How does Google currently view the use & misuse of nofollowed links?

[JesterMagic]

IMO nofollow on links is almost useless now for search engines like Google to use to determine the importance of a page as a lot of websites (major news outlets , Wikipedia, etc..) have elected to just nofollow all links in articles to be on the safe side.

I myself only use nofollow on links that I don't deem trust worthy (very few) or on ads we display.

Does people think Google actually weights the value of a nofollow link depending on the source it comes from?

With the last algo shuffle in March and April we have lost a fair bit of traffic. Our site does get mentioned on major news services about once a quarter (and several times on Wikipedia) but these last few years more and more, of these links are nofollowed. It's not just nofollowing us but any outgoing links in the article.

I am wondering if this is just part of the issue with the latest algo changes and the rise of larger brands on the SERPs (at least in our niche) which can maybe handle the loss of links that have been nofollowed...

Thoughts?

[keyplyr]

How does Google currently view the use & misuse of nofollowed links?

Hi JesterMagic. Sorry it took so long for someone to respond.

Read here: How does Google handle nofollowed links? [support.google.com]

[FranticFish]

How does Google handle nofollowed links?
In general, we don't follow them

Why say "In general" unless sometimes they DO follow them?

That said, does "follow" in this context mean 'crawl via' or 'send link metrics via'?

[Shaddows]

Your question can be split into three parts:

• What do links actually do?
  
• What parts (if any) might survive a NF tag?
  
• Is this affected by context?

I'll make a stab at the first one. Links do, or have been posited to:

• Act as a vote (original PageRank algo)
  
• Create a semantic relationship between pages
  
• Spur page discovery
  
• Modify link-graph topology, especially seed-page proximity (cf updated PR Patent)

Tests on NF have concentrated on Voting (can you get TBPR score up with only NF links; no) and Discovery (will Google find an orphaned page with only NF IBLs; usually no).

What bits of a link's "power" are you wondering about?

[FranticFish]

All of it. The fact they said "in general' reminded me of the way they amended another support page to say that there was "almost nothing" a competitor could do to harm a site's rankings.

Just wild speculation :)

[keyplyr]

@FranticFish - a valid point.

[JesterMagic]

@keyplyr Thanks, I have read the page many times before :-) it doesn't say anything about misuse though
@shadows I meant from the point of view as acting as a vote and passing on rank

It seems sites are so afraid of loosing rank (being devalued) for linking to sites that might be considered bad by Google that they just end up nofollowing all outbound links. I can understand this to a degree for user generated content (I still think a site should monitor and apply accordingly). I also understand that this also curbs spam comments somewhat.

For content that the site itself generates like articles though a site shouldn't really need to use nofollow except for a few reasons. I see the rise of nofollowing everything by sites as a possible reason why big brands have become more prevalent in the search results since their link profile are so large that they can better handle the increase use of nofollow.

I was hoping Google would realize this and have maybe have the algo take this into consideration.

[EditorialGuy]

The use of "nofollow" obviously has an effect on discovery and PageRank, but just because a link isn't followed or treated as a "vote" by the PageRank algorithm doesn't mean it may not be credited or considered in other ways.

Let's say that you have a page about muffins and it's cited by the International Muffin Society, a slew of prominent baking sites, and the food section of The New York Times. Even if the links are "nofollow" and Google doesn't follow them, they could be viewed as evidence that your page is a valuable resource about muffins. Whether that's actually the case (or not) is anybody's guess, but it's worth remembering that PageRank isn't the only arrow in Google's quiver these days.

[aristotle]

The only backlinks I give much value to are those that send traffic to my sites. It doesn't matter much to me if they're nofollow or dofollow as long as they send me visitors.

Now here is one way that a nofollow backlink can indirectly improve your google ranking:
Suppose that someone clicks that nofollow backlink and comes to your site. Also, suppose that this person likes your site so much that they give you a dofollow link from their own site. Thus, the original nofollow backlink led to a dofollow backlink, which then helps your google rankings.

That's one way that a nofollow backlink can eventually help your google rankings. I'm not going to claim that it's the only way, but it's clearly one way.