The major publishers like Forbes and The Huffington Post are
now placing rel=”nofollow” tags on their external links. One may think that
these big publishers are actually making things hard for themselves. But the
matter of fact is that they are actually easing things down by avoiding the
complications which are specifically associated with the do-follow tags. With
that said, it is worth mentioning here that no-follow tags are become more
important in SEO than ever before.
Now, if you look at the case studies or try it yourself, you
will be able to find out that no-follow tags have become pretty beneficial for
SEO in long term. Now, there can be a debate regarding if no-follow tags have
any direct impact on the rankings. But the matter of fact is that it really
doesn’t matter. Since most of the high-profile platforms now have no-follow
links, there is no chance for you to build links in any way but to abide this
no-follow rule. Hence, you will get brand exposure, referral traffic and other
off-site signals with this no-follow link building. So, yes! It definitely
helps in SEO.
How no-follow links
are treated by Google
The no-follow links are typically accompanied by brand
mentions. Now the brand mentions are considered implied links by Google. It
means that brand mentions hold almost similar power to that of the links which
direct a user to the other website or page. With that said, the no-follow links
definitely hold some power which can convince search engines in some way to
rank a website. And then there is the brand mention which adds much in this
overall link authority.
Now there is another fact which proves that no-follow links
have become more beneficial for SEO than ever before. We all know how good it
is to get a link added into a press release and then that press release getting
distributed. The press releases have also started using no-follow with the
links. However, the effectiveness of link building through SEO is still there.
It surely means that no-follow links can impact the ranking in direct manner
unlike the past.
How can the value of
no-follow link be maximized?
With an emphasis placed on the no-follow tags, the value of
anchor text is not something you shouldn’t really care about. Hence,
you should not be thinking about the keywords on high priority.
With that said, you are now kind of ‘free’ to address people
rather than search engines. As a matter of fact, search engines have become
smarter enough to allow genuine marketers to apply organic tactics to convince
people rather than search engines. So, you can now work on targeting your
influencers’ audience in the better way. You can work on the areas of interest
and then target those audiences using those ‘interest’ buttons.
Furthermore, you can use social media opportunities to get
your word out. Although there are no specific ranking signals developed for
social media, the fact that no-follow now has the capability to take all states
the search engine’s intelligent behavior in a better way.
