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        4. Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

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        Rel="Follow"? What the &#@? does that mean?

        Technical SEO
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        • Jeepster
          Jeepster last edited by

          I've written a guest blog post for a site. In the link back to my site they've put a rel="follow" attribute. Is that valid HTML?

          I've Googled it but the answers are inconclusive, to say the least.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • irvingw
            irvingw @SVmedia last edited by

            I don't think so either, but you never know. Simple enough test to run to see if Google recognizes a "follow" or "dofollow" tag, simple enough test to run that's for sure. If it is hardcoded in the link code it will override any external nofollow tag.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Jeepster
              Jeepster @CMC-SD last edited by

              Hi, what I meant was whether I should be looking for robot txt at the top of the page or somesuch

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Jeepster
                Jeepster @irvingw last edited by

                Hi Irvnig

                Thanks for the response but the issue of adding tags doesn't apply as it's not my site.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • CMC-SD
                  CMC-SD @Jeepster last edited by

                  AFAIK, there is no way to "sneakily" no-follow a link. You no-follow a link by adding rel=nofollow. If rel=nofollow isn't there, the link is followed.

                  Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • irvingw
                    irvingw @Jeepster last edited by

                    test it to see if for some reason it is recognized, just for fun.

                    if something on a site is nofollowed by default and doesn't show up in the source code of that link (meaning it is declared in another piece of code), add a rel="follow" and a rel="dofollow" tag and see if it overrides the nofollow by using a firefox plugin tool that highlights nofollow links for you (you should already have this installed if you are an SEO)

                    Jeepster 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Jeepster
                      Jeepster last edited by

                      The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                      Yep, that's what I've read as well.

                      Now he's changed it to rel="dofollow"  (no, me neither) -- which strikes me as even more gobbledegook.

                      Obviously I'm going to ask him to leave out the attribute altogether. But what other attributes should I be looking for on the page source (CTRL+U) to ensure he hasn't sneakily no-followed all the links on the page?

                      irvingw CMC-SD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • SVmedia
                        SVmedia last edited by

                        GoogleBot does obey the rel="nofollow" attribute.. as for rel="follow" - I don't think so.  The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

                        irvingw 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • STL
                          STL Subscriber last edited by

                          It's a way of controlling the link power from a site. They're passing on the link juice to you.

                          If you want the search engines to see that link on the external blog, then what they have done is a good thing. They could have also just left that parameter out altogether.

                          People can put rel="nofollow". This means "don't pass link juice". You could interpret it as a directive to the world that whilst you are providing the link to the site, you don't endorse it.

                          From Google:

                          "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link."

                          http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
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