Should your blogroll links have a no follow tag attached?
Tejvan from Net Writing commented in my google page predictions post that he noticed some sites having a fall in page rank even though they have been getting more back links.
A huge factor in determining page rank is the page rank of the websites that are linking to you so it is possible to increase backlinks to a blog but still get a lower page rank if the page rank of the pages that are linking to you are reduced. However, a more common reason for a website getting a reduced page rank in the google update is an increased amount of outgoing links.
The page rank of a page will not directly change with more or less outgoing links however the PR that each outgoing link gets does change. This is because the amount of PR that a page has does not change so more outgoing links simply means the PR sent to each outgoing link is reduced. For example, if the number of outgoing links on a page increased from 5 to 15, the PR each link would receive would be a third of what it was before.
Gabriel Harper wrote that :
More outgoing links on your page will not reduce your own PR directly, but it will reduce the PR a link can pass which translates to less PR passed back to your own site indirectly.
Whilst doing a bit of research for this post I came across a post from a few months ago by Dan of The Wrong Advices entitled ‘How To Prevent Your Blog From Leaking PageRank‘. In this post Dan talks about how a websites overall Page Rank can be dramatically reduced with too many outgoing links. This is known as PR leakage or dilution.
From the very start of BloggingTips I have made a point not to have too many outgoing links in the blog’s design. Infact, apart from the links in the ‘Making Money’ area of the sidebar, all links are internal. I did not worry about this in blog posts as outgoing links in a post only affect the post page whereas an outgoing link in the sidebar would be present on hundreds of pages (plus I never want to limit the volume of links in posts here). I’m hoping that my prediction of a page rank of 6 for Blogging Tips is correct but I’d be happy with a PR of 5.
Therefore, from next month I will be in the same boat as other bloggers ie. how to make money from selling text links and advertisements without losing my page rank. This just means I will need to keep working on incoming links to the blog 
Blogroll Page Rank Leakage
Dan brought up a very interesting point in his post. He points out that one of the biggest leaking areas of page rank on a blog is the Blogroll. This is especially true on some blogs, I’ve seen some blogs with close to a hundred links in the blogroll. Now I believe in the idea of the Blogroll but there’s no denying it can hurt page rank.
Dan suggested three solutions to handle Blogroll leakage :-
- You can create a separate page to display your blogroll. This works but personally I prefer to keep my blogroll in the sidebar.
- Add a nofollow attribute to blogroll links. I only mention this method for completeness. It’s a very antisocial and selfish approach and really goes against the spirit of having a blogroll.
- Only display your blogroll on the homepage. This is my method of choice, and the one I want to discuss in more detail.
Dan mentions that displaying the blogroll only on the homepage is his method of choice and I can understand why. However, since the home page is more likely to have sponsors than other areas of your blog, PR leakage could still be a concern. Which is why I believe that adding a no follow tag to blog roll links should be considered as an option.
I have considered adding a list of useful blogs to the sidebar of Blogging Tips in the past but I have not did so because I have been concerned about Page Rank so much. Perhaps I shouldn’t so concerned but perhaps I wouldn’t get a good page rank if i wasn’t thinking like this! 
Of course, an alternative solution to all this is to only exchange Blogroll links with blogs with the same page rank and a similar amount of backlinks however it could be argued that this kind of defeats the whole point of a Blogroll.
Where do you stand on this, would you consider adding the no follow tag to your Blogroll links?
Thanks for reading
Kevin
Desty | July 12th, 2007 at 8:37 am #
I’ve been going through month old posts and putting nofollow tags on outgoing links where the linkie never responded. I’ve kept links to current articles and others who have responded, but booted the older links. My actual blogroll is very select, I don’t mind having pure links to them. I have a Blog Mastermind page by itself, so links from there don’t bother me either.
cmanlong | July 12th, 2007 at 9:45 am #
hmmm…I should probably go back through my old posts and do likewise.
I would be very hesitant to make my blogroll nofollow at this stage. I think that it would discourage incoming links too much. I am still early on in building incoming links and wouldn’t want to kill it before it really gets going. for a larger blog it might be different.
later all and have a profitable productive blogging day
Tejvan Net Writing | July 12th, 2007 at 4:13 pm #
I think Darren Rowse once said that, some SEO experts told him he could have a higher PR, if he didn’t link out to so many sites. I guess the point is PR is not so important.
I think the main problem is too many blogs on your blogroll make your blog look cluttered.
Kevin | July 12th, 2007 at 4:18 pm #
I think that page rank is very important for a lot of blogs since it determines the rates you get for text links and banner spots etc. There is a difference in the amount of money you would receive from selling text links on a pr 4 site and a pr 5
I agree with you though, some blog rolls are cluttered.
Dave | July 12th, 2007 at 4:28 pm #
This is a really good point. I wouldn’t nofollow links to people I editorially chose to link to, but I did just implement the home-page-only-blogroll fix.
CatherineL | July 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm #
Don’t you think that being so stingy about giving outgoing links will be prevent you from getting good incoming links? Surely people would think twice about linking to a link scrooge.
Kevin | July 12th, 2007 at 5:29 pm #
Catherine - I am referring to the outgoing links in the sidebar etc. Personally, I link to a lot of blogs and always make a point of finding the url of a post which inspired me.
Dan | July 13th, 2007 at 2:38 am #
A differentiation should be made between Google’s internal PageRank, which is but one of the indicators used to determine SERP rank and is updated daily, and the toolbar PageRank, which is just a snapshot of a pages strength over a 3 month period. In this case I assume we are talking about the toolbar PageRank.
People who should be most concerned about leaking PageRank are those with extremely long blogrolls. I’m not talking a dozen or so links, but 50-100 links. If you have that many sitewide outbound links you will need to do a lot internal linking. In those circumstances you are better off having your blogroll on a single page.
You mentioned some people have seen a drop in PageRank even though their backlinks have increased. I talked to a lot of bloggers after the last update that had the same problem and it would appear in many cases Google downgraded their blog due to the amount of paid reviews they had written. It’s no secret Google is cracking down on artificial linking schemes. If you are doing paid reviews the best advice I can give you is to try to take ops that are relevant to the topic of your blog, and write content that ads value to the reading experience. For an example of this check out pretty much any paid review that Andy Beard has written.
Having a good PageRank is great if you want to sell text link ads or write paid reviews, but if you want to make serious money you should be concentrating on ranking for your keywords. It’s easier to leverage traffic than it is a number. I can point you to quite a few blogs that have a terrible PageRank yet are pulling in thousands of unique visitors a day. It is of course dependant on the niche you are in but I’d take traffic over PageRank any day.
TechZilo | July 13th, 2007 at 6:18 am #
PR is nothing more than market buzz, lol!
PR is just one of the many factors in Google’s algorithm.
Having a good PR means low links? then you get lower backlinks, since people want to be linked to before they link to us. If you want good PR, you essentially get lower backlinks which hurt actual google rankings, ie SERP. then, youre in big trouble - really big trouble.
i prefer to stay away from this pr fad, because it isnt everything.
Blogs Do Make Money | July 13th, 2007 at 8:25 am #
I do agree with CatherineL coz blogging to me is not primarily to make money. Blogging is about sharing and I do not believe in being stingy with blogrolls on my sidebar. e.g. I am willing to link PR0 blog on my PR4 blog as long as the blog is relevant to my site.
However, I have experienced rejection from one particular site which posted that it was willing to exchange link yet this PR0 blog of mine was not accepted
So, that’s one reason I cannot wait for the next PR update 
Kevin | July 13th, 2007 at 9:11 am #
Dan - Fantastic comment, you bring up some very good points.
Techzilo - I know PR isn’t the only thing which dictates search results however I don’t think you can call it a fad, page rank has been around for years now and I dont believe google is going to drop it anytime soon. However, the main reason I am posting about this is because some bloggers earnings are dropping because they have too many outgoing links. If your blogs only income is from text link ads and reviews etc then a drop in PR could see your blog earnings drop 30%+
Blogs Do Make Money - For a lot of people, blogging is not about making money and those this kind of article will not concern them. However there are a lot of bloggers who want to make some extra money through their blog and keeping their PR high should help them achieve that.
I would never not link to another a blog because of their PR. All I am suggesting is for bloggers to be mindful about how the page rank system works if they want to get a good PR.
Matt Jones | July 13th, 2007 at 4:58 pm #
I have to agree with you on this one, it is just selfish to add nofollow to blogroll links. The 2 more reasonable options would be to as you said, have them on the homepage only, or keep the blogroll short and sweet.