From SE Land:
SEO link sculpting is the practice of adding “no follow” rel tags to some outbound links to maximize the flow of “link juice” to other links that aren’t tagged. Ever notice how some webmaster forums intentionally close and no follow all the links of old posts? I’ve seen this done on some resource sites as well (they probably sold links). Anyway, Google’s recent algorithm change cracks down on this practice.
Here’s how it used to work:
Page has 5 outgoing links–page’s page rank ‘juice’ is divided into five 20% parcels and sent out to the outbound links.
The page webmaster adds the “no follow” tag to 3 of the outbound links so the remaining links get 50% link juice each.
Here’s how it works now:
Page has 5 outgoing links–page’s page rank ‘juice’ is divided into five 20% parcels and sent out to the outbound links.
The page webmaster adds the “no follow” tag to 3 of the outbound links but the remaining 2 links only get 20% link juice each. No increase.
Bottomline, it’s an arms race out there when it comes to gaming Google. Instead of playing games, stick with tried and proven ‘ultra white hat’ practices? Produce quality content and build ethical links.
Photo Credits: Jurek D.
It was a matter of time ..
Thank you for the heads up and for including an explanatory example. I appreciate it.
timethief’s last blog post..Bloggers: How long are your posts?
This really makes sense. As far as outbound links on my blog are concerned, it’s always “no follow” unless I decided otherwise.
mathd09’s last blog post..Adobe BrowserLab: A powerful online tool for cross-browser compatibility testing
Perhaps the folks who used to waste so much time on link sculpting will find the time to write something worth linking, now. Or perhaps they’ll simply waste that time looking for new games to play within the system.
legbamel’s last blog post..Uptight (Everything’s Alright) – Stevie Wonder
HI mate, do you know when does google update PR this time??
richest indonesian’s last blog post..Promotional Merchandise and folders
Richest Indonesian, Google’s PR update is usually quarterly.
Yea, read Matt Cutts post about this recently. Was kinda shocked. I never really did link/pagerank sculpting myself, but the new system seems kinda silly. Perhaps the end of nofollow is nigh…
Noah’s last blog post..We Salute the Original Entrepreneurs, Our Founding Fathers.
If every site were nofollow, then how would any site rank well in google? Perhaps only blog sites and forums should be no follow.