Seems like rel="external nofollow" links pass PR

[cangoou]

Hi, I was analysing a competitors link-structure (as good as this is possible today) and was wondering why he outranks one of my sites: He has much less links, but is linked from wikipedia (with rel="nofollow") and from a comment in a PR-9 blog (with rel="external nofollow").

So do I have to conclude that these links actually do pass PR (and a lot of it)? Would this unfortunalty end up that I have to do the same wiki- and blog-spamming my competitors do, just to keep up, and the rel-tag is worthless?

[narsticle]

ive never heard of that external nofollow tag. I guess i should go learn more about it.

[tedster]

Technically, that's just a way of showing two values for the same attribute. In theory that "nofollow" value should be treated the same as an attribute with one just a single nofollow value. You could, again in theory, string together other valid values for the rel attribute: rel="next external nofollow". Thast doesn't necessarily mean that Google is going to parse it correctly, just that they *should*.

cangoou, two questions:

1) I assume you are not using Google's link data for your analysis, correct?

2) Is there a chance of domain level 301 redirects in your competitor's picture? Those can affect SERPs by transferring backlink influence and PR that is very difficult to discover.

[jd01]

Those can affect SERPs by transferring backlink influence and PR that is very difficult to discover.

Not sure I understand, but sounds interesting can you elaborate a little?

rel="external nofollow"

It seems like they should parse the same, but comma separated might make a difference...
rel="external,nofollow"

Justin

Edited: Re-read the OP.

[tedster]

Suppose someone owns a example1.com and it is just "doing OK" for the search "kw1 kw2". They purchase a nicely aged domain (example2.com) that has been ranking decently for that phrase, and they use a 301 redirect to point example2.com to example1.com. When Google processes the 301, the backlink influence and PageRank will pass through to example1.com - but it may be very difficult to uncover this as a cause for example1.com's imporved rankings.

[edited by: tedster at 8:08 pm (utc) on Sep. 19, 2007]

[jd01]

Go it! Thanks.

I thought you meant there was some new way of making a nofollow link count using a 301 or something and couldn't figure out how it was possible.

Justin

[cangoou]

1) I assume you are not using Google's link data for your analysis, correct?

Yes, I use Yahoos siteexplorer-api.

[bwnbwn]

I really don't think there is a logical way to figure anything out why someone ranks better than you.

I can give you many examples of sites with one link showing in Google and a couple hunderd showing in yahoo outranking sites with thousands in both.

It isn't the couple links you described.