Nofollow, Dofollow and Pagerank in SEO?

[Nytshade]

I see you've gone to the darkside LOL ;-)

Lol... that's Dope... may the force be with you :hysterical:

Nofollow, Dofollow and Pagerank will lead you to discussions that never end.

That's absolutely true my friend, there's a lot of myths thrown around by people so no matter how much proof you put on the table people will always choose to believe those they trust the most.

 

[Hawker]

Yup, stuck in an infinite loop doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting different results. That's Einstein's definition of insanity and is what will happen to you if you talk about nofollow, no nofollow, pr, linkjuice, local seo, citations, corruptions and conspiracies too much!!

Talking of conspiracies, I think SEO is all a big conspiracy controlled by the illuminati and the mafia. After all, once you make a billion dollars per year in revenue the mafia "approach you". But when you're making that much in profit per year and only paying £6000 in tax that's not a bad year LOL

And I'll respond to the OP's questions quickly.

- Can nofollow backlinks help SEO at all?

Yes. But if you have no nofollow links that is unnatural SEO.

- Will dofollow backlinks from Page Rank 0 pages help SEO too?

Yes but you'd need a magnifying glass to see the difference.

- URL and text link on a dofollow sites, which is better?

Well, text link all day long.

I have heard people say just 1 backlink from a PR2 is better than 100 PR0 backlinks. It that correct? why?

Well do simple math. 100 x 0 = 0. 1 PR2 = 2.

It's not rocket salad.

 

[savidge4]

I am now convinced you simply are not reading what I am writing.... nor do I think you want to and that is fine....

If you're looking at Neil Patel for SEO advice then that partly explains it lol...

not really a Neil fan myself, but when they throw out a case study with thousands of searchs and sites looked at, I do take interest.

If you read above I have substantiated my view that "NoFollow" links passes nothing with providing links to articles, videos etc... I have even provided evidence from G stating that NoFollow does nothing...

You actually have done nothing of the like.. unless you are PTTed as well? and even with that, it is from 2011 - so you are now suggesting you have shown proof from once apon a time long long ago.

Further you even agree that if you try using ads which are NoFollow it will not improve your rankings thus by your own admission you are a walking OXYMORON!

I am saying this, you are correct.. where you are missing the point is in the caveat - there has to be an added connection between the link itself and to you and or your site. A link unto itself will do what we all know it will do. But adding in the case of the examples I have left a trackable Author markup identifier changes things

If you think you can rank sites without backlinks then show me.... which is another issue... and again zero proof.... There is not one shred of evidence online which substantiates anything you are saying... and finally saying I provided someone the proof once upon a time, long, long ago is proof of nothing!!!!

last week actually.. find it for yourself

By the way Google Authorship has nothing to do with what we are talking about and further if you have not heard already - authorship has been dropped by Google.... I applaud you for your time wasting, issue avoiding waffle...

well I actually state in the post above, that Google Authorship is no longer around - but Schema "Author" is.... and as much as YOU may not be talking about this..I have been and that is where your contempt and disconnect lies. You are talkking about 1 thing.. and I am talking about another.

 

[elcidofaguy]

I am now convinced you simply are not reading what I am writing.... nor do I think you want to and that is fine....

Not true... I have unfortunately read every bit of your dribble and repeatedly pointed out your mistakes... The sad fact is you are not staying on topic... and you keep misinforming people to the extent that its tantamount to outright lies....

As for:

You actually have done nothing of the like.. unless you are PTTed as well? and even with that, it is from 2011 - so you are now suggesting you have shown proof from once apon a time long long ago.

Did you even bother to read my post before PTTed? Let me remind you:

With regards to Google stating this - then prove it.... As its unsubstantiated until then... The only thing they have ever stated is that NoFollow has no influence on the SERPs such those [URLnf="http://www.seoinhouse.com/matt-cutts-videos-nofollow--dofollow-tags.html"]vids[/URLnf] by MC.

There has been plenty of experiments done with attempts to increase rankings with zero link building based on citations and the fact is as expected they did not increase rankings for example this article outlines whether its possible to rank in Google without links and keeping in mind nofollow not passing link juice... Obviously the result is a resounding No!

That first link takes you to seven videos on the subject!!!

Again you are deviating... Do you know why???.... because you are incapable of backing up your views... Again there is not one shred of evidence online to support your view re: nofollow links.. You have again missed your opportunity to corroberate/substantiate your view that nofollow links have a direct influence on the serps.... and what do we get....?

 

[ericplotz1]

Well a profile without nofollows will raise a flag. Not sayin it will penalize you or anything, but most that are building dofollows do it very spammy like in the beginning. Speaking noobs here.

Also I have a question for everyone.

So are you telling me a nofollow link from CNN will provide no value to your website? Or a nofollow from Forbes, Inc.com, or any major publications?

C'mon be realistic here. Most of the time the big guys make links nofollow. I know because I utilize outreach as a large part of ranking my clients. I've taken a treatment center from the depths, to position 6-12 with Web 2's, PBNs, social, and nofollow links from authoritative publications. A lot of the time nofollow links. Adding noFollow links from authoritative sites when your link profile is decent, will give you a huge boost in the SERPs. Everytime I add a link from one of these sites I can see the rank improvement.

So explain that.


THERE IS NOTHING THAT STATES ANY OF WHAT I SAID ANYWHERE. It's all trail and error. I'm getting great results adding nofollow links from major publications.

Here's a study we've ran. I have a page that has been in the 4th position of Google forever. Only social signals thats it! So I decided to test adding 2 nofollow links. Adding the 2 nofollow links boosted me right into the first position.

So sorry Cid, Nytshade, Ted, but I've seen first hand that nofollow will improve your ranking. Here's the proof. And a word of advice, start testing some of this stuff guys. It's working.

EDIT: Btw these 2 nofollows are not from major publications.

 

[Hawker]

Hawker

Well there's different types of value. There's the value that Google applies to it from a search engine / SEO perspective.

And then there's the value that a human might apply to that link.

If the link is a CNN or Forbes homepage link and is no follow. It would still be valuable to have as it would mean direct referral traffic from CNN and Forbes.

But no link juice is going to flow to that link. However Google will still visit and crawl and index it at that location.

And I believe, still give you some value from an SEO/search engine perspective anyway. Regardless to if its no follow or not.

Just because it tells the search engine not to follow that link and subsequently pass any PR juice to it does NOT mean to say Google still wont visit that link and index it at that location.

I'm sure I'll probably get told differently here but that's the way I see it and if I'm wrong prove it by showing how you work for Google Algo team.

But value from a human perspective, I would still like a link from CNN and Forbes homepage even if it was no follow!

So yes, still has value. But depends on how you look at it and what type of value you mean, human vs search engine/seo.

 

[ericplotz1]

ericplotz1

How do you use this explanation in reference to the screenshot, where I increase y ranking on a page that was in the 4th position for about a year. Then after adding 2 nofollow links that weren't from major publications like CNN, I moved to the 1st position.

No matter the traffic, competition of keyword, or whatever, the 2 links still proved to have a direct result on my ranking.

So how does nofollow not increase ranking? The 2 nofollows I added are not receiving traffic, so CTR is not a factor here.

The argument in the past has been, that the variables cannot be isolated.

Well, in this experiment I was able to isolate the variables. I had to use a low comp keyword, that had approx 200 monthly searches. I tried to test this experiment with higher comp keywords with more traffic, but everytime I would end up gaining dofollow links naturally, making the isolated variables inadmissible at that point in time.

 

[PTTed]

PTTed

Your experiment did not isolate those links as variables at all. Hate to break it to you, but it didn't. And I am not going to take the time to explain why. It should be intuitively obvious to you and everyone else.

I challenge you to repeat that experiment. I bet your results will not be the same. I think maybe you are letting what you want to see happen influence what you are seeing happen while overlooking what is really happening. (just my guess)

If the experience is repeatable and those links are that powerful, then maybe you should just use those two sites you are getting nofollow links from to drive all the rest of your rankings to number one on other sites. Why aren't you? Or why do you think that might not work if it worked in this case?

I have conducted a very similar experiment, except with variables more isolated than yours by far, and gotten the exact opposite results. No movement in rankings whatsoever. Not the slightest blip. Absolutely zero influence.

And I have tested whether a contextual nofollow link from a blog would even drive indexation - it didn't any time I tested it. And if Google doesn't value the link enough to even index the page, then I cannot possibly see how they could be valuing it for anything else.

Is it possible that Google changed something since I last tested it and now values these links in some way? Yes of course. I haven't seen anything with my own eyes to suggest that is the case though. If you have and you are convinced they help you, then more power to you. I will believe it when I see it.

 

[elcidofaguy]

Eric - If you look at my earlier reply #7 I hinted the topics of co-citatation and co-occurence:

I believe what you are observing maybe down to co-citation and co-occurence which is nothing in comparison to actual juiced up links and on keywords which has zero competition... besides lots of press releases provide dofollow links - so you're most likely getting your dofollows/nofollows mixed up....

Suffice to say I don't see any solid evidence on your part other than speculation... They maybe a remote possibility that in certain cases co-citation has an impact but does that mean nofollow links carries link juice? No it does not!!!

Again with the ad example - why don't you spend money on an ad on Forbes, CNN etc - and see if that increases your rankings...??? I am sure you will agree that it wont increase your rankings... Or may be you do think that is the case.... If so then imagine the resulting sh** storm resulting from nofollow links on ads influencing the serps should that be true.... I really don't think so....

Back on your example - I see that you have obscured the keyword and have a couple of no follow links.... Its not clear what the www non www version difference is but they maybe... You mention that your rankings increased from 4 to 1.... It could be that your rankings increased because of new content being applied or other factors such as 301 domain redirects as well as the competition losing backlinks or being penalized....

Suffice to say it does not prove anything sorry to say.... We dont even know the keyword which you are attempting to rank... For all I know it could be "whadafukrutakkingaboot"..... In which case yeah you're gonna rank for that without any efforts....I also note that you mentioned you where ranking 4th without any backinks... That basically tells me that the keyword has little to zero competition.... Again your screenshot does not prove anything...

Let me ask you a simple question..... Are you saying that nofollow links carries link juice? ... and are you suggesting that people should spend 1000-2000 dollars buying nofollow links on sites such as forbes? I suspect that the other links which are not nofollow which you are aquiring for your clients has more of an impact than you may realize.... after all you probably will need a backup to your nofollow strategy...

 

[ericplotz1]

Eric - If you look at my earlier reply #7 I hinted the topics of co-citatation and co-occurence:



Suffice to say I don't see any solid evidence on your part other than speculation... They maybe a remote possibility that in certain cases co-citation has an impact but does that mean nofollow links carries link juice? No it does not!!!

Never said it carried link juice, only said I've personally noticed ranking changes. On multiple occasions after adding nofollow links.

Again with the ad example - why don't you spend money on an ad on Forbes, CNN etc - and see if that increases your rankings...??? I am sure you will agree that it wont increase your rankings... Or may be you do think that is the case.... If so then imagine the resulting sh** storm resulting from nofollow links on ads influencing the serps should that be true.... I really don't think so....

There is certain code that a link would be contained in, that I'm pretty sure would indicate to Google that its an ad. So no, I think Googles spiders are smart enough to decipher between a contextual link and a link contained within an ad.

Back on your example - I see that you have obscured the keyword and have a couple of no follow links.... Its not clear what the www non www version difference is but they maybe... You mention that your rankings increased from 4 to 1.... It could be that your rankings increased because of new content being applied or other factors such as 301 domain redirects as well as the competition losing backlinks or being penalized....

New content has been applied to the site for this entire year. There are no 301 redirects. The www version doesn't show anything in ahrefs. Competition has been the same.

Suffice to say it does not prove anything sorry to say.... We dont even know the keyword which you are attempting to rank... For all I know it could be "whadafukrutakkingaboot"..... In which case yeah you're gonna rank for that without any efforts....I also note that you mentioned you where ranking 4th without any backinks... That basically tells me that the keyword has little to zero competition.... Again your screenshot does not prove anything...

The keyword is low comp and 200 monthly searches. I already explained that above. For you to suggest that I'm faking it with some made up word is a bit insulting. I don't post BS and would be more than willing to jump on a team viewer and address anything in the last post. I have no reason to fluff anything. The competition is crap on the first page. It's the only way I could isolate the experiment as explained above. Everytime I've done it with high comp, it never fails that I obtain a link naturally completely blowing the experiment. Fact is the competition has remained there for a year. We stayed in pos 3 and 4 depending on the tracker. It wasn't until those 2 nofollows were indexed that we shot up to #1.

Point being, what does it matter the competition? Isn't the argument that nofollows have no impact on ranking???? Or are you now saying that nofollows wont have impact on high comp? Why ask the question about comp otherwise. The keyword is driving traffic and earning money. So...........

Let me ask you a simple question..... Are you saying that nofollow links carries link juice? ... and are you suggesting that people should spend 1000-2000 dollars buying nofollow links on sites such as forbes? I suspect that the other links which are not nofollow which you are aquiring for your clients has more of an impact than you may realize.... after all you probably will need a backup to your nofollow strategy...

1. Im not sayin nofollow carry link juice. I simply have an analyst well versed in the field of computational semiotics making recommendations based on data and predictions. And they're working.

2. I increase ranking with links from sites like Forbes.

3. Links already obtained for my clients is why I haven't been able to experiment or show the data from adding nofollow links. It would just be argued that the nofollow had 0 impact and the result I was achieving is completely attributed to previous dofollow links.

4. noFollow is not a strategy. I don't look whether it's nofollow or dofollow. Only if its high quality and contextual. More links is more links. As long as they're quality idc. I have witnessed ranking improvements when there are no other links being built or showing up and a nofollow is added. Even to old pages that have been stagnant and stable in a position for a long time, as shown above in the screenshot.

 

[Nytshade]

WOW this is still going on?? this will never end hehe D:

Hawker again posting fluff, Eric bro even though I don't agree with you but at least you have something to back your claim unlike Hawker and the other members. Hawker when I inboxed you I asked you to back your claim with proof and you said you're no longer interested in the topic.

Here are your exact words:

Well no offence nyteshade but I don't really care anyway mate to be honest. It's all a load of bs anyway and really isn't worth getting into.

All I asked Hawker was that he should join the discussion with proof because the other guys (Sid & Ted) have given more than enough proof then he said he's no longer interested in the topic. But when I wake up this morning I see another fluff post from him.

Guy, give us proof, we're done with imaginary thinking and assumptions. If you post fluff again or attack this post I'm just going to remove your post without concern because you're not adding any value to the thread.

So anyone else who claims nofollow links have an effect on SEO then give us proof because the last time I checked nofollow links were dropped out of the google's link graph which makes them irrelevant. Sid & Ted have already given more than enough proof to what I'm saying anyway. So I don't need to repeat what they already said.

Just posting this to let people know that we're not interested in assumptions, we want evidence.

 

[Anna Wiliams]

I am not much experienced but so far what i have learned is that
No Follow links are equally important like Do Follow links as Google count no follow as natural links and Do Follow as Referred and a balance must be maintained.

Page rank updations have be stopped by google from 2 years and are not considered now day. Focus on sites with good DA,PA, DA must be atleast 30+ for getting some link juice and add value to your work.

Text links are better for SEO and PR2 will obviosly be of benefits rather than wasting time on PR0 sites.

 

[Nytshade]

I thought I did mention that we're done with imaginary thinking and we need proof, give us evidence not assumptions.

I am not much experienced...

Clearly you're not and should just shut up and let those who're experienced do the talking just sit on the sideline.

...but so far what i have learned is that
No Follow links are equally important like Do Follow links as Google count no follow as natural links and Do Follow as Referred and a balance must be maintained.

Like I said, prove it. Show us where google says they need a good balance of nofollow and dofollow links or else it will look unnatural and your rankings will drop. SHOW US!!

Stop lying to us. I have sites that are ranking well with dofollow links only and they've been ranking for years.

Page rank updations have be stopped by google from 2 years and are not considered now day. Focus on sites with good DA,PA, DA must be atleast 30+ for getting some link juice and add value to your work.

Now I see that you really don't have much experience in seo and I don't know why you bothered joining this discussion. DA/PA have got nothing to do with SEO, yes I said it, I bet google doesn't even know that crap, things like moz rank etc. google have their own tools they don't need 3rd party useless metrics like DA/PA, moz trust...

You can only use those as a guide, but I wouldn't even waste my time using those metrics.

Google didn't stop updating page rank, they won't, that's how they measure/calculate trust and authority, so page rank is still getting updated but not to the public.

Text links are better for SEO and PR2 will obviosly be of benefits rather than wasting time on PR0 sites.

At least I'll agree with that, even though I might not say text links are better, I would say I prefer a text link because I can use a keyword I'm targeting as the anchor text.

SO please give us proof guys no more assumptions and imaginary thinking.

 

[Nytshade]

I think we should discuss why nofollow links were dropped off the google link graph maybe that will help clear things for those who believe nofollow links are relevant in seo.

Ever heard of PR sculpting??? Or Nofollow sculpting??

A major, MAJOR reason google had to remove nofollow links in the link graph, that is why the link juice in nofollow links goes in a black hole just like Sid has already explained above.

So google saw that nofollow links had some value in seo that is why they dropped nofollow links in the link graph and made sure that they don't have any effect on seo because there are smart people who can manipulate the system with nofollow links.

So if nofollow links were still valuable to seo then nofollow sculpting would also still be possible and for the fact that nofollow sculpting doesn't work anymore that's more than enough proof that nofollow links have no effect, PERIOD!

According to me, if you believe google employees didn't remove all the value that nofollow links had then they're stupid, really that's what you're implying.

 

[Anna Wiliams]

Search Engine Optimization is a field of research not a proof. Whatever I mentioned is definitely my personal research not a proof. And nobody can prove anything other than Google or any other search engine itself. PR is not updated publicly, but as per your comment, if it is still updating then how could you prove the same?

Secondly, moz types of blogging networks do share their personal research and experiences so that people can learn and make strategy for their own projects. The people who share their knowledge and research work are definitely far more knowledgeable than you since they are completely into this field since a long time.

Now, let’s come to the point of DA PA. Google cant just decide any website’s credibility only by relying on PR. There are many factors that Google do consider including DA-PA. DA, PA are just two factors from them. If possible, do check the moz surveys and then you may get some details about it with some correlations data and survey results.
SEO is a research field if anybody knows about how exactly google is working then nobody would have made such efforts in order to get rank. Everyone would have been on rank 1.. (#Sarcastic)

 

[elcidofaguy]

Point being, what does it matter the competition? Isn't the argument that nofollows have no impact on ranking???? Or are you now saying that nofollows wont have impact on high comp? Why ask the question about comp otherwise. The keyword is driving traffic and earning money. So...........

The competition factor does matter... For example you have a page with the keyword "idivnawatamtookinaboot" and you create two nofollow links and wow you're ranking #1.... Do you seriously think its the 2 nofollow links or the fact its zero to poor competiton noting your content alone is sufficient for it to rank... This scenario seems to apply to those banging on about local SEO with nofollow....

There is certain code that a link would be contained in, that I'm pretty sure would indicate to Google that its an ad. So no, I think Googles spiders are smart enough to decipher between a contextual link and a link contained within an ad.

In the case of ad networks such as Adwords its possible to tell its an ad... But what about sites such as this forum... Go and look at the code - its a nofollow image link.... and there are tons of sites online where you will not be able to tell from the source code that its an ad... I've taken loads of ads out on many sites and not once have I ever observed an increase in rankings... Increase in traffic yes, but of course you would expect that with an ad.... You could say using ads is a "nofollow" strategy - it drives traffic....

Here is the thing.... Go ahead and create as many nofollow links as you can and you will see the same thing over and over again... Try nofollow links on forums, post comments etc... again and again none of it will help you rank...

Taking things further - what about tiered linkbuilding? I know you are into that.... Have you ever tried it with not caring if the links are dofollow vs. nofollow? Those nofollow links can render your entire campaigns useless.... I'm not the only one saying that.... There are tons of folks who stated/observed that...

Again I've mentioned this a few times, so I'll say it again... There is a remote possibility of co-citation at work in cases when a nofollow contextual link is on a highly reputable site....Its the only explanation assuming everything else checks out with regards to isolated anomalies... I suspect that this is a manual tweek by Google which overrides the algorithm such as links on certain pages of wikipedia being a possibility... Does that mean nofollow links is responsible? No.... Does that mean everytime I place a nofollow link - the co-citation factor will have an influence - certainly not...!!! There are plenty of studies which show it is more or less impossible to rank for competitive keywords without any backlinks.... All you have to do is look at the top 3 results and you will see that those positions are sites which have quality dofollow backlinks....

Its also worth noting that the case for a nofollow link is a strong one... It has its uses from sites offering ads, affiliate links as well as sites which want to put a stop to spam such as forums with rending comment spam useless etc... There are tons of reasons why nofollow links are in use and now it seems we now need a new nofollow as some people refuse to believe the original purpose of it lol.....

When it comes to evidence online for proof that nofollow links influence the serps - there is none... Certainly I have not found any to date, except for the case of attempting to rank for obscure keywords which no one is competing for as explained earlier.... Its conclusive where ever you look with even noting representatives from Google stating nofollow does not have a direct influence...!!!

 

[ericplotz1]

ericplotz1

Man, you're completely going off with this co-citation stuff. It has nothing to do with this keyword in question or pages linking to or from anything. THE ONLY LINK ON THE 2 NOFOLLOWS IS A LINK TO THE SITE THATS RANKING. And there are NO links going out to any pages from the main page that weren't already there for the past year now. Ok but lets, say it was a case of co-citation, are you saying that after a year, adding those 2 nofollows somehow showed relevance via co-citation/co-occurence? Or why are you bringing it up?

AGAIN! IT'S INSULTING TO SUGGEST I AM USING SOME MADE UP WORD TO SUPPORT THIS EXPERIMENT. AND AS I SAID, I AM MORE THAN WILLING TO JUMP ON A TEAM VIEWER TO SHOW YOU OTHERWISE! This is the only semi-legitimate point you've made against me, in a hope that your accurate with your assumption, but your not! I wouldn't compromise integrity to support this argument.

Who cares if there's proof listed publicly on the web?! Do you think Google would announce publicly how to game the search engines???? No they wouldn't, as they've learned from past mistakes. So you guys keep regurgitating the same stuff thats been blogged about over and over, while in actuality Googles algorithms are somewhat AI and evolve on their own, in a way.

The analyst we have on board understands the algo, how it works, and can make predictions for the future.

I see this working consistently, after multiple tests.

Your whole argument against my proof is the specualtion and assumption here. Not any of the data I've provided. None of its spec, yet you guys will keep shooting it down with speculation.

Speaking of trying it yourselves, yet have no data or proof to support what you are saying. Just a bunch of outdated posts. Google changed yesterday, and it'll change again today. To think otherwise is asinine.

Just because you know that you can turn on your faucet and get water, doesn't mean I can't dig a hole and construct a solar still. It's clear not one of you have tested this and focused enough attention into it to see how Google reacts. WE (my team) tests everything, throwing nothing out the window.

As for Ted and his experiments, I'm calling BS until I see data.

It's funny how you guys can harp on others for not providing data, but will turn around and post videos from Google instead of your own data.

Again, I have the data. Where's yours? I can post more, with authority sites, but like before you would just argue that the previous SEO work had something to do with it.

Let me ask you this though. One of the experiments we did, we ran all do follows at the site. All manual SEO nothing natural. THe ranking moved to about the 50th position and stayed.

After diversifying the link profile and adding nofollows, the ranking shot up. So are you saying diversification doesn't impact SEO?

Diversification is key with most niches. No niche is going to have all dofollows, unless your gaming the SEs. This is no secret. And diversification has proven to impact SEO. Simple as that.

You guys are suggesting to people who know absolutely nothing about SEO, to just go out and build dofollows. Not a good look man.

 

[ericplotz1]

I challenge you to repeat that experiment. I bet your results will not be the same. I think maybe you are letting what you want to see happen influence what you are seeing happen while overlooking what is really happening. (just my guess)

If the experience is repeatable and those links are that powerful, then maybe you should just use those two sites you are getting nofollow links from to drive all the rest of your rankings to number one on other sites. Why aren't you? Or why do you think that might not work if it worked in this case?

The experiment has been repeated. The low volume site is the only way I could show isolated data. Dofollows would popup naturally on high volume sites, blowing my experiment. But I have the data for that as well.

As for using the same sites twice, TO keep it clean I don't link out to two sites I'm trying to rank. Or thats what I've learned. Too worried of losing great work thats effective to test otherwise. It would be nice if I could do this though, I just feel that linking out to another site that has less authority then the previous ranked site would some how leave a footprint.

I have conducted a very similar experiment, except with variables more isolated than yours by far, and gotten the exact opposite results. No movement in rankings whatsoever. Not the slightest blip. Absolutely zero influence.

Would love to see that data, seeing as how proving otherwise would be harder to isolate the variables. How are you going to stop yourself from naturally obtaining nofollow links with a high volume KW? So proving that nofollow has 0 value is a bit harder to prove either way you do it.

And I have tested whether a contextual dofollow link from a blog would even drive indexation - it didn't any time I tested it. And if Google doesn't value the link enough to even index the page, then I cannot possibly see how they could be valuing it for anything else.

I'm assuming you meant nofollow link.

Then you did it wrong. I use nofollows as a secondary tier in SER all of the time. Works fine to get my tiers indexed and saves me money. I could provide that data as well, but then people would probably make the assumption I was submitting to an indexer. I'm not. No need when I can can setup a secondary tier for each tier and pick and choose between bookmarks, comments, directories, and whatever for free minus cost of my VPS, proxies, emails, and article spinner.

 

[PTTed]

@ericplotz1 - As for calling what I am saying - B.S. in your earlier response - Right back atcha.

Sorry. No screen shots to provide. My tests were all conducted years ago and most of the domains and orphan pages involved in my tests are long gone.

Don't believe me if you don't want. I honestly don't care one way or the other. I'm just trying to be helpful.

I'm not going to go buy domains again and repeat the same list of tests I did previously just to prove a point on some forum. Give me a break. You go do it. Your existing test is majorly flawed from a scientific testing standpoint.

If you want to prove nofollow boosts ranking - go do a legit scientific test. And if you conduct one, you will see it doesn't. If you want my opinion on what a legit test would be, go look up the old thread where I already hashed all this out with Savage in painfully explicit detail. I am not going to explain it again.

I'm assuming you meant nofollow link.

Yes. Typo. Thank you. I went back and corrected it.

Let me ask you this though. One of the experiments we did, we ran all do follows at the site. All manual SEO nothing natural. THe ranking moved to about the 50th position and stayed.

After diversifying the link profile and adding nofollows, the ranking shot up. So are you saying diversification doesn't impact SEO?

Diversification is key with most niches. No niche is going to have all dofollows, unless your gaming the SEs. This is no secret. And diversification has proven to impact SEO. Simple as that.

Diversification matters zero dude. Friggin zero. Always has. Still does.

How many links are you throwing at sites in order to get them to rank? I bet you are throwing lots at them. That is probably why you think you need diversification.

Maybe you think you need nofollows to hide your good dofollows? OR maybe you think you need different types of links because getting all of one kind of link looks suspicious? It doesn't.

If you are getting truly worthwhile links, then you don't need very many links to rank high.

Most local sites that rank organically (not in Google's local business results) are ranking because of a handful or less of links from really good sources.

Anyone I know who has been doing SEO successfully for any reasonable length of time has eventually realized this. Honestly. You don't need any nofollow links at all. Zero.

If you haven't realized this yet, then you are addicted to spamming.

 

[ericplotz1]

@ericplotz1 - As for calling what I am saying - B.S. in your earlier response - Right back atcha.

That's fine.

Sorry. No screen shots to provide. My tests were all conducted years ago and most of the domains and orphan pages involved in my tests are long gone.

So you're defending something you haven't tested in years? Google has changed drastically in the last couple of years. Lord knows I've been humbled not updating myself with information. Even in this very forum, and have never failed to admit if I was wrong or did not know.


Just remember, just because YOU tested it and it didn't work, means nothing. I can claim all day that you can't clean glass. Then I can smear mud all over a paper towel and wipe down the glass. Then I can say, "see you can't clean glass".

But if someone comes in with a clean paper towel and wipes the glass clean, I'll probably listen to what that guy has to say. Not sure how the data I provided was BS, or what my motive would be for that matter if I provided BS on purpose.

 

[PTTed]

PTTed

Yes I admit that the things I tested for the things we are talking about here were all tested years ago. And yes it is possible that Google changed. But if they changed substantially, then the methods I use to rank should have quit working or at least changed how effective they are. That hasn't happened.

The thing is, most of these changes that people are talking about with Google are really changes to close loopholes that have been exploited somehow by someone. Even with Penguin and Panda - those were just closing loopholes. EMD update - loophole. Site loading speed update - nonsense only affecting terribly slow sites/pages. HTTPS ranking boost - nonsense - pointless. Hummingbird - nonsense - changes affected keyword intent - not ranking.

The core factors influencing your rankings are basically the same as they were before Panda and Penguin were introduced. You could argue that Panda was a core ranking change because it seems at that time Google really started caring about content quality a lot more than they had previously. But if you were building a high quality site before Panda and you didn't have any thin content or duplicate content, then you weren't affected anyway. In that case nothing really changed for you.

The only people who thought they experienced a core Google algorithm change were people exploiting some loophole to their advantage. Google closed the loopholes. They lost ranking. But Google was still mostly about 1) Relevancy and 2) Authority. Always has been. Now you have to consider 3) Quality too. But even that is minor compared to the other 2 factors assuming your existing quality is at least average.

So in short, yes, everything I am basing my explanations on are things that I learned from testing years ago. I quit using those SEO tactics back then - things like nofollow and social media. And that is how I know you can rank sites with zero diversity and zero nofollow and zero social media. If I get any social media or any nofollow links for a site, it is not part of my SEO plan at all. It is done for a different reason.

I would absolutely change my opinion on either social media or nofollow or anything else if someone could provide concrete evidence that I believed and that made sense. I would then just go retest them myself. Until that happens, why in the world would I bother.