Added nofollow links on top side of each page and my rankings dropped

[guarriman3]

I have a website with hundreds of URLs. Before September 2019, I had just one dofollow link on the top side of each individual page:

<a href="mainpage">Cheap widgets in Acme City</a>

In order to retain the mobile visitors, in September 2019 I added a sticky bar on the top side of each individual page, adding the two following nofollow links:

<a href="mainpage" rel="nofollow"><img src="path-to-the-big-icon" >MyDomain.com</a>
<a href="mainpage" rel="nofollow"><img src="path-to-the-small-icon"></a>
<a href="url_of_the_widget" rel="nofollow">Widget</a> <---- Just "widget" string, not the name of the model
<a href="url_of_the_widget_photos" rel="nofollow">Photos</a> Just <---- Just "Photos" string, not "Photos of model_name"
<a href="url_of_the_widget_opinions" rel="nofollow">Opinions</a> <---- Just "Opinions" string, not "Opinions of model_name"
<a href="mainpage">Cheap widgets in Acme City</a>

Automatically, as you can see on the following image, I started to loose the ranking for the keywords 'Cheap widgets in Acme City'.

[i.imgur.com...]

Additionally, I've lost 50% of the organic searches for the names of the models. This is, I received 100 organic searches per day when visitors searched "Company A Widgets", and now I get just 50 for the same search. The searches for 'Photos of Long Widgets' and 'Opinions of Company A Widgets' dropped as well, but in with a lower percentage.

I'm suspecting that, somehow, the nofollow links are being considered by Google. And the search engine made my website loose relevance for the keywords of the mainpage ("Cheap widgets in Acme City"), and made opinions and photos pages gain relevance.

Any similar experience or suggestions would be very welcome. Than you.

[edited by: goodroi at 1:56 pm (utc) on Mar 9, 2020]
[edit reason] Please no specific keywords, widgetized [/edit]

[not2easy]

I can't guess why you would nofollow links to your own pages, was there some strategy for that? You don't say how much of the page is covered with this fixed header containing images. If visitors can't see the content, can't scroll away from your 'header' you are not giving a very good user experience. If that header stays there on mobile screens, it could block pretty close to a whole screen, and scrolling down would not help.

The one link you previously had was a normal type of header link although imho it should have not led people to believe they were going to "the" page to find what your site is about on all of its pages. It is a normal practice to link the header logo to the home page and your link makes it appear to be the page to go to to find "Cheap widgets in Acme City".

Until this month, Google says they considered nofollow links as links you don't personally endorse or do not wish to index. This month they started viewing them differently (maybe). Whether or not there has been any change or not is sort of up in the air - read about that here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[guarriman3]

@not2easy Thank you very much for your kind answer :-)

I can't guess why you would nofollow links to your own pages, was there some strategy for that?

The initial strategy was to create a sticky top menu bar for every individual page (the page of the widget, the page of the photos of the widget, the page of the opinions of the widget) with the following captions:

(BIG-HOME-ICON-AT-THE-TOP)
(SMALL-HOME-ICON) | WIDGET | PHOTOS | OPINIONS

This is, when you are visiting the webpage of the photos of "Long Widgets", you are invited to visit the main page of the widget, as well.

From the home page, I dofollow-link all the widgets, using as anchor text the name of model. And within each page of the widget model, I dofollow-link the photos (using "photos of Long Widgets" as anchor text), and I dofollow-link the opinions (using "opinions of Long Widgets" as anchor text). So, until September 2019, all the individual pages, as well as the photos and opinions, were well-linked.

With the introduction of such top links of the sticky top bar, I did not want to "adultarate" the anchor texts that I was already using ("Long Widget", "photos of Long Widget", etc.), so I decided to use nofollow links. As far as I understand, the anchor text is used to rank the used keywords.

Please give me your opinion about this strategy. I'm suspecting now I was wrong.

You don't say how much of the page is covered with this fixed header containing images.

The top big-home-icon covers 10% aprox of the page, but it's hidden when the user scrolls down. The second bar on the top, with the small-home-icon and the rest of the links, covers 10% of the page, and it's sticked while the user scrollos down.

If visitors can't see the content, can't scroll away from your 'header' you are not giving a very good user experience. If that header stays there on mobile screens, it could block pretty close to a whole screen, and scrolling down would not help.

I may be wrong (please correct me if so), but I see a lot of websites with sticky top menu bars, and I like the user experience, because you can jump from one section to another in an easy way, without scrolling up.

The one link you previously had was a normal type of header link although imho it should have not led people to believe they were going to "the" page to find what your site is about on all of its pages.

I don't really understand what you mean. You mean don't use "Cheap widgets in Acme City" as the anchor text in every link to the home page? As far as I understood (and as you point, it's a normal practice), it's a strategy to rank the home page with the given keywords.

Until this month, Google says they considered nofollow links as links you don't personally endorse or do not wish to index.

Then, as a summary, should not I use nofollow links for internal linking? How should I do the internal linking if I want to optimize specific keywords (e.g. the name of widget), but using short wording (because the name of the widget is too long for a top sticky menu)?

Thank you again! :-)

[NickMNS]

False attribution

Before September 2019,

There was a rather large scale update that was confirmed by Google in September 2019, your drop in ranking is most likely related to that, and has very if not nothing to do with the nofollow. Google likely ignores the nofollow.

The other areas of concern for me would be:

In order to retain the mobile visitors,

Do your pages appear significantly differently between mobile and desktop?

Cheap widgets in Acme City

Do you have a page for each city? Could these pages be perceived as doorway pages?

[glakes]

I agree with NickMNS in that nofollow likely has little to nothing to do with your issue.

Based on your graph, and known Google updates, I'd say you are another victim of the Bert update. Bert was announced on October 25, 2019 and was expected to impact 10% of queries.

See: [seroundtable.com...]

From Google: [blog.google...]

[guarriman3]

Thank you very much for your answer, @NickMNS

There was a rather large scale update that was confirmed by Google in September 2019, your drop in ranking is most likely related to that, and has very if not nothing to do with the nofollow. Google likely ignores the nofollow.

You may be right. I'm also analyzing other factors (thin content, crawl budget), but I would like to be sure that the introduction of this new top bar did not have influence in the ranking drop (which, by the way, started during the Google search ranking algorithm update of last November 7th).

Sorry to be so persistent: if Google ignores the nofollow, am I "harming" the ranking for the keywords "Long Widgets" (the commercial name of the widget) if I insert the link of the top bar just with the anchor text "Widget" (not the commercial name)?

Do your pages appear significantly differently between mobile and desktop?

They're pretty similar:
- They share the same URL
- The sticky top bar is the same one (if mobile, there is a less number of visible links, along with a burger menu which shows the rest of the links)
- I show the Google AdSense ads in a different position (Desktop, above the fold; Mobile, below the fold)
- AMP version of each page has different URL and shows a little less content (those generated with JavaScript): the mentioned sticky top bar, and a star-rating voting mechanism.

Do you have a page for each city? Could these pages be perceived as doorway pages?

Actually, the title of the page is "xxxxx in yyyyy", where 'xxxxx' is the name of a product and 'yyyyy' is the name of a country. There are three websites, with two languages for each one:
- [en.country1.mydomain.com...] ; [de.country1.mydomain.com...]
- [en.country2.mydomain.com...] ; [de.country2.mydomain.com...]
- [en.country3.mydomain.com...] ; [de.country3.mydomain.com...]

The website of 'country1' is the main one, to which I devote more contents effort. This 'country1' has the sticky top bar, and the rest do not.

One country does not link another country, but one language does link (with nofollow) the another language of the same country, with the anchor text "Deutsch" or "English".