Does exact anchor text "no follow" on bad websites cause penalty?

[Oimachi2]

Go articles links are "no follow"

However, in Google webmaster tools, I can clearly see that Google "sees" them as they are reported....

So could I still be penalized by "no follow" links?

[goodroi]

Google makes a few hundred changes a year to the ranking algo. What isn't a problem today can become a penalty tomorrow. You might want to worry less about individual links and take a more holistic approach to your link building. Think about what positive ranking signals Google wants and then develop it.

Personally I wouldn't waste time debating no follow links from bad websites because 99.9% of the time they are not driving any traffic or value to my site. I would delete the links, if I can't delete I would disavow, if I can't disavow I would walk away from the site and build a fresh and clean site. I would not want to be haunted with a long history of risky SEO choices that are coming back in the form of constant penalties. I have no problem with risky SEO for short term profit, you just have to be smart and know when to walk away with your profits and avoid working on a losing proposition. Too many people try to salvage bad links and wonder why they never recover.