Posted on: - by Robyn Smith
What is the rel=”NoFollow” attribute?
The rel=”NoFollow” attribute is a HTML attribute that can be applied to individual links so that none of the ‘link juice’ from the linking page is passed through.
How is the rel=”NoFollow” attribute used?
The rel=”NoFollow” attribute is used by adding it to the end of the link you do not wish to vouch for (example below).
By adding the attribute to a link you are telling search engines that you cannot say that the content on the linked to page is of high quality and that you do not wish for your page to pass on any of its value, i.e. its ‘link juice’.
What does the rel=”NoFollow” attribute look like?
Attaching the rel=”NoFollow” attribute to a link looks like this:
<a href=”http://www.serchen.com” rel=”NoFollow”
When a search engine reaches this link, it will know that anything beyond it has not been vouched for and should not receive any ‘link juice’.
How do search engines look at the rel=”NoFollow” attribute?
This image from The Art of SEO (Enge, Spencer, Fishkin, Stricchiola) shows how most search engines will look at the rel=”Nofollow” attribute in a link.
Note that the rel=”NoFollow” attribute does not omit the linked page from being crawled. Search engines will usually not follow the link as the current site has not vouched for the quality of the content; however, it is possible for it to happen (the exact circumstances in which it happens are still unknown).
How does the rel=”NoFollow” attribute differ from the Robots Meta NoFollow tag?
The rel=”NoFollow” attribute differs from the Robots Meta NoFollow tag in that it is only applied to one link at a time.
The Robots Meta NoFollow is aMetatag that can be applied to a whole page of links, thus excluding every link from the crawl of a search engine. It is a way of applying the NoFollow attribute to a whole page of links without having to edit each one.
It looks like this:
<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”>
Recent Comments