PageRank sculpting - how do you handle low value pages?

[rros]

Matt Cutts has advised against it using the powerful argument that users and search engines -and viceversa- should follow the same links.

I would like to know how others are handling low value pages (little content) on their sites such as about, privacy, registration, login, feed, comment, comments feed, etc.

And how best to handle aff links?
301's + nofollow?
301's + roboting out their folder?
Other methods?

[aristotle]

I would like to know how others are handling low value pages (little content) on their sites such as about, privacy, registration, login, feed, comment, comments feed, etc.

What I generally do is put a noindex metatag in the header of the page. For xhtml, the code is:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />

This tells robots not to index the page, but links on the page will still be followed.

For internal PR sculpting, my approach is to point as many links as possible to the most important pages, and as few as possible to the least important pages.

[No5needinput]

I link to a single page, named "Reference Desk", and on that page include links to contact, about us, terms, etc. As this single page is linked to by all the site pages I also link to all the main category pages (14 in all) for pr flow and visitor benefit.

[minnapple]

No real need to do anything.
Google will do it for you, in this case.

[incrediBILL]

No real need to do anything

Except design the site properly in the first place :)

A good top down menu and linking architecture works nicely and simply linking more important pages from the home page sends a clear signal that the page is important and should be rated higher.

Obviously you can't link all your pages from the home page, but you can implement a site map off the home page that flattens your site structure onto a single page. Many people ignore the beauty of the often overlooked site map.

Avoid fancy javascript menus and such, keep it real simple so it can get indexed real easy.

FWIW, those that sell the NOFOLLOW idea have to sell something, if they have nothing to sell the don't have an edge on the competition and IMO this is hardly an edge, it's a suicide pill. IMO, rel=NOFOLLOW is a bad idea, never use it, I know more than one site that Google trashed even when it was implemented properly, avoid at all cost.

[minnapple]

I have not seen google rank privacy, registration, login, feed, pages in the serps. Has anyone else?
I believe google accepts that there will be x-amount of "low seach value" pages on any site, and expects these pages to exist on any legit site.

[Robert Charlton]

The excerpt I quote from the Google "Reasonable Surfer" patent in this thread [webmasterworld.com] relates directly to the question....

Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may provide a reasonable surfer model that indicates that when a surfer accesses a document with a set of links, the surfer will follow some of the links with higher probability than others.

This reasonable surfer model reflects the fact that not all of the links associated with a document are equally likely to be followed. Examples of unlikely followed links may include 'Terms of Service' links, banner advertisements, and links unrelated to the document.

There's no guarantee, though, that Google has fully implemented the "Reasonable Surfer" model, but it's likely it has to a degree.

All of the posts above make good points.

About two days ago, I posted a long post on the thread below, which also considers rel="nofollow". I recommend avoiding rel="nofollow", as I also recommend avoiding robots.txt, for PageRank control....

Robots.txt vs. meta robots noindex?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4187554.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[rros]

Thank you for all the suggestions!