In this test, we will examine do-follow links vs nofollow links. We want to see if a page that has only no-follow links on it can outperform a page that has regular, do-follow links.
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I like this test a lot because we have a pretty good idea that if you’ve got two links on the page and the link juice that they would pass is divided between them but is there a possibility that juice will leave the page with them, if you will. That a page that has a lot of outbound links on it will actually reduce its own authority.
What we did was we put high authority links on all the pages that we’ve got – Wikipedia, Nasa, ESPN, Reddit, Facebook. On the test page, they were no follow links, on all the other pages, they were do follow. What ended up happening in this test is the test page moved up. The idea is that the page with nofollow links, in a sense it was keeping all its juice and telling Google not to follow the link, moved up a spot.
This is pretty encouraging. What this tells me is we have a page with a lot of external links going on. You may want to limit the dofollow on a lot of those. The wise play here, is maybe your best outbound authority link because we know that it would give you a boost, keep that one as do follow. But consider no following the rest of your outbound no follow links from your content.
Dori: This is really interesting especially because we know that no follow links rank a site as well. So, Google is recognizing that no, you do not want your juice to pour out and is saying that they will keep your juice there and then in this test we see that it is a positive rank and then it is still going to follow these because you are still linking out and let’s see what you got out there and giving it some sort of link juice.
It is almost like Google rewarding you for taking the time to be a good webmaster. Like saying, hey this is a good link but I can’t take real credit for what it is or where it is going or what they are doing on their site but at this moment I kind of like it but take it for what it is so you put a no follow.
All links by default is a dofollow so to put a nofollow on something is a proactive step that you have to take as a conscientious webmaster. Perhaps that is where the thought process is, at least, from where Google is coming from.
Dori: It almost makes me want to say that we should all do nofollow links even for PBNs and things like that. I am really liking the nofollow, I always have,actually.
Should we use more links than what we normally use but nofollow them?
Interesting idea because there is the idea of correlational concept where if you are saying I am like this, I am like that. As long as you are keeping with the right niche, saying that your content is related to that content, it could be a good idea.
If you were stopping yourself from putting outbound links on a page because you are afraid of losing juice, maybe the right play is to go ahead and do those but no follow them rather than not having them on the page.