So, the results are in, and it is just what I though would happen. Google indexed the test site, wow big surprise ehh?
I got about 10-12 completely different websites pointing to the website. It took about 3 days, but I didnt check yesterday so it might have been only 2 days. Which is about right, Google doesn’t give as much weight to nofollow links as links without the stupid nofollow. I would like to thank Wes Mahler and Rafael Cedano for there help in contributing some nofollow links to the test website.
So what is the test website, its stymiee. He is the “seo guro” of sitepoint, and he says that google doesn’t give weight to the nofollow…but guess who is wrong… stymiee is!
Here is the proof:
So Google really does give weight to nofollow links, not as much as regular links, but its enough to get the website index with only 10 links. So the nofollow is really worthless. Why does google insist on telling people to use nofollow links? And my question for you guys is… do you build links with nofollow? Is it worth it?
So, as of 1/7/08 the nofollow attribute passes weight, it has been proven true with a test.
Update. The test site is on page 4 for the term we are testing. So it is now confirmed that google indexes and ranks website using nofollow. In other words, google really does pass weight with nofollow links. I have confirmed this in my tests.
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January 7th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Another reason I’m glad to be banned from Sitepoint. I wasted so much time there, having discussions with “i’m never wrong and I’ll spend hours typing ridiculously long, self-contradicting posts” stymiee.
I made a lot more money when I stopped reading the constant guff on there. According to SPers the only thing you need for SEO is “good content”, everything is else blackhat and/or cannot be proven.
Tossers.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:33 am
On a second note, I always knew that “nofollow” links are “followed”, however, I would be interested to see if you can get a sub-page indexed.
I have a feeling Google would be more likely to index a top level domain, rather than a subpage. Why not nofollow some links on the site to a bunch of generated pages and see how many you can get indexed?
January 7th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Hi,
I do build links with nofollow - always firing off a few trackbacks for new pages. It’s very good (as you’ve shown) for getting pages indexed, and for making Google come back to your site at regular intervals. Also, it helps with traffic. However, I’ve seen little benefit in terms of PageRank and ranking in SERPs. So, although Google may be following the nofollows, I haven’t seen any evidence that it gives them any ranking weight.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I left this on sitepoint - just in case it gets deleted, I’ll post it here as well.
And why does Pagerank have anything to do with this test at all….oh yeah, it doesn’t. Not to mention, Pagerank is basically a myth (stated this way b/c I’m not typing an essay about the discussion).
Jon, you should also test it for ranking for something since that doesn’t prove that it passes weight, only that is will get the domain indexed. Test some obscure term with a few hundred results.
stymiee, how does this prove you’re right? oh, it doesn’t. the test was basically inconclusive. And also, 1 bad experiement in NO WAY proves all other experiements he’s ran are invalid. In fact, why don’t you publicly run an experiment so others can rag on you. This should be good Mr. Seo Guru 2007.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:36 am
The results are as I think most of us thought they would be. I always see the privacy policy pages on my sites getting indexed, even though I use nofollow pointing to them.
Excellent and interesting test, Jon.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I think there is some confusion here…
Google might “follow” the “no follow” links to see what is at the other end and index the pages… but that doesn’t mean it will also pass search engine juice. I don’t disagree with your opinion but I don’t think this proves too much in the long run.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wouldnt google follow and pass weight to links using nofollow if it indexes the site in the serps?
But anyways, I will keep going with this text, I will see if google actually ranks the site for the term “stymiee”. I am pretty positive it will
January 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Indeed, your results definitely make sense: sure, G does give weight to nofollow links (which makes perfect sense, after all, a link is a link), but they give more weight to links without it (which again, is normal, given the fact that they wouldn’t have insisted on making paid links nofollow otherwise).
Alan Johnson
January 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Your test doesn’t prove that google gives weight it just proves that google does actually crawl through nofollow links.
An Experiment I would have liked to have seen would have been if you had two domains with the same keywords eg. http://www.nofollowexperiment.com & http://www.nofollowexperiment.net
Point say 20 links to each from the same pages but only link to one of the sites with nofollow links and see which one ranked higher in google.
Maybe you could have a SEO contest with stymiee - im 99% sure you would win but maybe people would stop listening to stymiee like he is a GOD.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Andrew,
We will see if it ranks for the term “stymiee”, if it does than it does pass weight, im sure it will take a few more days though.
I would love to have an seo contest with him, I would crumble him. He would just focus on “writing quality content and getting those natural links”. Hehe. He never would take my offer though.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Writing quality content is definitely a solid foundation, but that definitely doesn’t mean that smart link building should be neglected.
Alan Johnson
January 8th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
[...] on one of my more favorite blogs, JonWaraas.com. He had been conducting a test to see if the “nofollow” tag really offered no ‘link juice’ as I like to call it. Basically, Google says that if [...]
January 10th, 2008 at 2:59 am
You’ve just proven the following statement from Wikipedia:
The nofollow attribute value is not meant for blocking access to content or preventing content to be indexed by search engines. [Source]
Using nofollow doesn’t block the spider from indexing the linked site. That’s why it gets indexed. But it doesn’t mean it passes some Google juice to it.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:19 am
The test is to see if google does give weight. Which so far looks good, the site is on page 4.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Wouldn’t a better test be to create a new site, only point one nofollow link with a nonsense word as the anchor text and then see if the site ranks for that word. Of course the word should not be on the page already. If the site shows in the rankings for the nonsense word, then you know something is passed to the site.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[...] on one of my more favorite blogs, JonWaraas.com. He had been conducting a test to see if the “nofollow” tag really offered no ‘link juice’ as I like to call it. Basically, Google says that if [...]
January 11th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Nofollow does not mean “don’t follow” or “don’t index” it means don’t pass PageRank… Nofollow was implemented to prevent the passing of pagerank from one site to another and that is it.
It was meant as a deterrent for spammers trying to get PR love by comment spamming (among many other things) to get a PR boost for their spam sites.
Getting indexed is easy… gaining PR through a nofollow should be the real test.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I’ve been experimenting with this myself with similar results.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:33 am
pagerank or not, the fact that it helped get a site indexed quickly and easily is a good enough reason to do it.
January 19th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
[...] found this posted by Mark from Digerati Marketing: "I would take a look at Jon’s Nofollow Experiment. While Nofollows certainly don’t pass link juice like followed links, Google does indeed [...]
March 11th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
[...] known to count NoFollow links as backlinks in SiteExplorer. Proof from Search Engine Journal and Jon Warass. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
March 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Stymiee is a joke. SitePoint has gone to hell now because of him. Digital Point is following the same route. Me and a bunch of ex-DP users have just set up a new forum (link is on my name, clicky clicky) and we’re going to aim for quality members who speak fluent english, and more importantly, are not douchebags like Stymiee.
Help us build the best web community there is.
PS. Sorry if you see this as spam, but I saw this was about Stymie - he’s one of the main reasons I’ve made this forum.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:09 am
The official claim is that links with the rel=nofollow attribute do not influence the search engine rankings of the target page. In addition to Google, Yahoo and MSN also support the rel=nofollow attribute.
I think it helps indexing
July 9th, 2008 at 4:41 am
[...] Nofollow-test-results [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
[...] blogs, make them good and link back with the keyword you want to rank for. According to a test by Jon Waraas, Google still indexes with no follow links. So, get them. Comment with good [...]