Is nofollow now ignored for links to highly trusted sites?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I've woken up to find a small subset of my site removed from the 2-5 spot it has held for years but is now barely clinging to the 10th spot or back as far as 15th. The subset is a series of articles with extensive visitor feedback and pretty much covers every aspect of the subject, including where to buy, how to use, deal watching etc.

My friend up top of the rankings had been wikipedia but apparently they met the same fate today. We've been replaced by Amazon and eBay.

Possible reasons?

Here's one that I think merits a look, I think nofollow just fell off links leading to Amazon and eBay. All things equal it would have taken a massive link campaign to overtake us in the top spots for these particular semi-important keywords yet there they are.

Nofollow ignored for trusted sites? It sure feels like it to me. eBay is ranked 11th in the world and is by definition a trusted site so perhaps nofollow can no longer apply to it? I read this suggestion in another forum so I looked at it closely and it feels like a tight white glove, it fits perfectly. A sudden influx of tens of thousands of(mostly low quality) links would do this.

[lucy24]

But how many sites bother to use nofollow at all? Especially "low-quality"* ones?


* Assuming for the sake of discussion that a low-quality site yields a low-quality link.

[indyank]

I don't think this change has got anything to do with links but I see google bringing up more ecommerce sites for keywords that were until now dominated by (or reserved for) blog/news articles. of course blogs have been decimated to a great extent unless you are a well known news blog.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Hold on a second. eBay and amazon have affiliate programs. Affiliates often link directly to product pages though they tend to use nofollow links. ebay recently ordered affiliates to change redirects from 302 (the browser default) to 301 in order to receive full value, for those affiliates who used redirect pages.

I'm seriously questioning how nofollow works and have a suspicion that just because a webmaster says "I don't vouch for this site" doesn't mean Google will not respond with "oh, but we trust that site, nofollow ignored". There is talk of big brands dominating the serps but I see primarily sites with affiliate programs peppering the top results right now. Could it be as simple as ignoring nofollow to sites Google trusts?

[Planet13]

@ Sgt_Kickaxe:

Could it be as simple as ignoring nofollow to sites Google trusts?

I can't give you any real information, but I keep my ears open to a lot of link building gossip, and I am always happy to pass along gossip.

I haven't heard anything on the linking forums out there about nofollowed links passing value to "trusted" sites.

I have heard a lot of people say publicly that they think the role of link-less citations (just mentioning the URL without linking to it) seems to be gaining in importance in ranking.

Now, these are on public forums, and the people who say that may, or may not, be talking out their caboose. I would just say that there is a lot of talk about it. And, I am sure there are TONS of people who cite big name sites like amazon, ebay, zappos, etc, that don't actually link to them. So that might hold water.

another thing to think about in the case of amazon in particular is that they sell books by university professors, and you will see (non-affiliate) links to those books from the professors' pages, which are hosted on high PR / high authority sites.

so I would say there is a significant amount of "straight" links from university sites to amazon pages, since the professors are NOT interested in spending their time becoming amazon affiliates (but they ARE interested in spending their time promoting their books).

Unfortunately, I have no stats whatsoever for the ratio of "straight" links to affiliate links from university professor pages.

Another thing that others have alluded to on these forums is that aside from measuring click through rates in the google serps, google most certainly is measuring when people type in a URl directly in either chrome or android. And lots more people are typing in ebay.com and amazon.com and zappos.com than are typing in MyLongTailKeywwordStuffedUrl.com

anyway, these are all just guesses at what could possibly be happening.

[jimbeetle]

Affiliates often link directly to product pages though they tend to use nofollow links.

Would be true you were talking about *some* affilliates. I'd hazard a guess that for every affiliate that uses nofollow there are a number that don't. Heck, I've been an affiliate marketer going on 15 years and I've never nofollowed a link.

I think if you want your theory to stand you're going to have to come up with some data -- not that I disagree with it -- but as it stands now it's just supposition based on supposition based on...

[lucy24]

Oh, hey. Directly related question. If a link is no-follow, will it still show up in the other site's GWT "Links to your site"?

[rainborick]

Yes, the links reports in both the Webmaster Tools console and Yahoo! Site Explorer show no-follow links.

[g1smd]

"now"?

I think it has been ignored for a long time.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I see links to my site that are nofollowed on the other end, still, it's been that way a long time. I even see links that don't exist because the site linking in removes the link after a given period of time, ehow shows up that way in my reports all the time.

I think if you want your theory to stand you're going to have to come up with some data -- not that I disagree with it -- but as it stands now it's just supposition based on supposition based on...

Absolutely and I would share if I had any, it's just a new thought passing around. Google's gone and changed something and it fits so I'm not discounting it, proving it is another mess however. Not that it should be proven anyway because when something becomes common knowledge Google must change it or risk being gamed. Round we go!