What is nofollow ?
You probably read usages of “nofollow” and “dofollow” html attributes in link building related websites or articles. We will focus on “nofollow”, may be we can later have a look at “dofollow” aswell. So, what is nofollow ?
Search engine spiders get links from pages and add them to their crawl list to follow. The first and main aim in using nofollow attribute is to prevent spam by instructing the search engine spiders when the attribute is assigned to a link. When it is assigned to a specific hyperlink, the search engine takes it as a link not to follow therefore the given link is treated like a simple text and not taken to the crawl list.
The usage of the attribute for specific links is ;
<a href=”test.html” rel=”nofollow”>test</a>
There is also a way to make this attribute to cover the whole page. By using it as a page-level meta tag, you are saying to search engines that no links in that particular page should be followed. The usage of page-level nofollow attribute is;
<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” />
In Which Cases You Should Use NoFollow ?
Well, as mentioned it is mainly used to prevent spam. You may use a page-level meta tag nofollow in your comment section. This will keep your link juice inside aswell. (We will have a look at link juice subject in an article, later).
Potential untrusted content is another good reason to use nofollow attribute. If you somehow had to reference or link to a page that you are not sure about its trust and authority, it is a good idea to give a hyperlink with a nofollow attribute.
Points
nofollow is an HTML attribute.
There are two ways of usage; a page-level meta tag which covers all the links in a page and a single hyperlink assignment which covers only the assigned hyperlink.
You may want to use nofollow attribute in your comments or guestbook sections as a page-level meta tag and on some specific links which you are not sure about their trust and authority.
Article by searchef.com
