More Nofollow Stuff

[PTC]

So today at SMX Advanced, sculpting was being discussed, and then Matt Cutts dropped a bomb shell that it no longer works to help flow more PageRank to the unblocked pages.

-http://searchengineland.com/google-loses-backwards-compatibility...

To me this would seem to mean that outgoing links can drain your PR still, even if they have nofollow attributes on them. You still lose the juice, you are just not giving it to anyone else.

This would seem consistent to me because I was expecting to go from PR2 to PR3 after last update. Instead my whole site got taken down a notch and I suspect its because I added about 10 outgoing affiliate links to each page. They were all nofollowed.

[pokerextras]

It seems that google are really penalising using linking for pr gain. I suppose it does have the effect of people only putting up natural links to benefit their customers and not concerning themselves with pr, which is good for google and its customers, but not so good for the standard grey hat practices. What this will do is place more emphasis on getting paid links though, now there's no real way to internally manipulate pr, and will make using no follow pointless, so credit will be given to anywhere worth linking to, as originally intended. What i haven't heard discussed yet though, is if the juice drain is only with no follow links. What about using java links instead?

[Unknown Webmaster]

I read on Search Engine Land that Google can now follow Java links.

[MJ]

I heard last week now Google will be passing something like 50% PR to no followed links, anyone think this is possibly a move to knock affiliate websites down a bit and prop up the poker sites we are linking to?

I don't know much about it.

[pokerextras]

I heard last week now Google will be passing something like 50% PR to no followed links, anyone think this is possibly a move to knock affiliate websites down a bit and prop up the poker sites we are linking to?

I don't know much about it.

i think it's more a move from googles point of view to stop page rank manipulation, and give credit where it's due. What's the point in google ranking sites based on pr juice, if the only people who are actually allowing that juice to be passed on are participants in link exchanges, and everyone else is using no follow. What the move does is tells people that whether you want to pass on some juice or not, you're not keeping it for yourself. I think it would be fairer all round for google to just get rid of no follow alltogether.

[321]

now there's no real way to internally manipulate pr, and will make using no follow pointless, so credit will be given to anywhere worth linking to, as originally intended.

There are many ways to manipulate internal PR, and using nofollow sensibly is still a very valuable tool.

The most obvious way to use nollow is if you have two links to a main page and one has the link text of "Home" while the other has the text "Poker Affiliate Forums". You nofollow the "home", while passing PR and anchor text value for the words "poker", "affiliate" and "forums" to the page.

Internal PR comes primarily down to good site architecture, and that is still one of the seo elements easiest for a webmaster to manipulate and control.

If you built a website sensibly, and used nofollow sensibly, nothing just happened.

[321]

I heard last week now Google will be passing something like 50% PR to no followed links, anyone think this is possibly a move to knock affiliate websites down a bit and prop up the poker sites we are linking to?

If there’s 10 links on home page, and four pages nofollowed, the link juice for the four nofollowed links evaporates.

So nofollowing links to cardrooms denies them PR, so such links don't benefit the cardrooms at all from a search perspective.

[JohnH]

I heard last week now Google will be passing something like 50% PR to no followed links, anyone think this is possibly a move to knock affiliate websites down a bit and prop up the poker sites we are linking to?

I don't know much about it.

Where did you hear that? I would laugh so hard if Google did that, spam sites would start ranking, Google would look like idiots. The rumor mill is churning, I guess.

As far as the whole pagerank sculpting thing... My take is this: nofollowing an affiliate link or two isn't so much pagerank sculpting as is nofollowing all the links on a page except for one.

Eventually this "exploitative" technique will result in a penalty if google ever decides that it's against their webmaster terms.

[PTC]

If you built a website sensibly, and used nofollow sensibly, nothing just happened.

Please explain why I am wrong concerning my statement about outgoing links.

[Michael Martinez]

...What's the point in google ranking sites based on pr juice, if the only people who are actually allowing that juice to be passed on are participants in link exchanges, and everyone else is using no follow....

Google has never ranked sites solely based on PageRank. They take on-page and other off-page factors into consideration, and they always have. PageRank mostly has two effects on site rankings these days:

1) It determines which pages get included in the Main Web Index (and thus are shown above more relevant results)
2) It is used to determine how frequently a page is crawled and recached

... What the move does is tells people that whether you want to pass on some juice or not, you're not keeping it for yourself. I think it would be fairer all round for google to just get rid of no follow alltogether.

Based on what I have heard so far, the "PageRank evaporation" only applies to nofollows used for internal links. If you've been placing nofollow on external links you're probably okay.

However, if you're trying to "preserve PageRank" or "hoard PageRank", that has never worked. The PageRank was always dispersed in some way regardless of whether a page had any value-passing outbound links.