The issue of no-follow links has been a hot topic among bloggers over the past few weeks. They’ve been around for years, but news that some bloggers lost their Page Rank as a result of not using “no-follow” has people worried.
Opinions vary as to best way to deal with sponsored posts and how the no-follow issue affects commercial work bloggers do and what it all means. (You can read Google’s rules on no-follow here and their stance on paid links here.) There’s no definitive answer in terms of the longterm effects of no-follow on blogging business models – ie, how companies and bloggers will work together going forward.)
At BritMums we always promote ethical blogging, which requires transparency when it comes to sponsored posts. Here, Danielle Fudge, senior SEO manager at the digital agency Forward 3D, answers a common question she gets from parent bloggers. As the discussion about SEO evolves, we like to present various opinions from different quarters. We’re not advocating everything Danielle suggests here. Rather we’re widening the discussion beyond bloggers to include the agency side. What do you think?
The first question I’m always asked by Mum Bloggers is “How Does Google Know Whether I’m legitimately linking out to a product I recommend, or simply embedding a sponsored link?”
The simple answer to this one is that Google doesn’t know for sure. Google uses complex pattern recognition which allows it to draw conclusions from the data it has about websites. For example, a travel blogger is likely to link out to potentially travel agent sites, hotels, excursions in foreign countries etc. A gardening blogger is likely to link out to B&Q or House & Garden magazine. But what does a parent blogger write about? You could say children and parenting, therefore links out to the Early Learning Centre or Toys R Us would be relevant. However, I know many Mum bloggers who write about a huge variety of topics, not just their children.
Based on this, I believe that Google is having trouble determining the theme of Mum blogs and therefore is mistakenly penalizing these sites.
So how do you overcome this?
Determine what the overall theme of your website is, and stick to it. If you write predominantly about crafts, only link out to craft websites or websites within that theme; if you write mostly about your children, only link out to website relevant to children specifically. Making a thematic choice will allow you to continue working with SEO and PR partners without the risk of being penalised.
However, there are a couple of additional factors also in play here.
1. Make sure the ratio of “real content” to sponsored content weighs in favour of your “real content”. Only link out within a maximum of 40% of your posts, and try to stay below that level if possible. This will show Google that the majority of your content is not sponsored.
2. Some people use alternative wording for “sponsored” – It’s important to be transparent with your readers. Some bloggers do this with phrases other than “sponsored”, such as “Branded Content” or “Commercial Content”.
3. Cross link your sponsored content with your “real” content. 4. Don’t worry about banner ads and other elements of display advertising as Google understands that this is specifically commercial and it is inline within the webmaster guidelines.
5. Are advertorials also bad? This type of content is, unfortunately, slightly less researched and therefore is less well understood. I would recommend not using the wording “Advertorial” in order to ensure you are “safe”
6. Don’t mix up no-follow with no-index. I’ve seen a number of questions about the Yoast SEO WordPress plug-in which activates no-index. Should you use the no-index option, Google will never again crawl nor index your site. No-index is a technical piece of code which should only be used for content which you do not want Google to see at all e.g. personal or sensitive information (the government uses it a lot) or terms and conditions, privacy policy etc.
Should you decide to forego SEO and link-building revenue from your blog, it is worth protecting yourself with no-follow tags. Here’s a step by step guide for how to insert a no-follow tag into your links below:
1. The code of a link is as follows:
This is a link to the example.com website, with the clickable words or anchor text being “Link to example website”
2. In order to add a no-follow you need to add the code rel= “nofollow”
3. In the code this looks like:
< a href=“http://www.example.com” rel=“nofollow”>Link to example website
Danielle Fudge is senior SEO manager of Forward 3D.
Join the discussion about no-follow links on the BritMums network.
About
BritMums is the UK’s original collective of lifestyle bloggers and digital influencers, fueling the country’s most influential social content. We lead the online conversation with members who are parent social influencers creating content on topics ranging from food, parenting, travel, politics, style and more.
sac hermes
Saturday 26th of May 2012
I have not checked in here for a while because I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend
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Sunday 6th of May 2012
I all the time used to study article in news papers but now as I am a user of internet thus from now I am using net for articles, thanks to web.
Ruth - geekmummy
Wednesday 2nd of May 2012
I like to compare this whole business to speed limits when driving.
A speed limit on a road is as absolute as is Google's stance on paid links, The police are very clear that if you exceed the speed limit you've committed an offense and they will fine/prosecute if they catch you. Google are very clear that if you've been paid to place a link, it must be nofollow.
Yet sometimes when we're driving, we speed, don't we? We make a calculated decision, based on how likely we think we are to be caught, and that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about making a calculated decision to place a paid link based on how likely Google are to work out that it's been paid for.
There's one big difference though, You can't be retrospectively caught speeding. Once you've driven down that road, there's no record of it (unless a speed camera spotted you). But once you've put your paid link live on your website it stays there. So if Google suddenly finds a new way to spot paid links, or cracks down on another link network that you were knowingly or unknowingly a part of, they will catch you.
What doesn't help is that Google deliberately hides a lot of how it ranks websites to avoid people "playing the system". So what we're left with as bloggers is the theoretical advice of SEO experts, and every expert has a different theory. It's very confusing, and I can completely see why a lot of bloggers are struggling with this.
I personally agree with Judith that there is a lot more to SEO than the "get rich quick" schemes of paid linking, and I think the only way that bloggers can be completely sure that they won't suddently get downranked by Google is to use "nofollow" links when placing paid content.
Judith Lewis
Wednesday 2nd of May 2012
I'm going to throw out a radical idea (radical, it seems, for most SEOs).
I just wanna geek put about SEO since I've been at it since 1996...
There's more to what we in the industry call "off-site" SEO than links but links get all the glory..,
The CITATION helps a website's SEO.
I think Google has been clear & it is clear here:
paid/specifically requested = nofollow editorial/not requested = follow
Google *does* look atonks out as well as links in BTW but that's a longer post.
If a brand says "follow or no business" I'd counter with "Google values all links & you'll get traffic & sales".
If the agency isn't going anything but links and are just interested in the quick win on the keywords, it won't appeal. If the agency is trying to benefit their client for the long term, they will know every connection helps, every mention counts, and every engaged blog with a dedicated & engaged following valuable.
SEO isn't just about links & I hope this hasn't painted the wrong picture of those of us who have dedicated more than a decade of our lives to help businesses of all sizes.
Thanks for letting me geek out a bit :-)
Scottish Mum
Monday 30th of April 2012
Hi Danni, however Google looks at links, they say in their guidelines that:
follow = for unpaid links. nofollow = for paid links.
There are points where the two are likely to cross over and I completely agree that Google can't split the difference in a lot of cases, but where several bloggers are using the same anchor keywords to link to the same webpages, then yes, I would imagine Google would find those easy to flag up.
I think it was Tasha and Sarah that mentioned the link anchor text.
SEOs want paid links as follow and with anchor text, often without declartion that it is a paid link = against Google guidelines.
It's not illegal, but the point is, thats what we are asked to do is against Google's own guidelines, and we can choose to work to those, or not to work to those. If we choose to link anchor text for an SEO company, then we choose to risk being classified as having links that are against Google policy.
I'm not against it at all, I take posts and adverts, but it's a risk. We weigh up our options and decide if the money is worth the risk. We all decide whether we are willing to take that risk or not.