Preventing PR leakage to outgoing links

Any penalties involved?

[arikgub]

Guys,

Is it wise to use rel=nofollow attribute with all outgoing links in order to prevent Page Rank leakage from the site? I think if I were Google I would definitely punish the sites linking outside but not willing to share PR. It compromises the PR=popularity concept.

Is anybody aware of the penalties as a result of excessive "nofollow" usage for outgoing links?

[Leosghost]

Wether or not it would be penalised ..it is just such a dumb thing to do ..if every one did this no one would ever go anywhere from anywhere ..

And what makes you think that PR is worth a gram of squat anyhow ..

[tedster]

No, Google does not penalize for the rel="nofollow" attribute. They helped introduce the attribute in an anti-linkspam attempt, so to penalize would be to undermine their own effort. However, I would only suggest using it in cases where you do not actually "vouch for" the other website -- things like links in unreviewed user comments.

The idea of PR leakage is both strained and strange, in my opinion. The mathematical reality is that, on the page with outgoing links, the internal links are circulating just a little bit less PR to your other pages than they would have. It's a very minor drop in a big bucket of PR, unless your site consists almost entirely of external links. And as Leosghost's comment hints, PR itself is just one small factor in a wide ranging total algorithm.

With all the other factors Google has introduced, including the apparent ability to identify your page template and whether links are part of your standard navigation, PR leakage is just not a big deal in my opinion. And my experience is that success on the web comes more rapidly from following an "abundance" mindset.

f every one did this no one would ever go anywhere from anywhere

I'm not sure I follow this line of thinking. The rel="nofollow" links are still both visible and clickable -- they just don't pass PR.

[hp11]

PR isn't what it used to be, in my opinion TrustRank is more important. Pages with little or no PR can rank and attract more uniques than pages with high PR. Overall, I would be concerned with linking to sites that are of real value to my visitors and less concerned with PR in general.

[Leosghost]

I'm not sure I follow this line of thinking. The rel="nofollow" links are still both visible and clickable -- they just don't pass PR.

..

more the mindset that does this that I was questioning tedster ..hogging ( apparent) PR is just such aweird idea ..entirely googles fault in changing the way people build sites and think ..

most webmasters now sem to think sticky site means lobster trap site or click maze scraper adsense circles ..

short term thinking ..

[ken_b]

If rel="nofollow" is an indication that you posted, or allowed to be posted, a link that is of questionable nature, why should anyone trust the rest of the links on your site?

If you use rel="nofollow" on your site, are you ok with others linking to you using rel="nofollow"? If you don't think other sites you link to are really worth giving an unadulterated link to, why should they think your site is worth giving an unadulterated link to?

As far as PR goes, it may not be as important as it used to be, but does that mean it's meaningless today? I doubt it.

[hp11]

I agree that PR still has value, and will continue to have some type of either real or perceived value, until Google stops using it altogether...if that even happens.

[arikgub]

hp11,

you've mentioned "TrustRank". That made me read the original article on TrustRank - "Combating Web Spam with TrustRank"...

The idea is similar to PageRank, the difference is that only the incoming links from the sites with high trust metric really count. The closer your site is to the set of the trusted "seed" sites the higher you score. And what sites are chosen as "seed" sites in the article?

Citation:
"Since trust flows out of the good seed pages, one approach is to give preference to pages from
which we can reach many other pages. In particular, we could select seed pages based on the
number of outlinks."

Am I missing something or this algorithm is going to give huge power to web directories? is it a coincidence one of the paper authors is affiliated with Yahoo... Paying for "trust" - link from a reputable site is nothing new, but TrustRank may simply leave no other choice...

[hp11]

Am I missing something or this algorithm is going to give huge power to web directories?

TrustRank, IMO, is going to help with some of the spam issues - in relations to ranking that was manipulated by the purchase of links, copy, etc.

I also don't believe that it will give huge power to web directories. Although it may, if a certain web directory is considered an authoritative source.

Basically, I think it will give sites that are considered authoritative sources, more 'trust' and in essence, these sites will pass along some of their 'trust' to the sites that they link to.

If 100 bloggers or site owners linked to your site/blog this week because they found your articles or site to be really worth while - it may or may not be a help to you as far as your TrustRank is concerned.

But if CNN or Reuters picked up your site and decided to talk about it and regularly linked to it - your TrustRank would definitely increase (let alone your uniques and rankings) because G views these sites as authoritative and trustworthy.

Now I don't believe that the average site is going to achieve this level of so-called trust. But that doesn't mean that it's a lost cause. It just means that quality is and will become more important. The bottom line, again in IMO, is quality over quantity on all fronts and of course, the elusive .edu link would top things off nicely.