Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is this link follow or nofollow? Does it pass linkjuice?
-
I have been seeing conflicting opinions about how Google would treat links using 'onclick'.
For the example provided below: Would Google follow this link and pass the appropriate linking metrics(it is internal and points to a deeper level in our visnav)?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
<div id='<a class="attribute-value">navBoxContainer</a>' class="<a class="attribute-value">textClass</a>"><div id="<a class="attribute-value">boxTitle</a>" onclick="<a class="attribute-value">location.href='bla</a>h.example.com">
<div class="<a class="attribute-value">boxTitleContent</a>" title="<a class="attribute-value">Text Here</a>"><a href<a class="attribute-value">Text Here</a>"><a ="blah.exam.cpleom">Text Herea>div> ``` =-=-=-=-=-=-= An simple yes/no would be alright, but any detail/explination you could provide would be helpful and very much appreciated. Thank you all for your time and responses. -
Since the onclick event is a Javascript issue it's to all intents and purposes ignored by the search engines. What counts is whether or not your link appears in the href attribute, and whether or not the link is nofollowed. If you do not have it set to nofollow, there is a slight chance they would follow it, but as stated above, Google is pretty good about parsing javascript links.
-
I didn't know that marking a Good Answer would mark the thread as Answered.
Still looking for responses; hope the 'Answered' tag doesn't cause too many people to pass the topic over.
-
Fair enough! If there are conflicting opinions, I'll be surprised. Google has said since about 2008 or 09 that they are parsing Javascript functionality. Something about creating virtual link structures for spiders, blah blah but that's irrelevant really.
Anyway, good luck!
-
Yes, the code isn't posted here 'as-is'.
I appreciate the quick response and the explination. I will wait for some other voices to chime in with their thoughts but I suspect they will mirror yours (although I am very interested in conflicting opinions if they are out there).
-
Well I'm assuming this code is modified and isn't live anywhere as it's kind of a mess and I don't mean formatting-wise. That said, clearly your question is mainly on the div onClick functionality and whether or not that passes link juice.
To my knowledge, so long as the href is in place you will be fine. Google parses Javascript functionality pretty well and this is one of the simpler JS functions around.
So my answer is: yes.
-
Tabbing seems to have scrunched the code, maybe this is easier to read
<div id='<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">navBoxContainer</a>' class="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">textClass</a>">
<div id="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">boxTitle</a>" onclick="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">location.href='bla</a>h.example.com">
<div class="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">boxTitleContent</a>" title="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Text Here</a>"><a href<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Text Here</a>"><a ="blah.exam.cpleom">Text Herea>div>
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Breadcrumbs and internal links
Hello, I use to move up my site structure with links in content. I have now installed breadcrumbs, is it is useful to still keep the links in content or isn't there a need to duplicate those links ? and are the breadcrumbs links enough. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Pages with excessive number of links
Hi all, I work for a retailer and I've crawled our website with RankTracker for optimization suggestions. The main suggestion is "Pages with excessive number of links: 4178" The page with the largest amount of links has 634 links (627 internal, 7 external), the lowest 382 links (375 internal, 7 external). However, when I view the source on any one of the example pages, it becomes obvious that the site's main navigation header contains 358 links, so every new page starts with 358 links before any content. Our rivals and much larger sites like argos.co.uk appear to have just as many links in their main navigation menu. So my questions are: 1. Will these excessive links really be causing us a problem or is it just 'good practice' to have fewer links
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee159
2. Can I use 'no follow' to stop Google etc from counting the 358 main navigation links
3. Is have 4000+ pages of your website all dumbly pointing to other pages a help or hindrance?
4. Can we 'minify' this code so it's cached on first load and therefore loads faster? Thank you.0 -
Nofollow Outbound Links on Listings from Travel Sites?
We oversee a variety of regional, county, and town level tourism websites, each with hundreds (or even thousands) of places/businesses represented with individual pages. Each page contains a link back to the place's main web presence if available. My fear is that a large portion of these linked to sites are low quality, and may even be spammy. With our budgets there is no way to sort through them and assign nofollows as needed. There are also a number of broken links that we try to stay on top of but at times some slip through due to the sheer number of pages. I am thinking about adding a nofollow to these outbound links across the board. This would not be all outbound links on the website, just the website links on the listing pages. I would love to know peoples thoughts on this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Your_Workshop0 -
Does Disavowing Links Negate Anchor Text, or Just Negates Link Juice
I'm not so sure that disavowing links also discounts the anchor texts from those links. Because nofollow links absolutely still pass anchor text values. And disavowing links is supposed to be akin to nofollowing the links. I wonder because there's a potential client I'm working on an RFP for and they have tons of spammy directory links all using keyword rich anchor texts and they lost 98% of their traffic in Pengiun 1.0 and haven't recovered. I want to know what I'm getting into. And if I just disavow those links, I'm thinking that it won't help the anchor text ratio issues. Can anyone confirm?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
Does a 302 redirect pass penalties?
I'm having problems finding a definitive answer to this question, there is a lot of rumour and gossip out there but nothing I can rely on. I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain. However, it's an established brand with many more sources of traffic than organic search. There's no way we can burn all their repeat visits, loyal customers, brand recognition that they've built up over the years so I want to redirect from the old domain to the new. This is not to try and make any SEO gain from the previous site, frankly we don't give a crap about that. We just want to maintain the brand. A 302 is a temporary redirect, this will be a permanent move BUT a 301 will pass on the penalty. So can we safely use a 302 redirect in this situation or is there a better alternative (meta refresh?) Thanks for your help! MB.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattBarker0 -
Do 404 pages pass link juice? And best practices...
Last year Google said bad links to 404 pages wouldn't hurt your site. Could that still be the case in light of recent Google updates to try and combat spammy links and negative SEO? Can links to 404 pages benefit a website and pass link juice? I'd assume at the very least that any link juice will pass through links FROM the 404 page? Many websites have great 404 pages that get linked to: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fretardzone.com%2F404 - that was the first of four I checked from the "60 Really Cool...404 Pages" that actually returned the 404 HTTP Status! So apologies if you find the word 'retard' offensive. According to Open Site Explorer it has a decent Page Authority and number of backlinks - but it doesn't show in Google's SERPs. I'd never do it, but if you have a particularly well-linked to 404 page, is there an argument for giving it 200 OK Status? Finally, what are the best practices regarding 404s and address bar links? For example, if
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford
www.examplesite.com/3rwdfs returns a 404 error, should I make that redirect to
www.examplesite.com/404 or leave it as is? Redirecting to www.examplesite.com/404 might not be user-friendly as people won't be able to correct the URL in the address bar. But if I have a great 404 page that people link to, I don't want links going to loads of random pages do I? Is either way considered best practice? If I did a 301 redirect I guess it would send the wrong signal to the crawlers? Should I use a 302 redirect, or even a 304 Not Modified redirect?1 -
Where to link to HTML Sitemap?
After searching this morning and finding unclear answers I decided to ask my SEOmoz friends a few questions. Should you have an HTML sitemap? If so, where should you link to the HTML sitemap from? Should you use a noindex, follow tag? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprodigy290 -
Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm
I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball10