Last month I wrote a post on pagerank sculpting (See “Pagerank Sculpting: Not Worth Your Time”) after reading Matt Cutts’ explanation on why there are other things you should focus on. One of the most common ways pagerank sculpting is done is to use the “no follow” tag. Because of this, the use of “no follow” tags is less important. Furthermore, in a recent post by Eric Enge of Search Engine Watch he explained why the use of “no follow” tags can, not only be of no help, but actually even harmful in terms of link juice.

In Eric Enge’s post, “Should You Still Use Nofollow?”, he explained that the link juice that is supposed to go to links with “no follow” tags are not split between the remaining links with out the tag but are discarded. This means that it lessens the overall value that a page passes. Due to this, and the fact that pagerank sculpting is a waste of time, it seems that the “no follow” tag’s days are over for SEOs. However, note that you should still remember to use the “no follow” tag for paid links (See my post “Google Says Use No Follow for Paid Posts or Else…”). It pays to preserve the value of your links but not at the expense of being tagged by Google as a violator of their paid links guidelines.

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4 Comments to "The New Use (or non-use) of the “No Follow”"

• Data Entry Services said: On 07/17/2009 at 11:42 am

  Perhaps it simplifies SEO a bit. Just ignore No Follow.

• Data Entry Services said: On 07/21/2009 at 11:05 pm

  I noted that from several SEO sites. I am with you, not worth the effort to no-follow.

  Thanks Noemi!

• The No Follow Effect said: On 07/23/2009 at 6:58 am

  [...] The New Use (or non-use) of the “No Follow” [...]

• jonharules said: On 08/08/2009 at 2:02 pm

  I’ve read a site administrator said that NF will do both the site owner and its commentators if he would tag the links to be NF except for paid links yes. I really appreciate the simple, clear and very informative posts Noemi.

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