Matt Cutts Announces NoFollow Google Help Center

[rich_ord]

Matt Cutts announced the NoFollow Google Help Center in a video interview today with WebProNews / WebProWorld at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, Washington, USA.

You can watch the video here:

Breaking News: Google Launches NoFollow Google Help Center

Matt told Mike McDonald of WebProNews regarding the new NoFollow Help Center, "It just went live about 20 minutes ago, so we will see how fast you guys can get up the video."

Well, our team put the video up in record time. Click the link above to watch Matt's announcement.

Rich Ord
Publisher of WebProNews & WebProWorld

[AVC]

WOW, great news considering we have been discussing use of No Follow tags quite a bit of late here on WPW.

Maybe Google will be able to come up with some great automatic web applications that we can use to code our pages properly.

[incrediblehelp]

So where is the help center?

I hope they clearly explain to everyone that you really don't need to worry about nofollow. I hope this doesnt send SEO's into another PR Sculpting panic.

Also if you would like to scan the many threads on follow fro the past at WPW check out this link:

site:webproworld.com nofollow - Google Search

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

So where is the help center?

Here it is

What is nofollow and why was it created?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by AVC

Maybe Google will be able to come up with some great automatic web applications that we can use to code our pages properly.

Then they should do it better than this Simply JavaScript: The Three Layers of the Web [JavaScript & AJAX Tutorials]

There is also a fourth layer, the security layer DigitalStart.net: The starting point for English speaking surfers and webmasters that should not be forgotten.

Here

NEWS!!! Google re-introduces PageRank

is another important WPW thread.

My nofollow test starts like this

Originally Posted by kgun

John, now we shall do an experiment for free. You may have noticed that you are included here RedCarpetRank - Webs outstanding sites, resources and articles

No I put rel="nofollow" on all links aside from your and David Burdons. In a month we can see if there is an effect.

NEWS!!! Google re-introduces PageRank

What he said in that interview about robots.txt out files and consistency across search engines was very important in my view. From that I would draw the following conclusion:

1. If you can use robots.txt, use that file.
2. If not use meta tags, link attributes and .htaccess

[AVC]

incrediblehelp "no follow" is important to use and to understand.

There are forums set up specifically for spam botnet operators to post affiliate links on as an FFA spam portal.

Why is using no follow important for you ?

Because Google will simply disregard (DE-INDEX) sites like I have described above and all the links that reside there considering the source and the types of outgoing links.

Is that what you want for your sites ??

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by AVC

Because Google will simply disregard (DE-INDEX) sites like I have described above and all the links that reside there considering the source and the types of outgoing links.

I am confused. Where does it say Google will do this?

[AVC]

They have already done it, you must have missed the de-indexing of the directory link farms last year and the PR drops that happened to them (PR from 7 to 0)!!!

[incrediblehelp]

No I didnt miss it, but what does that have to do with nofollow????

[AVC]

Because an FFA forum like I describe set up for spammers to dump links on is designed to give link pop to scams and get them ranked in Google.

Google wants legitimate webmasters to use no follow on user generated content, outlaws will not do it, they will simply be de-indexed.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by AVC

Google wants legitimate webmasters to use no follow on user generated content, outlaws will not do it, they will simply be de-indexed.

Ummm... de-indexing seems a little harsh... after the Florida update there was obvious de-indexing of directories that were selling links by the pound. Yes there were a number of bogus "general" directories but... the quality was such that IMO, only a researcher or manipulator submitted to them anyway. They all were near useless for ranking shortly after the florida/hilltop update many slipped in PR and had grey barred pages. Oddly the grey bar is gone but I still can't find them in a result for "SeoPros.org".

Myself and other members reviewed over 100 and posted the reviews on SeoPros. We were including service in the reviews so we actually submitted to all the sites listed in the reviews. the PR on SeoPros didn't improve by submitting to them. Will we be nofollowing the links from the reviews to some of the directories... In the words of Quagmuire "oh yeah".

How many visitors do we get from the directories... let's just say a very large % were a complete waste of time. We get less than 1% of our traffic from all directories, we see the spiders more often then visitors. One member accounts for more visitors from his site and the mention of the org in his bio then all directories and some majors. What's that say about general directories... most are just about the link and therefore manipulation... it's all pretty simple if you leave SEs out of the decision making.

Legitimate webmasters should know when user generated content should be released for consumption. If you allow only trusted posting then... obviously the webmaster can choose to implement the "nofollow" based on it making sense to them, not Google. Sculpting PR is wacked and IMO, not in the spirit of anything beyond manipulation... beware, if this is ever to be a "legit" use of nofollow that is a very abusive use of it and giving unfair advantage to the webmasters doing it! IMO, it's similar to frame spam because it's not "proper HTML" and IMO, any self respecting SE should know that. It's as obvious as knowing SEO's would buy links to place higher, we're marketers and we see the ROI so... it makes sense to pay for positions on SE's in the short run... in the long run it's better to just do what you'd do if SE's didn't exist.

[Webnauts]

Matt Cutts defined cloaking as showing different content to users and different content to search engines. What if you show a part of your content to users, and that part not at all to search engines?

[Old Welsh Guy]

I just love the way the world has ripped into Microsoft for failing to stick to recognised web procedures, creating their own proprietory procedures instead, yet Google create a nofollow tag for their OWN indaequecies, and many are fine with it.

Google DOES follow no follow links, it just doesn't apply any link benefit to the link. the nofollow means 'link beneift will not follow', Not no follow. (anyhow technically the spiders stopped 'following' links a long time agao, now they sit and wait for the next url to be snet to them before moving on. sometimes it will be the one they just sent back, but if there is another closer in iphops, then they go for that.

Noffolow is pants IMO, I hate it, it has caused FAR more problems that it solved.

The answer was quite simple. If google hired 100 people to surf and note sites actively selling links based on PR, then they banned all these sites, (can anyone say 'Search King' ) it would send shockwaves through the link selling world, drive it underground, and out of the reach of the bulk of linkmongers.

Instead they come up with a system that only the good uys will use for its intended purpose, and the bad guys will use to channell pagrank to pages where they sell links

[incrediblehelp]

Adam Audette has an awesome post on the nofollow:

8 Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow

Lets not forget my 5 points written months ago:

Point 1 - We live in a bubble. 99% of the world doesn’t know what nofollow is and probably will never know until the W3 add it as proper markup. So are we to believe that Google has granted SEOs ONLY this special attribute that can help us rank better. No. It is only for Google benefit, not ours.

Point 2 - The theory has not been tested enough and probably can't be properly tested since to many outside forces effect rankings. That is why this 2nd order effect has no bearing. No has proven that spending a few minutes using nofollow helps your website do any better. Google is simply telling you that is will. Google said it was OK to do it, doesn't mean you should or even if it works. Remember the end benefactor of nofollow is Google themselves, NOT your website.

Point 3 - External nofollow: The web and Google's algorithm was built on the concept of linking one document to another. Now we should continue to do this, but in way that does not pass search engine value through the link? Who is benefiting here? The SE algo only. This really goes against why the web was built on links.

Point 4 - Internal nofollow: I simply default to this post by Michael Martinez:

Yes, Virginia, your contact page DOES need 500 links

Point 5 - PR is not tangible. One page doesn’t have 100 PR credits that you can feel free to divvy up as you like through internal linking. It is not that simple. The point I am trying to make is that these SEOs are trying to say they can sculpt something like PR. We all know toolbar PR is crap and internal PR is not known so…..where does one get off saying they can sculpt something they don't know?

[AVC]

No follow makes sense when you look at the big picture, but many webmasters want to continue the run and gun link selling scams of the past.

Google gives you a choice, use no follow on user generated content or when you sell links or lose your credibility with Google and your traffic when we devalue your pages.

I agree that any website that blatantly sells links (Page Rank) should be shot down, this includes those who are scamming along with contextual link networks, spamming blogs, spamming forums which is all search engine spamming in the end.

Google is correct for fighting this and devaluing websites that engage in this sort of conduct, I would do the same thing to any site that is allowing posting agent script operations to spam their pages (De-index the URL's in bad cases the entire domain).

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by AVC

No follow makes sense when you look at the big picture, but many webmasters want to continue the run and gun link selling scams of the past.

Google gives you a choice, use no follow on user generated content or when you sell links or lose your credibility with Google and your traffic when we devalue your pages.

Once again benefiting Google and not yourself. You are essentially doing Google bidding here. Now I do use the tag. i test with it all of the time. I just dont see value in using it from a rankings stand point for my websites.

[AVC]

If you want your pages to rank, you are going to have to use it, especially on unmoderated user generated content and on paid links, so you are using no follow to rank, that is not benefiting Google, that is keeping you in business, they are not going to miss you when you are gone.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by AVC

If you want your pages to rank, you are going to have to use it, especially on unmoderated user generated content and on paid links, so you are using no follow to rank, that is not benefiting Google, that is keeping you in business, they are not going to miss you when you are gone.

LOL, see this is the problem. NO WHERE does Google say you have to use it to rank. That is the misnomer so many have when Google or Cutt's get on top of the mountain and pontificate to the SEO masses. just because they say we could use it doesn't mean we have to at all.

AVC has you even tested it? Your saying you have proof that using nofollow without any other changes have caused your web documents to rank better? If so we would love to see evidence of it. The thing is you cant show it, because it is impossible to attribute success to one minor signal like nofollow in Google.

[AVC]

Think about it, if you allow a link farm directory operator or an online pharmacy scammer to dump followed links in forum threads here, do you think Google will rank the page ?

It is just common sense, SEO's have known this stuff for years, Google is simply making it part of their guidelines now and you will not rank if you allow crap links on your pages.

[kgun]

Jaan did you notice my test (post # 28 -->) that has now lasted a while? Unless I hear anything the test will be stopped on the 20th of June.

Silence what does that tell you?

"If so we would love to see evidence of it. The thing is you cant show it, because it is impossible to attribute success to one minor signal like nofollow in Google".

A priori I tend to agree with you, especially on that page.

What if the test was performed on a PR 10 page?

[incrediblehelp]

kjell what does that test have to do with the actual nofollow attribute?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by AVC

It is just common sense, SEO's have known this stuff for years, Google is simply making it part of their guidelines now and you will not rank if you allow crap links on your pages.

Can crap links be site dependent?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

kjell what does that test have to do with the actual nofollow attribute?

Did you read the post? Did you look at the source code of the involved site? All links are nofollowed in the test periode a side from two.

[AVC]

Originally Posted by kgun

Can crap links be site dependent?

Crap links are crap links, Google does not have to rank trash pages filled with thousands of links, this is not SEO, this is scamming and spamming the web and it is filled with it, webmasters and SEO's are the problem in many cases, not the solution, see a prime example of this: boling.blinkblogs.com

[kgun]

I once noted that you was negative to porn sites. I urged you to search with that word in dmoz

• How many hits did you get?
• Links to these sites are crap on children sites, but not on all adult sites.
• Do you think these sites use Googel AdSense?

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by Old Welsh Guy

I just love the way the world has ripped into Microsoft for failing to stick to recognised web procedures, creating their own proprietory procedures instead, yet Google create a nofollow tag for their OWN indaequecies, and many are fine with it.

Agree with the jest of OWG's comment, especially W3C participation. Google didn't "create" nofollow, it is part of the spec for years but... not in the href it is a http equivalent attribute which it is legit to "create" an equiv meta tag as that is accomadated in earlier HTML specs. It is not "allowed" in the href presently (is listed as not allowed for href in the RFC) in that Google is creating an HREF attribute (rel="nofollow") which is new and formally undocumented or even on the table in the HTML 5 RFC. It is encouraging to see google mentioned in the HTML 5 RFC where it could be adopted and managed by the W3C. The W3C guidelines for implementing "nofollow" is quite transparent, succinct and actionable. ie: it is simply used when the author is not endorsing the link which does put the onus on webmasters not opaque Google guidelines that often are not understood by many in the industry. Sure their will be jackasses that don't use it properly but... there will always be a stall in this industries barn for a large number of jacjkasses this won't fix that!

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Sure their will be jackasses that don't use it properly but... there will always be a stall in this industries barn for a large number of jacjkasses this won't fix that!

Like my test?

Has anybody seen an estimate of the "black SE web advertising economy"? Can it be bigger then the white or grey?

There are estimates of the black economy in Norway, and I can tell you, in a small country with less thant 5 million people, we talk about billions of NOK and most probably USD's?

My private estimate is that the "black SE web advertising economy" is larger than the white.

So the question is:
Do Google's guide lines, especially on re="nofollow" help the intended web sites or do they make life better for the black niche of the web advertising industry?

[AVC]

Using no follow tags properly allows you to sell links and advertising without being de-indexed, so it is a win-win situation for those who understand it.

Using it on unmoderated user generated content is a must if you wish to retain your trustrank at Google and your SERP's.

Black Markets have suffered, look at all the directory owners who claim that selling links is a dead business now days.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by kgun

My private estimate is that the "black SE web advertising economy" is larger than the white.

"black SE web advertising economy" isn't very black if it can be measured. If you are talking phishing and other naughty crap that may be using SEO techniques to commit fraud they are not SEOs! They may use the techniques but...

Originally Posted by kgun

So the question is:
Do Google's guide lines, especially on re="nofollow" help the intended web sites or do they make life better for the black niche of the web advertising industry?

The bolded part, IMO, are not part of the industry! They use the techniques but... they don't call me a cop if I impersonate one while commiting a crime or doing bad things. I must be a little slow on the pickup, but... what value is there in calling that SEO? Beyond trying to paint us all with the same brush? IMO, what you are calling SEO, isn't... end of discussion for me.

Jack asses are people who don't think about what happens when you publish user generated content or exploit it. SEO is just smart webmastering the rest is useless chasing of the tail... which occasionally you catch it, but, in the end your chasin' it or bitin' it! Where's the value in that? Sites like that sink like a stone at some point and only rise and stay there when they "get it". I have sites that have maintained top ten positions for over 5 yrs or more and I have done zero to maintain those rankings! They also have never been promoted by links which is the crux of all or most of this BS! Link development also isn't SEO it's web promotion. I also don't build brochure sites because they don't belong at the top of the results. If you're not selling sows ears as silk purses SEO only helps a SE determine the true value/benefit of the site.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by AVC

Using no follow tags properly allows you to sell links and advertising without being de-indexed, so it is a win-win situation for those who understand it.

AVC I saw little de-indexing. Sure brokers and networks were de-indexed but that is a miniscule part of the whole industry and if you were using those services you likely weren't a professional SEO.

Originally Posted by AVC

Black Markets have suffered, look at all the directory owners who claim that selling links is a dead business now days.

Statements like the first one and above not only hurt those that shouldn't have been in business in the first place but also directories that should be as they provide a service to the user. You are, IMO, exagerating the degree to which directories were de-indexed and their current IBL value to Google... paid or user generarted content... or not. I spent a few hours going through the SERPs and there is little indication that if you followed the "common advice" about where and who to submit to then you likely weren't affected by any reviews you paid for or memebrships you paid for.

The second quote is true partially because of statements like the first. Goldman & Sachs and the hedgers can make crude go to $150 by simply setting the target... real value of crude ie: "the fundamentals" don't support it... but... it won't stop it going there.

[AVC]

Terry, link sales are down due to buyers drying up, not because of lack of sellers trying to pump link farm directories, it is not hype or propaganda to call some directory operations link farms because that is exactly what they are.

GM and Ford are closing plants due to no one buying SUV's and pickup's, markets respond to market realities, that is all that is happening here with Google coming out against spam (link buyers and sellers rigging the SERP's).

Webmasters can change with the times and current business trends or we can go out of business (be de-indexed), spammers caused this, all of it, and webmasters and SEO's are guilty too, many have become professional spammers scraping content and running automated spam botnets using posting agent scripts to post links all over the web.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by AVC

Using no follow tags properly allows you to sell links and advertising without being de-indexed, so it is a win-win situation for those who understand it.

So you can sell traffic but not PageRank?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Beyond trying to paint us all with the same brush? IMO, what you are calling SEO, isn't... end of discussion for me.

Is that your interpretation of what I wrote?

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

The second quote is true partially because of statements like the first. Goldman & Sachs and the hedgers can make crude go to $150 by simply setting the target... real value of crude ie: "the fundamentals" don't support it... but... it won't stop it going there.

As an economist I don't buy that story.

[AVC]

Originally Posted by kgun

So you can sell traffic but not PageRank?

Matt Cutts has said Google is not against selling links at all, as long as they don't pass page rank or manipulate the SERP's Google is all for webmasters making a living with their websites.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by kgun

Is that your interpretation of what I wrote?

Yes, if I misread it then my apologies but I refuse to accept blackhats are in the same industry as legitimate SEO. Like I said, a crook can pick a lock but I don't call him a locksmith, IMO, SEO is no different.

Originally Posted by kgun

As an economist I don't buy that story.

I can understand why.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by AVC

Matt Cutts has said Google is not against selling links at all, as long as they don't pass page rank or manipulate the SERP's Google is all for webmasters making a living with their websites.

Sorry I'm pretty sure he didn't say "don't pass page rank". Because that they absolutely do in some cases. I can believe he said "manipulate the SERP's" because that is something we should all be against.

[kgun]

In accordance with this old thread.

And post #77

Originally Posted by kgun

kgun wrote:

SERP Spam:
By SERP spam we mean any thechnique, not related to content, that results in a manipulated position on the SERP's of one or more SE.

pemburung wrote:

SERP Spam:
pages on a SERP that are not relevant to the search term, have been manipulated to artificially raise their SERP rank over that which would be achieved normally through content, relevancy, and good design, or serve no useful purpose for a searcher. Also, the use of techniques, legitimate or otherwise, to achieve this.

DrTandem1 wrote:

Spam
is any repetitive use of a term for the sole purpose of artificially increasing SERP ranking.

This may end as a very informative thread if we could get some more constructive proposals. Then we may agree on a synthesis.

[AVC]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Sorry I'm pretty sure he didn't say "don't pass page rank". Because that they absolutely do in some cases. I can believe he said "manipulate the SERP's" because that is something we should all be against.

Matt Cutts on Selling links that pass Page Rank

[Terry Van Horne]

AVC, my disagreement with the statement was the use of "selling". Replace paid with not endorsed and I agree. I am going to disagree every time someone posts anything that says definitively a webmaster:
1. should use nofollow if any money exchanges hands because that is not always true. I will argue that point until someone shows me something that can change my mind
2. IBLs can't harm a site, the Google guidelines say they can, so... no brainer
3. all user generated content should be nofollowed... no brainer... that's up to webmasters to decide for themselves anyone else comes under NOYFB! SE can respond how they want if the webmaster F$*ks up, but, that decision is the webmasters to make not SE's. To say the guidelines say otherwise is ... semantics.

All spam is what a SE says is spam and any other definition is conjecture, you can't know that with any degree of certainty until you get the slapdown. Use sound web development and marketing techniques and all the rest will look after itself.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by kgun

Jaan did you notice my test (post # 28 -->) that has now lasted a while? Unless I hear anything the test will be stopped on the 20th of June.

Silence what does that tell you?

"If so we would love to see evidence of it. The thing is you cant show it, because it is impossible to attribute success to one minor signal like nofollow in Google".

A priori I tend to agree with you, especially on that page.

What if the test was performed on a PR 10 page?

kgun what's happening with this? your page has cached now (4th June) what phrase is being monitored? it needs to be part of the anchor text of the strong link for maximum effect.

john (seo workers) is showing a clear #1 for "leading organic search" and #5 for "leading organic"

...did we (i didnt unfortunately) check what he was before? John will probably know if this represents movement or not?

[kgun]

I can only scan this post. Are in a hurry. Can you please explain in more detail what you men.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Old Welsh Guy

Google DOES follow no follow links, it just doesn't apply any link benefit to the link. the nofollow means 'link beneift will not follow', Not no follow.

Yes, it really means no follow ('from this place').
Check this thread: rel="nofollow" (non)complying bots

The results still stand.

[Webnauts]

I noticed all over the place that the "nofollow" fans are still arguing commenting the 3rd of the 3 options Google suggest to use the "nofollow" condom:

Originally Posted by Google

Crawl prioritization

Originally Posted by Google

: Search engine robots can't sign in or register as a member on your forum, so there's no reason to invite Googlebot to follow "register here" or "sign in" links. Using nofollow on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you'd prefer to see in Google's index. However, a solid information architecture — intuitive navigation, user- and search-engine-friendly URLs, and so on — is likely to be a far more productive use of resources than focusing on crawl prioritization via nofollowed links.

What happen to the robots meta tag "nofollow"? What happen to the recommended by Google and Yahoo "X-Robots" directives?

Why doesn't google provide a "nofollow" rule for the robots.txt. They are already support the robots.txt rule "noindex". Is that all so complicated?

If they do not want add value to some links (PR), why do they still want to crawl them? Why don't they provide the alternative Yahoo does with the "no-content" class? Or what they use in their own search appliance "googleon/off" for the organic search?

I also was reading yesterday that Google considers cloaking if we serve content to users and hide it from them. I consider cloaking if I was showing content to the SE and not my site visitors.

All this make me think! Seriously!

After all, for me it is obvious that Google want to stick their nose in our business as deep as possible.

Not with me guys!

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I What happen to the recommended by Google and Yahoo "X-Robots" directives?

I am surprised you still so proudly push your "x-robots" solution for html documents.
Don't you realize that x-robots-tag was introduced for NON-html documents to enable them dealing with bots?
Yes, you can use it for html files too, but there is no difference in employing meta 'robots' tag and x-robot-tag.

After all, for me it is obvious that Google want to stick their nose in our business as deep as possible.

Not with me guys!

Well, you are the one who is concerned about SE, not so much the other way around.
You can always use:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

Problem solved.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by kgun

I can only scan this post. Are in a hurry. Can you please explain in more detail what you men.

sorry, what I meant is the test youre doing with the nofollows off the page? your page has cached, all that extra PR is now pouring down the 2 links. i was assuming either you or john was monitoring a phrase related to the anchor text of your new stronger link to him?

..and if so, i would have expected it to have moved noticably in the serp by now?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by kevsta

sorry, what I meant is the test youre doing with the nofollows off the page? your page has cached, all that extra PR is now pouring down the 2 links. i was assuming either you or john was monitoring a phrase related to the anchor text of your new stronger link to him?

I think John can answer that better than me. May be there is too little PR to distribute from that site to external pages.

Originally Posted by kevsta

..and if so, i would have expected it to have moved noticably in the serp by now?

I don't expect a noticable move. Interesting if John has cotrary information. Then, following only two links on the site may be one reason.

[kevsta]

ok, but if you look at the anchor text used on your link, john is #1 for the first 3 words..

"leading organic search" and #5 for "leading organic" ..pretty good considering a quick scan thro his IBL's only shows the one using that anchor text, from you.

again John would know if there were any other occurances better than us. ..i didnt bother to look at the serp before, as I assumed tester and testee would be doing that, but i wish i had now

[kgun]

One thing he may loosely conclude is:

If there has been a considerable better postion for those KW's on the SERP's after the experiment started, that may be the reason.

If there has been an increase, and the rel="nofollow" are removed when the test periode has passed on the other links, there may be a minor decrease after at while.

It would be more interesting as a part of that test to remove the link from the page, but that is not an option. He deserves a potential positive gain.

I still doubt it.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by activeco

Well, you are the one who is concerned about SE, not so much the other way around.
You can always use:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

Problem solved.

Do you mean that Google does not follow files disallowed in the robots.txt?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by activeco

Well, you are the one who is concerned about SE, not so much the other way around.

I feel offended! I care more than anybody else about users here. My site is fully accessible and usable.
More info you can retrieve here: SEO Workers Web Site Technical Statement