hits a day. Google ranks the page very well on searches. Many people find all their favorite schools blogs, and I hope they come back to visit mine.
In Blogging " linking is the name of the game" These no follow people are no good.
So wait...blogrolls actually hurt?
They hurt how your page rank is distributed from your blog.
Lets say you have a blog with a page rank of 4.
Lets say you have 30 links on your page to your own posts and to other peoples posts.
Your page rank 4 power is spread between those 30 links.
Lets say your blogroll also has 30 blogs on it.
When that happens your page rank 4 power is spread between 60 links. It cuts the page rank power by half.
Blog Rolls are awesome, but I am going to keep mine in check and have a link page. I will most likely have a Basketball, Football, and Baseball link page so Google will like it more, and not think I am spamming links. Google will know if I have a page of 50 unrelated blog links.
I really don't believe that blogrolls hurt your PR. I had a huge list at Le Basketbawl and still managed a PR5. It's all about the quality of incoming links to your site.
Oh and this post wasn't about blogrolls necessarily, but more on the lines of a daily link list. But "nofollow" blogrolls are just as damn bad!
It does not hurt your page rank. It hurts your page rank distribution.
Your blog was a page rank 5, but if you have 50 blogs on your blog roll, your page rank power is watered down to almost nothing. Your page rank will hardly help your own blog.
The thing to do is to keep your blogroll in check.
I know this post had hardly nothing to do with blogrolls, but I was just answering Scotts question because I was not precise enough.
What I explained is why everyone does not have a mile long blogroll. It hurts your site. It hurts your page rank power. It makes your blog look spammy.
I could care less about what you should do and not do for blog rolls.
I am not cutting mine down when I have my own link on their page.
and I personally don't think my site looks spammy.
Yeah, the problem with dispursing your blogroll to new pages is now you are giving that person a zero PR link, while they may have you on their main page and are giving you PR5 love.
I was not telling anyone that their site is spammy, but some people do not like long blogrolls..
I actually do not think a good blogroll is spammy at all. Especially if they are great blogs. I get requests all the time to do a link exchange on a crappy soccer blog, and that is when I say no. When the blogs are not related it looks spammy.
I was not attacking any bloggers, but I believe that a blogroll should be kept in check.
It does hurt the page rank power disbursement. I think every blogger should have a cutoff. You can not link to every blog.
This is a great problem to have. People love to link to your blog. You want to link back, but can not link to every blog.
My SEC Football Blog Directory is a page rank 3 page on my blog. I think Google likes that page because of the quality of links. Google also probably likes that I called it a directory. The blogs get more hits from that than my blogroll ever gets. BY FAR! That Directory averages 30 or more clicks out every day. Some people stay on my blog.
My blog "Homework 4 dummies" which is a complete waste of time, is page rank 4 and is not linked to hardly any blogs at all, and is only on 6 blogrolls that I know of.
I say all of that to say that blogrolls are not the key to linking, and there are other answers. Sometimes Google just likes your site. Sometimes Google just likes your SEO regardless of your incoming links.
I am sorry we are way off of the topic Kellex. Nofollow links are bad. :-) Blogrolls are good. I am not a blogroll hater. I just think they are not the answer. They are the beginning of the story.
1 thing I will always do regardless is to blogroll professional bloggers that have me on their blogroll.
I have the utmost respect for them, and understand that their livelihood is connected to that blog, and they chose my blog. That is crazy awesome to me.
Damn! You should have included a thesis to go with those 12 supporting paragraphs. :P
I will never complain at off topic ranting and raving. Great conversation is always MORE than welcome here at the SD.
Thanks for introducing our readers to some of your SEO/Google/PR stuff.
I know I am a crazy nut sometimes. I get carried away, and like to finish my point.
I will call this comment section my E-Book on blogrolls :-)
What about using "NoFollow" in paid links? I know a lot of you guys have paid links from gambling sites. Aren't you supposed to technically use it for paid ads? Google as been known to penalize sites that participate in paid linking.
The reality however, is when I look at the code for most of your blogs (like AwfulAnnouncing, and other big ones), nobody uses NoFollow in the paid links.
Is anyone concerned about the potential to get penalized in Google?
Paid links are definitely a touchy spot with Google. But they seem to not be as harsh if you are selling the links yourself. The trouble seems to be once you use those third party services like text-link-ads or tnx.net.
My advice is just to not overdue it and make it completely obvious.
Harsh words from someone using Blogger. :P
Not sure what a blogging platform and using "nofollow" tags have in common but ok.
I guess no one is looking at this but if Google is in any way sensible then I would think that links to high ranking authority sites would be a plus, in effect leading a reader to a better source.
While no follow links have no affect in google rankings they likely do in yahoo and bing.
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