nofollow or follow

should external links to similar content be nofollow?

[daveozzz]

I have a ecommerce image site where each image page will include a link to an external site which hosts the same image but allows a selection of different transactions not offered on my site.

I can see this doesn't look great as far as duplicate content goes (the images are keyworded the same), but I do need to host the images on both sites.

With this in mind, would you say there was any advantage in having the links to the external site as nofollow links? in terms of the effect on PR and SERPS..?

Thanks for any help.
(wasn't sure where to post this so hope I've got the appropriate section).
Dave.

[Quadrille]

nofollow won't change the fact that you have lots of duplicate content; linking to it is like walking into Immigration and saying "Please check these forged documents".

I'd step back a little, think about what you really want to achieve ... and find the better way of doing it.

[daveozzz]

Thanks for the reply. The duplicate content issue is there and not going to go away. I just have to work with it.

It's 2 sites that sell the same product in different ways. There is no overlap in functionality (although I know Google doesn't care).
(It's perhaps similar to one site selling a music track for download, and deep linking to another site's page where the same track can be purchased mail order).

I guess I'm probably screwed whatever I do.