Sphinn - Google Changes Rules On Nofollow

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Google Changes Rules On Nofollow - Forgets To Send Memo

Posted By: mercylivi 91 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://raven-seo-tools.com)
Category: Google SEO

Does Google Changes Rules On Nofollow? Does nofollow still pases anchor text link juice and PR? Read here for full details.

14 Comments

Who Desphunn This (1)

Comments

from Mindy 91 days ago #

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This is interesting, but if you won't give examples, it's hardly to be taken as fact. More details would be helpful - such as examples of the nofollow anchor text in blog comments.

Is it possible that Google is using the link text to understand how people are describing a site (i.e. important keywords describing the target page) while not actually passing any link juice to the page? This could explain why it ranks for comment link text - especially if the page has link juice passed from other places.

For example, I have in the past linked to sites as a "bad example" and used a nofollow so search engines would know I'm not recommending the site. The link text still describes the target page accurately and a smart search engine would understand that, even if they don't count the link as a vote.

from jonhenshaw 91 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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Mindy, I wish I could provide examples, but it would expose my clients and some of our methods (especially to this crowd). I can respond to some of the things you said (which make total sense to me).

The point is that you shouldn't be able to improve your SERPs via anchor text inside nofollow'd links. If Google truly isn't following or passing any link juice, you really shouldn't see much of any impact for the anchor text that's being used, in relation to the link that is nofollow'd. What I've been finding, only in the past couple of months, is that is not the case. From my experience, I would chalk it up to either being a temporary bug in the algo or shift in algo strategy by Google. Basically, a situation where they've decided that they're excluding value by completely ignoring anchor-to-url relationships when nofollow'd.

All in all, it could simply be an anomoly or maybe there are some other factors we're leaving out that are skewing our results. However, the point of writing about it was to bring attention to this and to see if anyone else was seeing this behavior.

Also, thanks to @mercylivi for sphinning this!

from Halfdeck 91 days ago #

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Without any tangeable evidence, this post is nothing but hearsay. Remember all the controversy around the second link anchor text not flowing juice? That "test", though repeated and well-documented, turned out to be inaccurate. BTW, nofollow links flowed anchor text previously in rare cases; according to Matt Cutts that bug was fixed. Anyway, I'd advise people to run verifiable tests before jumping to conclusions. This one can't be verified, therefore its as good as having no evidence and saying "trust me."

Here's the Matt Cutts interview I was referring to BTW:

It is interesting. Whenever we talked about it originally, we said PageRank would not be passed, and the messaging that I tried to do was that it would not even be followed and it would not even be crawled. It turned out there was a really weird situation, where, if you had totally unique anchor text that nobody else had, we would not follow that link - but if we had found the page from some other source, we still had this anchor text lying around and we were willing to associate it with that page. Personally, I think that is almost a bug...

http://www.stephanspencer.com/search-engines/matt-cutts-interview

from JohnWeb 91 days ago #

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Without proof this is just another big rubber gorilla suit in a freezer. When you find bigfoot really, bring me his head on a plate.

from Mindy 91 days ago #

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Are you improving your SERPS though? Are they competitive phrases coming up or just meaningless gibberish that nobody's targeting? And are you sure that other links to the pages aren't affecting the behavior?

I mean, it's like reading and commenting on a story on Sphinn without voting for it - people will still find the story and read the comment but that doesn't mean I've recommended it and while that comment isn't pushing it towards the front page, other people may find the discussion, when taken alongside the article, helpful and go on to recommend the article themselves as a result.

And I'd disagree with Matt on the anchor text thing being a bug - a link may not be a vote, but the anchor text may still accurately describe the page. If the anchor text is relevant and the page has enough other factors making it seem relevant and trustworthy without the vote from that link, then why shouldn't it rank?

Spammer pages (in an ideal world, anyway) won't have other factors making them seem relevant AND trustworthy....

from jonhenshaw 90 days ago #

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@Halfdeck, I have the same skepticism as you. Just bringing light to something that I was seeing happen more than once with different campaigns that we're doing. I never suggested it was fact, based on incredible empirical research or anything else for that matter. Just throwing it out there to see if I was alone. So far, I'm very alone and hear crickets chirping in the background.

@JohnWeb, when I find bigfoot, I'm keeping him for my own glory.

@Mindy, the phrases in question are not highly competitive short-tail phrases, and I'm not suggesting this as a technique. I'm only bringing to light strange behavior that I haven't seen before.

from Halfdeck 90 days ago #

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John, being skeptical isn't the same thing as simply pointing out that you're making an assertion without verifiable evidence. You basically threw your hat in the ring with these words: "It's supposed to do what we've been told by Google what it's supposed to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that." Suggesting would be: "based on tests we ran, in some cases, nofollow still seems to be passing anchor text." If you want to push beyond that, you need evidence others can verify.

I also took issue because your post read to me like a whine either about Google shifting goal posts or about Google lying to webmasters. Comparing Google to the government added to that ethical undertone. SEOs talking ethics just doesn't fly as anything more than hypocrisy these days when the industry itself is devoid of a moral compass. Besides, Google has the right to change their algos anytime, anywhere (in fact algos are modified every day). Also, like I pointed out, Matt Cutts admitted there were quirks to Google's handling of nofollow. More importantly, no SEO should expect to be spoon-fed by Google; Google is not your friend.

from jonhenshaw 90 days ago #

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@Halfduck, your take on my entry is way too literal, which is not the tone or the intention of the article. And I share many of the views you spoke of. As for evidence, there's not a chance that I'm sharing it in any open forum. Fortunately, the purpose of my post (my purpose for writing it) revealed exactly what I wanted to know. Which is, I'm not alone in my findings (thanks to those who have emailed me personally about this). As for any take away impressions of whining, hypocrisy, ethics, etc... I really don't give a shit.

from streko 90 days ago #

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Now i usually stick to myself with shit like this. But I am gonna stick my 2 cents in.

Guess wht I believe the guy 100%, until I can prove different I will keep it that way. This industry has gotten lazy and no one now a days is trying shit. Instead we wait until someone else posts about it then pick it apart.

Does he owe this site an example? No.
Did he sphinn his own post? No.

When push comes to shove, when I find crap I don't blog about it. For reasons like this. Cause unless you have it over documented with pictures and examples at all areas & you are making statments that dont go with what everyone else is currently believing then you're wrong and don't know what you're talking about.

Jon, Kudus. Cause i remember having a conversation not to long ago with another SEO and I was saying that I had noticed similar things happening. Did I blog it, noperz & I wont!

If you disagree with him so much - then run your own experiment. Until then keep it moving and keep thinking in the box. To many parrotts in this industry & not enough originallity.

from Halfdeck 90 days ago #

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"Cause unless you have it over documented with pictures and examples at all areas & you are making statments that dont go with what everyone else is currently believing then you're wrong"

Maybe if you re-read what my comment it'll hit you like a ton of bricks that I didn't say I didn't believe John's findings or that I'm skeptical. There's no verifiable evidence to back up what he's claiming is what I said and there's no shit you can pull out of your ass to dispute that. A bunch of me too emails is no SEO experiment. It's just part of the same old rumormill.

"Guess wht I believe the guy 100%, until I can prove different I will keep it that way."

And if someone says Adsense will screw with your organic rankings or that your next door neighbor robbed K-mart you'd believe that too till some one shoots it down. Go ahead and leap before you look - we got plenty of people doing that in this industry. Remember the Knol gets an auto-ranking boost bullshit? People ate that one up pretty quick.

This has nothing to do with people not trying shit. Its about watching the crap you publish. We all try a bunch of stuff 24/7 most of it never gets published for good reason - because the tactics aren't milked dry enough. If you got ideas you can afford to publish they're not all that valuable to begin with.

from streko 90 days ago #

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ok, no.

from SpostareDuro 90 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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I think that maybe some of us have a pre operative assessment of what blogging is and does.

Not everyone posts what is popular, or previously assessed and formatted for a particular degree of acknolwedgement, etc..some people actually use blogs as a means of showing the learning process. In this case, behind SEO/search. A diary of sorts. As they learn/consider/ponder...they pass it on is all.

Maybe if we took the time to correct misunderstandings by discussion and healthy debate, we can set things straight and maybe even make a friend or two.

I, for one, do not know if what is being said is factual. What I DO know, is that I am now pondering/considering/researching before I come to any conclusions.

I have said it frequently.....Do not trust everything that you are told. It is our responsibility to know this. We know all too well, that bloggers/marketers/SEOs are going to exaggerate, lie, deceive, greenwash, manipulate, and otherwise do harm while claiming no such activity.

Jon gave his guesstimations and did not seem to give the opinion that it was concrete. Hopefully, he will not forget where he came from when newcomers are also writing the same way and he also disagrees.

from streko 89 days ago #

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damn kim you got like radar on disagreeing posts like this.

where you been, i aint seen you start any shit lately?

from SpostareDuro 89 days ago #

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Michael, Haha..shhhhh! Don't tell anyone..