Use of the nofollow tag can really have an impact
on your site's rankings. Here we are going to go over the basics of
utilizing this often overlooked tool.
Using the nofollow tag allow you to dictate where
your page rank "juice" is directed. Typical links on a page leak
page rank from your linking page to the linked page. This is true
even when talking about internal pages of your website.
When linking from your home page to an internal
page, you are passing along some page rank. The page rank your page
passes is divided by the number of outgoing links from that page.
The more outgoing links, the less page rank to each link.
To increase the page rank that is leaked to your
important pages, you can use the nofollow tag. This tag does not
stop Google from following the link, but it does prevent Google from
passing page rank through that link.
By using the nofollow tag on pages of no
importance to your marketing campaign, you can funnel the page rank your
site passes internally to your income producing pages.
Example:
<a href="http://homepage.com/contact-us.html" rel="nofollow">contact
us</a>
This is an example of how to tag a link with the
nofollow tag. You simply add rel="nofollow" to your link.
We would advise tagging a number of your links
with this nofollow tag. Some specific links to start with:
Links to your privacy policy, contact us page,
shopping cart and any other pages that do not promote your product or
information
Outgoing links to other sites, unless there is a
reason you want to pass page rank to that page. Link exchange type
links, for example, you would not want to nofollow.
Do not use a nofollow link when linking to your
site map resource page from your home page. If your internal pages
link to these two pages, do use the nofollow tag for these links on the
internal pages.
Just by going through your site and applying the
nofollow tag in this manner will improve your search engine rankings.
Start with your home page, then comb through your full site. Give it
a try, chances are you will be very pleasantly surprised!
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