Google SEO: NoFollow Attribute Changes

Matt Cutts (a Google search engineer) recently wrote an interesting piece on PageRank sculpting:

Question: If I run a blog and add the nofollow attribute to links left by my commenters, doesn’t that mean less PageRank flows within my site?
Answer: If you think about it, that’s the way that PageRank worked even before the nofollow attribute.

Question: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog?
Answer: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.

It seems like turning off the URL in the comment field would help.  A typical blog post has at least one external link anyway; so turning off the comment URL field doesn’t seem too unreasonable.  This will keep more PageRank on your site and not appear as “hoarding.”

In summary, it appear that the nofollow attribute’s only purpose is to allow you to link to spam sites and not get penalized by Google, but this may change eventually as well.

Share this:

Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “Google SEO: NoFollow Attribute Changes”

  1. Bradley Nordstrom Avatar

    Thanks for the facts about google.

  2. Albert Avatar

    At least an interessant explanation by Matt Cutt. Thank for posting this!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *