What are "do follow" and "no follow" blog comments?

[SEOTour]

Hi Guys,

I am new to this forum and working as SEO expert. Have some terminology problems.

a) do follow

b) no follow

Will you please explain these two terms?

Thanks in advance,

[govindseo]

Do follow is crawl by search engine crawler, means search engine follow your link.
No follow means SE not follow your links.

[chowell]

Actually, the descriptions of the two are slightly different than govindseo indicated.

Dofollow - This means that the links pass value in the eyes of the SE robots. So if you use keyword anchor text, that anchor text passes value to the destination URL.

Nofollow - The Search Engines still follow the link and spider the page, but they do not pass any value to the destination URL.

Hope this helps to clarify.

Cory

[SemAdvance]

And there is the reason so many clients are screwed by self proclaimed SEO experts.

Cannot define important SEO terms and yet feel they have the right to label themselves an expert... or post complete misinformation.

Very good job Chowell.........I think you may be the real SEO expert!!

[webullswobble]

Originally Posted by SEOTour

Hi Guys,

I am new to this forum and working as SEO expert. Have some terminology problems.

a) do follow

b) no follow

Will you please explain these two terms?

Thanks in advance,

Thanks for that - saved me having to ask - and my first visit here too!

[Terry Van Horne]

To be an expert and not know what nofollow... is well... that's an expert in the loosest sense of the term. Dofollow is easily the stupidest thing I've heard in a long tim since ALL ENGINES FOLLOW EVERYTHING!! This is the gheight of stupidity. This is why real SEO's have a reputation problem and why we're the red headed step child of Internet Marketing. It's rediculous and shows an expert is any idiot who proclaims himself as such. As long as that is the case this industry will never become a legitimate trade we will always be seen as the snakeoil salesman in the back alley selling products out of our trunk!

[sofomor]

Agree with everybody else!

This actually is the SUPPLY & DEMAND problem. How ? I will explain.

There is exuberant amount of SEO DEMAND for online businesses. The problem is the acute shortage of SUPPLY for them. Moreover, these businessmen have a bad impression (thanks to SEO experts) like cloaking, hidden text, link farms and all that black hat SEO stuff that they are desperate for some who is an actual EXPERT.

Now if SEO expert (like above) pitch themselves as EXPERTS, there is no way those innocent guys could ever know the reality.

Thats the real problem.

SEOTour buddy, I'm shocked and wondering how did you ever garnered links (and eventual rankings) if you didn't knew what NOFOLLOW was?

Enough of this bashing now

Just read what chowell said and please get labeled by others, and not by yourself.

Thank you

[james113]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

And there is the reason so many clients are screwed by self proclaimed SEO experts.

Cannot define important SEO terms and yet feel they have the right to label themselves an expert... or post complete misinformation.

LOL!!!

I was thinking the same thing. The only true SEO experts are the people writing and controling the algorithms.





Set Shots Sports Bar

[ron angel]

[QUOTE=sofomor;399941]Agree with everybody else!

This actually is the SUPPLY & DEMAND problem. How ? I will explain.

There is exuberant amount of SEO DEMAND for online businesses. The problem is the acute shortage of SUPPLY for them. Moreover, these businessmen have a bad impression (thanks to SEO experts) like cloaking, hidden text, link farms and all that black hat SEO stuff that they are desperate for some who is an actual EXPERT.

Now if SEO expert (like above) pitch themselves as EXPERTS, there is no way those innocent guys could ever know the reality.

Thats the real problem.

SEOTour buddy, I'm shocked and wondering how did you ever garnered links (and eventual rankings) if you didn't knew what NOFOLLOW was?

Enough of this bashing now

Just read what chowell said and please get labeled by others, and not by yourself.

Thank you[/QUOTE

The acid test for SEO "experts" is the ranking of their OWN site
check them out using SiteReportCard: Web Site Optimization and Promotion Tools or a similar
site & see what their alexa google & other ratings are.If they are as good as they say should have top rankings!

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

The acid test for SEO "experts" is the ranking of their OWN site
...

Are you saying that SERP is the definitive measure of success?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by chowell

Nofollow - The Search Engines still follow the link and spider the page, but they do not pass any value to the destination URL.

SEs may or may not heed "nofollow."

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Are you saying that SERP is the definitive measure of success?

From an seo point of view yes. The idea of seo as I see it is to get the site the highest position in the search engines so it is found before others of similar type and content. The more people that get to actually see the content of the site the more chances of sales or whatever you are trying to achieve . It is then up to your pitch and wording to do the rest.Hardest thing is to get people there in the first place to look at the site!

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

The acid test for SEO "experts" is the ranking of their OWN site ...

Originally Posted by deepsand

Are you saying that SERP is the definitive measure of success?

Originally Posted by ron angel

From an seo point of view yes. The idea of seo as I see it is to get the site the highest position in the search engines so it is found before others of similar type and content. The more people that get to actually see the content of the site the more chances of sales or whatever you are trying to achieve . It is then up to your pitch and wording to do the rest.Hardest thing is to get people there in the first place to look at the site!

Setting aside the fact that an SEO practitioner may or may not even require his own site, let alone require a high SERP in order to attain his goal(s), is not the true measure of any economic activity the ROI?

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Setting aside the fact that an SEO practitioner may or may not even require his own site, let alone require a high SERP in order to attain his goal(s), is not the true measure of any economic activity the ROI?

The more people that see your work and proof of it the higher ROI
you are lightly to have so having a site is recommended or pointing people at a site you have optimised and seeing what a high rating it has is the only way to judge unless your clients are prepared to show them full before & after accounts or website logs.
Its the same principal that some sperm donation clinics work on (crude but to the point) They would rather get donations from men with large family's of healthy children than a young spotty student who has expert theory knowledge but not that much in the way of practice and proven results.(well I think it is a good comparison even if a little of topic...)

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

The more people that see your work and proof of it the higher ROI
you are lightly to have so having a site is recommended or pointing people at a site you have optimised and seeing what a high rating it has is the only way to judge unless your clients are prepared to show them full before & after accounts or website logs.

How is one's own SERP a measure of the ROI of one's clients?

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

How is one's own SERP a measure of the ROI of one's clients?

Its not, It is proving your track record and expertise in doing things the best way to get the best results and applying that to the clients situation. then factors beyond your control come into play but the client knows that as you have a proven track record its not down to you if they don't get the results they expected. I am not an seo expert (shock horror from readers) but its the sort of thing I would be looking for in one if I were employing one.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

Its not, It is proving your track record and expertise in doing things the best way to get the best results and applying that to the clients situation.

By way of analogy, you are saying that the TV ads that are constantly in one's face represent de facto proof that the goods and/or services being advertised are the best available.

I doubt that that view point is universally accepted as being correct.

I also doubt that SERP is universally held to be an accurate indicator of the value, by whatever measure, of the provider of the content.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

By way of analogy, you are saying that the TV ads that are constantly in one's face represent de facto proof that the goods and/or services being advertised are the best available.

I doubt that that view point is universally accepted as being correct.

I also doubt that SERP is universally held to be an accurate indicator of the value, by whatever measure, of the provider of the content.

TV adds are TV adds not a proven track record of anything. they are
for lack of a better word hype. The proven track record is what counts to give the best possible chance in the future of success of
whatever you are doing or promoting. I don't think that google or any large company would employ anybody for a particular task unless they had proved themselves at it in the past with good results for the particular task.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

TV adds are TV adds not a proven track record of anything.

By the same token, I doubt that it would be universally held that an SEO's site having a high SERP constitutes a "proven track record" with regards to what ROI that SEO can deliver to any given client.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

By the same token, I doubt that it would be universally held that an SEO's site having a high SERP constitutes a "proven track record" with regards to what ROI that SEO can deliver to any given client.

Not just the site but every thing about their past performance taken into consideration as a whole package to their competency to carry out the task and get the required results.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

Not just the site but every thing about their past performance taken into consideration as a whole package to their competency to carry out the task and get the required results.

SERP is a mark of "their past performance taken into consideration as a whole package to their competency to carry out the task and get the required results?"

With respect to one's own site, perhaps; but, for clients' sites, where is the causal relationship?

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by deepsand

SERP is a mark of "their past performance taken into consideration as a whole package to their competency to carry out the task and get the required results?"

With respect to one's own site, perhaps; but, for clients' sites, where is the causal relationship?

not the clients site unless you are the only one to have done work on it,but your total history & success rate in general. I think that is s far as I can go with this not being an expert in the field but trying to see from the person wanting to employ point of view.

[Feydakin]

Of course you are not taking in to account all the SEOs that aren't looking for outside work.. Or don't want to take random jobs off the street.. Or work for a single company as an employee..

I rarely take jobs from people that aren't personally referred to me by a former client.. They aren't worth the effort to bid and research 90% of the time.. They are looking for a $300 miracle not a long term plan to create, manage, and promote a successful internet business..

There are a handful of people that rank for key SEO phrases, but the bulk of them that rank for those have spent all their time working on that and none of it working for clients.. So what good is their "expertise" in the long run??

The true measure will always be the success of the client.. I have a client that ranks quite well, has an ROI of roughly 10:1 and generates less than 20% of it's overall traffic from traditional search engines (and none from PPC).. Would you consider that a success or not??

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ron angel

not the clients site unless you are the only one to have done work on it,but your total history & success rate in general. I think that is s far as I can go with this not being an expert in the field but trying to see from the person wanting to employ point of view.

Does not that still beg the question of how doing well for yourself in any way reflect how well you've done for your client's?

Precisely how does your attaining a high SERP for yourself demonstrate "your total history & success rate," bearing in mind that the true measure of success from the clients' viewpoint is how well you've done for them?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

Of course you are not taking in to account all the SEOs that aren't looking for outside work.. Or don't want to take random jobs off the street.. Or work for a single company as an employee..

I rarely take jobs from people that aren't personally referred to me by a former client.. They aren't worth the effort to bid and research 90% of the time.. They are looking for a $300 miracle not a long term plan to create, manage, and promote a successful internet business..

There are a handful of people that rank for key SEO phrases, but the bulk of them that rank for those have spent all their time working on that and none of it working for clients.. So what good is their "expertise" in the long run??

The true measure will always be the success of the client.. I have a client that ranks quite well, has an ROI of roughly 10:1 and generates less than 20% of it's overall traffic from traditional search engines (and none from PPC).. Would you consider that a success or not??

Amen. Word of mouth trumps SERP & PPC.

And, by way of analogy, the very best mechanics are generally to be found in the dank dim greasy holes-in-the-wall, not those employed in the bays of the big shiny well lit spic-and-span clean places.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by SEOTour

Hi Guys,

I am new to this forum and working as SEO expert. Have some terminology problems.

a) do follow

b) no follow

Will you please explain these two terms?

Thanks in advance,

why are we answering this person? as if anyone calling themselves an seo never (mind expert expert) wouldnt know this.

theyre either trolling or just want the sig links.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by kevsta

why are we answering this person? as if anyone calling themselves an seo never (mind expert expert) wouldnt know this.

Perhaps because 1) only the "nofollow" is an industry standard, and 2) there is no unanimity with regards to how SEs and blogs handle either tag.

Originally Posted by kevsta

theyre either trolling or just want the sig links.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

[inertia]

LOL! When i read the highlighted post i knew what sort of replies I'd read before i even clicked through. I have to admit i've only skimmed through the thread so sorry if i repeat anything.

Dofollow - This means that the links pass value in the eyes of the SE robots. So if you use keyword anchor text, that anchor text passes value to the destination URL.

Dofollow means nothing other than the link does not have a nofollow attribute in place and that being the case, a link has a lot more aspects than your list above.

Nofollow - The Search Engines still follow the link and spider the page, but they do not pass any value to the destination URL.

If we take the official Google explanation then the link basically doesnt exist if it has a nofollow attribute in place. The link is not followed and does not appear in Googles link graph. From my experiments and experience this is usually the case. I've also seen Yahoo completely ignore the nofollow attribute.

However, I have seen nofollow links appear in Google Webmaster Tools which suggests that from time to time Google (and some people may be able to check this as well) turns off nofollow. Maybe to check up on us or just to experiment.

With regards to the "serps = business" thing. I dont think anyone should rule out a high SERP as a great tool for a salesmen. But as Feydakin points out not all SEOs are going about attracting business in this way. All of my work comes from networking. I dont even have a site selling my services.

To me SEO (if taken literally) is about SERPs; its search engine optimisation at the end of the day. But the term has now come to encompass so many other aspects of online marketing that it isnt really the best way to describe what we do. Maybe the key to this whole argument is to stop calling ourselves SEOs and start calling ourselves OMPs (online marketing professionals)!?