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SEOs use “noindex” tags to prevent a search engine robot from indexing a particular page on a site. We use “nofollow” tags to prevent the passing of page rank through a particular link to the linked-to page (aka “bot herding”, “page rank sculpting”, etc.). Nothing wrong with either of these techniques, but I often see them used in a less than subtle manner that can often do as much harm as good.
For some reason, most people use a “noindex, nofollow” tag as the default “noindex” tag when just using the “noindex” tag alone would be more appropriate. When you add the “nofollow” tag to a meta robots tag on a page, it causes all links on that page to be tagged as “nofollow”. This can be the equivalent of using a bazooka when a paint brush will do.
Sometimes you want to tag all links on a page as “nofollow”. Typically this is the case when the page links to only pages that are causing you SEO problems (e.g. duplicate content issues) or you are trying to stop the page from passing any page rank for some strategic reason.
That said, most of the time when you want to noindex a page, you still want it to pass page rank. For example if you have a page 2 of a list you may want to noindex it to avoid a duplication issue with page 1, but you still may want it to pass page rank through the links in the list.
So next time you pick up the bazooka, take a look at the pages in question and consider using your paint brush instead.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Puppy’s Picks - SES Coverage 12/01/08 | Seo Services, LLC - Indiana based search engine optimization consultant // Dec 1, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[...] be. That’s what Andrew Shotland points out in a short and sweet post titled “NoIndex, NoFollow SEO Overkill” over at Local SEO Guide. While these two tags are often paired up, they shouldn’t be [...]
2 Hobo // Dec 3, 2008 at 5:16 pm
“When you add the “nofollow” tag to a meta robots tag on a page, it causes all links on that page to be tagged as “nofollow”.”
Shouldn’t that be ‘all external links’ counted as nofollow in case folks think they are creating dangling pages?
Get what you mean though. I’m forever testing out various nofollow methods on internal structures.
Probably better off link building but hey it’s not called optimisation for nothing
3 Andrew Shotland // Dec 3, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Actually Hobo nofollow in a meta robots tag (not a “rel” tag) causes all links on the tagged page to be tagged as nofollow.
4 Hobo // Dec 4, 2008 at 7:48 am
The reason I mention it is I am getting strange results with meta nofollow tests on a few sites.
And perhaps I am misunderstanding the idea of dangling pages.
5 Experiments in Cyberspace // Dec 4, 2008 at 9:41 am
As a matter of fact I consider use of meta nofollow dangerous (you can later add a link, etc and forget the meta tag). Using it at the link level is always more comfortable.
Thanks for the article, nice and to the point.
6 Andrew Shotland // Dec 4, 2008 at 9:47 am
Note to all commenters - I am leaving the above comment on despite the spammy profile name because:
1. It’s a good comment with the appropriate degree of flattery
2. I love the profile name and it’s my blog, so there.
7 Pagination for SEO - is javascript the answer? // Dec 4, 2008 at 5:11 pm
[...] worth reiterating that noindex and nofollow are differet things entirely and need to be deployed strategically. But, continuing the thread in the previous paragraph, should [...]
8 Marty // Dec 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Of course, Google would like us to never noFollow ACCEPT when it fucks with their algorithm, as in castrating you if you fail to NoFollow paid adverts.
In reality, the siloing concept purveyed, initially by Bruce Clay years past, is a good one–herding bots into SEO funnels.
Rand Fishkin advocates not spending PR on useless pages, which is what I subscribe to. The point is to not overkill. Google does a pretty good job of figuring out what is what. We like simple things like deciding that the bots will crawl a keyword rich category name as opposed to say a date archive.
Thanks for the post Andrew…make sure you delete my SPAMMY PROFILE NAME
9 5 Well Known Websites Sabotaging Themselves in Google Mistakenly or on Purpose | SEOptimise // Dec 5, 2008 at 10:10 am
[...] Noindex and nofollow for pages has been around in HTML for ages. You could mark a page not to show up in search results with this meta tag attributes. Nofollow for links has been added by search engines and blog software makers just a few years ago to combat comment and trackback spam as the official explanation was. [...]
10 Social Media and Internet Marketing Week in Review : WebSuccessDiva Social Internet Marketing Blog // Dec 13, 2008 at 10:02 am
[...] NoIndex and NoFollow Overkill from Local SEO Guide [...]
11 Radu // Dec 26, 2008 at 11:28 am
So you are saying we should add nofollow to all links we don’t need to appear in search? I’ve seen this done in some sites and I think it’s overkill. People nofollow their contact pages, register, about, TOS, …
Do you really think google falls for this? Does this actualy help in the SERPS? I mean I’ve checked your links and they are not nofollow…. why?
12 Andrew Shotland // Dec 26, 2008 at 2:22 pm
On large sites I generally recommend strategically using nofollow to try to influence the flow of pagerank, but I rarely make it a high priority tactic. It’s something to be experimented with.
Re my site, please don’t try to read any tea leaves based on what I do or don’t do here.
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