Several times in the last few months I have run into the following scenario… I see a website that is ranking higher than me for a certain search term. When I analyze their backlinks I find they only have a few decent backlinks, and many backlinks from Yahoo Answers. These links are always in the answers to the question that was asked on Yahoo Answers, and the links always include the “nofollow” tag. Yahoo Answers includes the “nofollow” tag on all outoing links in their questions and answers.
According to Google no PR is passed when the “nofollow” tag is used.
How does Google handle nofollowed links?
We don’t follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web.
From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results.
Could there be exceptions? If you’re Google and your goal is to provide the most relevant results, then you know that Yahoo Answers is going to be a quality source of reputable links. The same goes for Wikipedia, a human edited and highly credible (for the most part) set of links related to a certain topic.
It wouldn’t be hard at all for Google to make an exception in their algorithm to count “nofollow” tags from certain authority sites. In fact, when it comes to Yahoo Answers they could even count only the links in the winning answers. This would definitely increase their search results relevancy as those winning answers would usually be very high quality sites that are related to the question.
So I set out to see what other information there was about this topic and I found I wasn’t the only one that seems to think there is some incongruity when it comes to what Google says and what they do when it comes to nofollow links.
Wikipedia had an interesting bit…
Google states that their engine takes “nofollow” literally and does not “follow” the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google’s index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).
I also found this very interesting blog post where someone also notices a conflict between what Google says about “nofollow” and what it they really do.
Only testing will tell if my suspicion about Yahoo Answers and the “nofollow” tag is true. Until then I’m never going to assume what anyone tells me is the truth without putting rational thought and experience through my own testing into it. Especially when it comes to SEO.
What do you think? Is this theory off the mark or have you experienced inconsistency with the nofollow tag also?
Ijust watched an extraordinary film called Man on Wire. If you haven’t seen it you really should. It’s about a man that walks across a tightrope between the two World Trade Center towers! It’s a movie about passion, dreams, and pushing life to the edge.
Not many of us are as big a risk taker as Philippe Petit, the man who performed the feat. However, we can still implement the lessons he shares in the movie in our own lives and marketing. You see, so many times I talk with people that are too afraid to take even the smallest risks online. They’re practically paralyzed in their marketing efforts because they’re afraid of what Google might do to their rankings, that their landing pages might get slapped, or they may risk losing sales. However, it’s the people that push the envelope a little further and aren’t afraid to take larger risks that end up with the larger rewards.
Frank McKinney calls this risk taking “exercising your risk threshold muscle”. If you don’t know of Frank, he builds some of the world’s finest and most opulent mansions ever built all on spec! Meaning he doesn’t have a buyer when he builds them. Talk about risk!
Sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut, and it’s definitely easier to take bigger risks if you have nothing to lose. Yet, if you really want to push things, to really see what’s possible with your marketing and your business you have to be willing to walk the wire to some degree.
What risks could you take in your business that could really pay off for you? Are you holding off spending more money on getting help or purchasing more content for your website? Have you been holding back on implementing some split-testing because you’re afraid you might lose sales?
Whatever your personal risks are ask yourself, what would happen if I took these risks and succeed? You can’t find out if you don’t take the risk.
Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Benson, a ClickBank top seller, fitness expert, and extremely successful Internet marketer. Jon is the author of several ebooks including Fit Over 40 and 7 Minute Muscle. In my interview with Jon he shares his story, what’s made him successful, and some great tips and info. Have a listen and feel free to share your thoughts and comments below.
Posted: September 1st, 2008 | Filed under:Internet Marketing | Comments Off
Being that it’s Labor Day in the US today many of us will find we suddenly have some extra time on our hands. No need to waste the entire day, so why not spend a little time doing something that’s of critical importance: backing up your PC! If you don’t have an automated system for backing up, perhaps you could take time today to set one up. If you have nothing at all to backup on, then go to the store, get a backup drive and start. Remember, it’s not a matter IF your computer is going to crash, it’s a question of WHEN.
I currently use a few backup methods. I backup everything to an internal hard drive every night at 3am, I have an external USB drive that I backup to once every few weeks, and today I’m looking at setting up with Mozy for online/offsite backup.
The program I use and absolutely love for automatic backups is GoodSync, (created by the people who make RoboForm). It’s a really nice program that can remember several different types of backups and syncs. I also use it to sync certain files to my laptop and my USB thumb drive.
Whether you’re off for Labor Day or not, I hope you take some time to protect your hard work and backup your PC.
Welcome to my new podcast series ‘The Marketing Edge’ where I’ll be interviewing successful online marketers, find out what they do, how they do it, and what gives them the marketing edge. In turn, they’ll share insights, inspiration, and information to help you take your business to the next level.
In this first interview I speak with Josh Wexelbaum of ScrappyBusiness.com. What’s interesting about Josh is he truly lives the Internet marketing lifestyle. In fact, right now he’s traveling in China while running his business from his laptop and just recently watched Usain Bolt break the world record in the 200m! He’s been all over the world while at the same time running PPC campaigns and other marketing projects. Listen to him talk about how he’s been able to live the affiliate marketers dream, how he got started, and some advice and inspiration to share with you.
Posted: August 9th, 2008 | Filed under:Internet Marketing | Comments Off
Yesterday I received a call from Matt, he’s the marketing director with Trialpay. Coincidentally I had just come across Trialpay about 5 days earlier when I went to purchase Linkman, a software for bookmarking websites that I use.
TrialPay works by offering customers an alternative to paying for your product directly. Instead, customers can register for one of many different offers that Trialpay has and then get your software product for free. Trialpay works with many large companies (Ebay, Gap, McAfee) and offers include various credit cards, music downloads, movie rentals, etc. When the customer signs up for an offer, let’s say they decide to join BlockBuster movie rental service, you get paid an amount from BlockBuster, and in turn the customer gets to download your product.
It’s actually pretty ingenious if you think about it. It’s like letting your customer pay for your product by buying something else through an affiliate link that pays you a commission. It’s a win-win, you get paid, and the customer gets more bang for their buck.
Trialpay has a case study on their site with the company Lavasoft (makers of Ad-Aware). Using TrialPay they made an additional 5000 sales a month!
I’m not going to go in-depth about all the ins and outs of TrialPay, but the amount you make as a vendor varies depending on the offer, and you can offer two options to your customers; Trialpay and your own merchant, and you can still do affiliate tracking if you want.
Matt did mention that this service works best for products that are under or around $50, and you need to have a digital product, software is ideal, and any kind of trialware is perfect for this service.
I’m currently working on a software program and will definitely be testing this one out.
Several times in the last few months I have run into the following scenario… I see a website that is ranking higher than me for a certain search term. When I analyze their backlinks I find they only have a few decent backlinks, and many backlinks from Yahoo Answers. These links are always in the answers to the question that was asked on Yahoo Answers, and the links always include the “nofollow” tag. Yahoo Answers includes the “nofollow” tag on all outoing links in their questions and answers.
