What happens to PR with nofollow?

I'm not getting this

[Reno]

I think I'm a little dense when it comes to the rel="nofollow" attribute.

If I have a page called "my_partners.html" that contains 10 external text link listings (or banners for that matter), and I put rel="nofollow" at each of them, does that mean that I do not expect any PR for myself as a result of my linkage to their sites; or, does that mean that I do not want any PR passed on to them FROM my own site?

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[tedster]

Normally links send, or "vote", a share of the page's PR to their target url. A rel="nofollow "attribute means that no PR is sent or voted OUT to that target. However, outbound links do not bring IN PageRank to the url where they appear.

[AussieWebmaster]

If you put the code there then the outbound links will not pass any PR... thus they not you get nothing. If you have inbound links from them it is really a link exchange and as yet I have not heard this stops Google themselves from ignoring the link the other way even if it has no follow.

So a no follow strips the PR passing on the site it is used.

A recip link will get negated for both sites regardless of code.

[Reno]

A rel="nofollow" attribute means that no PR is sent or voted OUT to that target.
...
So a no follow strips the PR passing on the site it is used.

Thank you tedster and AussieWebmaster.

That being the case -- that PR is saved by the host site -- is it fair to say that it makes sense to use it liberally in regards to external linkage? Can there be a "down side" to not giving out your PR any more than necessary?

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[g1smd]

If you trust none of the sites that you link out to, and that is what you are saying by using this attribute, then what should Google think as to the usefulness of your site?

[Lord Majestic]

In theory rel="nofollow" was designed for links submitted by the public - not the person who owns the site, like says it happens in blog comments: this attribute does not necesserily imply that the site linked to should not be trusted, it just means that the submission of link was other than the owner of the page (ie original blog writers).

[Marcia]

>>Can there be a "down side" to not giving out your PR any more than necessary?

Ya, people you exchanged with could remove their links to you if the agreement was for recips, and someone who doesn't like it when they see it done could possibly notify all your other link partners that you're "pulling a sneaky" and they might also remove links to you, even if you haven't put nofollow on all your OBLs.

Gotta watch out for karma loops, sometimes what goes around comes around.

[tedster]

That being the case -- that PR is saved by the host site -- is it fair to say that it makes sense to use it liberally in regards to external linkage? Can there be a "down side" to not giving out your PR any more than necessary?

I should express this more clearly - it's an area that holds a lot of mistaken opinion around the web.

By "voting" for another site, your page does not deplete itself. Rather, the vote it sends to the other site is a weighted vote -- depending on how much PR the page itself (that's the total possible vote) has and how many outgoing links it holds that split the vote.

This idea of hoarding PageRank for your own site is a bit mistaken. It's not true that an oubound link depletes the page's PR. But it is true that by adding outbound links to a page, then each vote is sends outward is worth a bit less. So by voting for a page on another site, the links that "vote" for other pages on your own site are worth just a bit less.

Suppose your page has 70 internal links total, and 2 outbound links total. The power of the PR vote needs to be divided 72 ways. The theory is (and this is not confirmed by Google) that using nofollow on the outbound links means that the PR vote for your own pages is now divided 70 ways. But they could just as easily calculate a 72-way split and just not pass on 2/72.

In practice, I've never had a PR problem with sites that link out naturally and freely. In fact, one small site I developed for a client made sure to include 4 outbound links to good references on every url, and its rankings just popped right from launch.

PR is only on part of the total ranking algorithm. Even if this PR hoarding/circulation idea has a smidgen of truth to it, IMO that smidgen is swamped by other algorithm factors.

So I choose to use the nofollow only as described - user created links that I cannot vouch for, or paid ads. The sites I work with are doing well with this philosophy.

[Marcia]

There were warnings "straight from the horse's mouth" when people were asking about hoarding Pagerank using JS links. In essence, what it adds up to is that you have to be very careful about trying to boost the "authority" status for a site while (artificially) diminishing the "hub" status.

Does anyone have any proof or evidence that those factors are not taken into consideration any more?

[buckworks]

I worry that some of the theories about hoarding PR by playing games with nofollow are really going to come back and bite the people who try them.

What could possibly be more unnatural?

[Reno]

Thank you tedster for that very clear explanation -- much appreciated.

Marcia ... just to clarify my thinking a bit more -- if as AussieWebmaster says "A recip link will get negated for both sites regardless of code", then what real difference would nofollow make to a link partner? (if no one in cross-linking is gaining PR in any case?)

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[tedster]

A recip link will get negated for both sites regardless of code

In my experience, that is not always true. Excessive reciprocal links may get negated, but as part of a balanced backlink profile, reciprocal links do have some effect. If you use nofollow on your side of the deal but the other site does not, their link to you will pass PR.

[steveb]

"that PR is saved by the host site"

It doesn't save anything or help anything.