Sites like Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Knol use the rel=nofollow tag for all outbound links thus denying Google Juice to all external websites.
While most big sites use the nofollow tag to prevent spam in the system, Alan Carr is not too happy about this and has created a WordPress plugin that will automatically add rel=nofollow attribute to all links in your blog posts that point to the above sites.
This looks like an interesting tit-for-tat approach but my advice is not to use the rel=nofollow when linking to authority sites because thoughtful outbound links will "show that you’ve done your research and have expertise in the subject manner."
This is true for both humans (reading your blog) as well as search engines. When you use no nofollow, you are directly helping bots discover other useful content on the web and then they too, like your blog readers, will consider you as an expert in that category.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/tit-for-tag-wordpress-nofollow-plugin/5090/
Reader Comments
The article you point out to says:
Users and Googlebot will NOT like links to bad pages (spam, UGC, etc.)
Users will like links to relevant sites.
This is nowhere near what you state here, furthermore, all links pointing to external websites in this website are in nofollow. You couldn’t even use an external “follow” link to site like wikipedia or flickr in this post
are you preaching peace with a gun?
Credibility: 0%
Written by Joyce on 10.24.08
I don’t see the point in a plugin that boycotts link love to the likes of Wikipedia, Knol, etc. The chances of them linking to my sites in the first place is next to nil. Their use of nofollow is a moot issue to me.
Written by Norm on 10.24.08
yeah, especially when increasing Page Rank and optimization its definitely necessary, its good to disable those in public content in blogs comment section with no follow.
Written by herit02 on 10.24.08
“you are directly helping bots discover other useful content”
My guess is that most bots already know about the likes of Wikipedia and Flickr. Besides, linking to Wikipedia may not mean you have ‘done your research’ at all. It could just be the quickest, easiest option. Can’t be bothered doing proper research? Hell, just link to Wikipedia.
Written by Chris on 10.24.08
The No-follow attribute doesn’t bar search bots from following the link and discovering the new site. It only stops PageRank from flowing into the linked site…
Written by Ruchir Chawdhry on 10.25.08
Agreed with the above. I consider it good blogging style to just say Wikipedia, Youtube, or other major sites and not bother linking them at all. Google and virtually everyone online knows about them anyway, so why bother?
I prefer to give my readers really interesting links to stuff they probably won’t find on their own. Gives them one more reason to come back to my site.
Written by Aoi on 10.25.08
Well… Wikipedia gets spammed enough even with the nofollow. Imagine how it would be without it.
Written by design on 10.28.08
I use various services to keep other people for getting credit for a link from me, especially when they use the nofllow tag on their websites.
Most of the lefties do it around my area to hurt my Google Page Rank because they are linking to my posts all the time (some of them have thousands of visitors everyday…and a good portion of my traffic comes from them when they link.
I am glad that you pointed out those sites as also using the nofollow tag…I’ll be hiding my links from them from now on.
Written by Thunder Pig on 10.28.08