Negative effects of suddenly changing outbound links to rel="nofollow"

I want to change a whole section of my site to use rel="nofollow".

[bouncybunny]

I have a section of a site which, for want of a better word, could be described as a directory of industry related resources.

The sites are all hand reviewed, but often when reviewing the 'directory' I come across a site that that has changed its subject matter completely. Sometimes 'embarrassingly' so. Obviously this is then deleted, but it is hard to keep a track on so many sites on a regular basis.

I would also like to expand this section, but this would require a lot of monitoring and the thought that some good sites may become 'bad' inbetween reviews is a concern.

So, I have been considering changing all the outbound links from this section - about 500-600 web sites - to use the rel="nofollow" attribute. I'm still undecided as to whether I want to do this, but one of the considerations is what this 'says' to SEs about this section of my site.

For example, does it send the message that this section is no longer as authoratitive as it used to be?

Any thoughts?

[vincevincevince]

I believe that search engines know, better than anyone, when a site has changed its content-focus considerably. Especially in the case of an expired domain which is picked up and stuffed with porn. You don't need to worry about that kind of link from a SE perspective - just from the perspective of your users.

Many sites have a 'report inappropriate link' or similar button which allows general visitors to report the fact that a link isn't going where it should go. You might consider that.

Changing them all to 'nofollow' is probably a bad idea as it would make you less of an authority.

[bouncybunny]

Changing them all to 'nofollow' is probably a bad idea as it would make you less of an authority

Thanks for that. That is indeed my main concern. (There is a report bad link button, but people rarely use it.)

Having said that, there has been some talk that Wikipedia's ranking increased when they added nofollow to all their outward links. But of course there may be other reasons for that. ;)

[Quadrille]

In general, if it's your site, then you don't need to use 'nofollow' very often at all; if you are linking to a site, then you are suggesting to your visitors that they might go there ... not quite a 'recommendation', necessarily - but certainly a 'facilitation'!

If you feel your reputation may be harmed - in the eyes of visitors or SEs - then better to simply remove the link.

I think it's probably not possible to genralize about the effects of changing 'nofllow' status, as so many other issues overlap that single decision.

But there's no doubt that a change of that magnitude must lead to some measure of reassessment by the SEs; removing a page-worth of links and replacing with a page of nofollows might be seen as a new page.

Also, I'd not worry about short-term effects; for Google, at least, linking issues often take a couple of spidering 'cycles' to be assimilated; Google needs time to reassess relationships between sites. Wait till the dust settles.

[bouncybunny]

Thanks Quadrille.

[matrix_neo]

Changing them all to 'nofollow' is probably a bad idea as it would make you less of an authority.

I second that suggestion.