PageRank Sculpting & Blog Comments
PageRank sculpting was quite a straightforward topic until recently – you just needed to add the nofollow tag to links pointing at “useless” pages such as shopping baskets and login forms and your rankings for long tail keywords magically jumped up.
I’ve heard people talking about 70% traffic increases across large websites purely using this method.
Matt Cutts has tried (and failed, in my opinion) to clarify the issue with a new PageRank sculpting post. The comments are excellent, a mixture of people who don’t understand SEO blindly saying “great post” and the usual knowledgeable people actually questioning things.
Here are some quotes that have me confused.
So what happens when you have a page with “ten PageRank points†and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? Let’s leave aside the decay factor to focus on the core part of the question. Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn’t count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each.
That makes sense but I would like to know where the other 5 points went.
There may be a miniscule number of pages (such as links to a shopping cart or to a login page) that I might add nofollow on, just because those pages are different for every user and they aren’t that helpful to show up in search engines. But in general, I wouldn’t recommend PageRank sculpting.
Most intelligent SEO’s only used nofollow on these pages anyway. Is Matt suggesting that this sort of sculpting will still raise the rest of the sites rankings or is it just to remove these useless pages from the index?
Q: If I run a blog and add the nofollow attribute to links left by my commenters, doesn’t that mean less PageRank flows within my site?
A: If you think about it, that’s the way that PageRank worked even before the nofollow attribute.Q: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog?
A: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard†your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.
Surely Matt must understand that a large percentage of the comments left on popular blogs link to spammy neighbourhoods? Some of my posts link to some terrible sites in the comments but I just ignore them because they are nofollowed. I expect the average blog comment link will be on the “spammy” end of the scale rather than the “good” end and therefore will hurt my trust and not help it.
If every comment is going to reduce the PageRank flowing to my other links then surely I need to start being a lot harsher in my comment moderation. Also Matt seems to be implying that Google actually looks at your nofollowed external links and uses the results in calculating your rankings, does this also mean that nofollow links can pass trust to other sites?
Danny Sullivan has summed this up in his comment which has yet to be answered:
Say I have an article on a blog with 5 links in the editorial copy — some of those links leading back to other content within the blog that I hope to do well. Then I get 35 comments on the article, with each comment having a link back to the commenters’ sites. That’s 40 links in all. Let’s say this particular page has $20 in PageRank to spend. Each link gets 50 cents.
With nofollow before the change, I could have (if I were worried about flowing PageRank), kept any of those comments from getting some of my PageRank spend. Nofollow them all, and the 5 remaining links each get $4.
With this change, I can still get the $4 if I simply don’t allow comments. Or I show comments, but I use an iframe, so that the comment actually reside on a different page. In either case, I’m encouraged to reduce the number of links rather than let them be on the page period, nofollow regardless. If I’m worried my page won’t seem “natural†enough to Google without them, maybe I allow 5 comments through and lock them down after that.
Perhaps comment spam is about to become a competitor sabotage technique?
Post category: Google, Search Engine Optimisation Tweet
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 31 comments below, or add your own!
This is a huge problem and i already thought about it. Although im not seeing that difference in SERPs yet if this works exactly like that it doesn’t make any sense, mostly for bloggers.
I asked a similar question to Danny Sullivan on a forum recently and the 1 reply I got said that in their experience comment links did not get an equal share of link equity (meaning out of the $20 they might only get say 10% vs what the same would link get if it was in content. I haven’t tested that myself to be honest. Has anybody tested how good followed comment links do vs links in the main content?
What I have been tempted to do is just drop URL’s out of comments altogether allowing users to just put their name and email. I also moderate any posts which contain 1 link in the comment field which allows me to check if they are decent sites or not.
According to Matt this change was made over a year ago. I never noticed, but I don’t really do that much testing to be honest.
The final question is right – will comments need to be more moderated and could this be an exploit that popular sites need to manage tightly. But I’ve not seen much debate about more traditional sites doing sculpting.
The nofollow issue has been most discussed in relation to blogs and comment spam, but what about commercial sites designed to sculpt page rank? Sites built to soak up pagerank and then focus it laser-like to a specific domain? These will be affected too but aren’t getting a lot of the attention in the public debate.
The confusing point is – if Google tracks No-Follow links – what is the point in using them? Is it just to manipulate PR flow within the site?
As Mathew says – many experts still think it does give some link-juice – albeit less in proportion.
I think – Google should either totally stop crawling No-flow links or find another way for PR sculpting.
I think Matt confused me more than ever with this post. This also encourages me to get nofollow links. And it’s totally ridiculous that even nofollow links to bad sites can be considered bad.
I think there may be an over-reaction when it comes to this latest announcement. People may be talking about “70% traffic increases across large websites” when PageRank sculpting is used but how is this the case when Google made these changes to how PageRank flowed one year ago?
Did these same people first use PageRank sculpting over a year ago and then notice a sudden drop in traffic this time last year when these changes were actually implemented by Google?
Here’s how I read what Cutts posted.
You have 10 PageRank points and 10 links. Before the nofollow change you could place nofollow on 5 of these links and essentially hoard and pass PageRank through the other five. Essentially boosting those non-nofollow links from passing 1 point to 2 points.
The change essentially means you can’t hoard and pass PageRank. The nofollow links keep their PageRank and the non-nofollow links then simply pass 1 point. Where do the other 5 points worth of nofollow PageRank go? The HTML Twilight Zone as far as I can tell.
Actively using nofollow will simply means you pass less PageRank for the page.
But the actual nofollow links will NOT be used to calculate PageRank nor impact your place in the algorithm.
Nofollow links definitely don’t pass PageRank. Over the years, I’ve seen a few corner cases where a nofollow link did pass anchortext, normally due to bugs in indexing that we then fixed. The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results.
So, those spammy comments won’t hurt you in terms of linking to a bad neighborhood. However, there is some confusion over whether those nofollow links in comments are essentially black holes of potential PageRank. The more nofollow links in comments, the less PageRank is passed on non-nofollow links.
We’ll need some clarification there as to whether Google is treating comment links differently or not. If not, then many folks may be forced to remove the ability to link from comments altogether.
Just write all the nofollow links in complex javascript, so Google’s bot can’t follow them. Problem solved.
I really don’t understand why google did not inform publishers when the change in the algorithm was made a year back and why did they push rel=nofollow ? also the thing that amazes me Matt saying we (publishers) have abused the rel=nofollow tag ? I mean how ? so should Wikipedia be banned ?
I’ve never used PR sculpting. Instead I have always used the meta robots element to noindex,follow; that way SEs will follow the links but not index pages there is no reason to index such as the checkout, privacy policy etc.
well either there is a follow or no follow tag your link will pass juice.
I usually don’t really worry to much about the nitty gritty stuff. I’ve just left my WordPress commenting on my blog default. I believe as long as you build a quality site you should do good in the SE’s.
Personally, i think everyone is over-reacting to this whole thing.
It’s been in the Algo for over a year, so nothing changes, except out perceptions and efforts to sculpt pagerank.
As i understand it, we’re not giving pagerank to nofollow. However, our total pagerank outbound to followed sites is divided by total number of links, including nofollowed ones.
Most peoples websites have a lot of inbound linkage via use of navbars, and sidebar navigation, so external links already have a low pagerank granted.
At the end of the day, we’ve been working with this algo for ages, so whats the diff?
Business as usual. Don’t get caught up in the OH NO GOOGLE SUCKS hype!
A.
Google is worried about their link graph. Really worried.
They know Twitter is making is harder to index stuff, than it used to be. And, they also realize they have hurt themselves more than anyone else with nofollow being the prescription against paid links.
Not to mention that in the process they drew waay too much attention to the whole notion of not letting page rank leak out of your site.
You notice Matt is also subtly mentioning that linking out helps your site.
They are trying to fix what they broke in the mind-set of the average webmaster – namely that linking out is not a good idea.
(Take this conversation as an example…. my brother has a normal job, but dabbles in a little hobby blogging…. he has adsense on his blog and is smart enough to work out that traffic from google is cool…. ever since the war on paid links erupted into the main stream internet consciousness he has virtually stopped linking out to friends and other people in his niche. why? because in his words… he does not want google to think he is selling links.)
and… if he ever does link out, what do you think he does… yep… puts nofollow on it.
Google almost need FUD in the opposite direction now, to counter nofollow. Oh, wait a minute….
Well written content that is relevant to the reader and some sensible keyword density and that’s half the battle.
Google is worried about their link graph. Really worried.
It sounds like you missed the point of Matt’s post. Like most posts from Google the message is “don’t try to second guess us”. He even pointed out that none of the “experts” even noticed the change in how they do things!
If you really think that spending the time to sculpt PR is worth it then you go for it, personally I’ll stick to producing useful content. At least next time Google change their tactic, and we don’t even notice, I won’t have wasted my time!
That said, I wrote some custom code to block comments that are made up or in some cases just contain certain phrases. Upon failed posting display a message encouraging more engaging commenting. Instantly cuts out the “Nice Post” effect but not because Im worried about PR sculpting! It’s more about keeping the comments clutter free
I sort of agree with Google, I think noFollow would be used in terms of say getting the spiders not to follow login areas or password/admin protected areas on the site and I guess has been misused. What about using noIndex instead on links? It’s less harsh and should do the same trick?
This could go 2 ways.
There could be a lot more pagerank flowing around.
Apart from the bad neighbourhood thing what’s the point of using nofollow if you wont lose or gain anything . If someone you trust leaves a comment on your blog you may as well let them have a little pagerank, the same goes with profile pages, etc.
Or there could be a lot less traffic sharing.
As links are removed altogether.
>>Has anybody tested how good followed comment links do vs links in the main content?
Matthew, I have done four rounds of testing which all returned the same results: Google is completely ignoring links in blog comments — whether or not the nofollow attribute is used.
Links in the main content still work great.
@Anthony, you said it mate!
I agree with and share your opinion.
I think producing useful contents are more beneficial rather than spending time on sculpt pr.
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to saythat I have really liked reading your blog posts. AnywayI’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!
Hey great tips, I also believe that nofollow is used in the context for maintaining distance from spiders in the login areas. Thanks for your brief discussion.
Comments in bogs will help to gain success in page ranking. An effective comment always help to grab attention of the traffic.
Really this page rank sculpting helps in increasing page rank? I have no experience about it. Thanks for updating me.
Having written articles that require this much work, I commend you for your service to the future bloggers. I’m sure they will appreciate it! Great job.Keep up the good work.
Great post.Really informative post.its nice to read a useful article for beginner like me. Some of points from this article are very helpful for me as I haven’t considered them yet.
Pretty cool post.I strongly agree with Totallyace’s word that producing useful contents are more useful rather than spending time. it’s really an interesting post.Thank you very much for sharing with us.
to have a good page rink need big work not to have 1000 back link just keep working
There is no substitute for Good work for Page Ranking. Back link is not a proper solution.
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