Does PR Sculpting Work?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

More on PR Sculpting from Greg Boser at SES NYC

Looks like Mr. Greg Boser has access to Google's internal actual PageRank values!!!

Why do I think so?

Well if someone doesn't know his actual PageRank (internal & up-to-date), how can he/she determine how his/her linkage can affect it? Don't you think that is kind of weird?

We can speculate using a tool like PageRank Bot, but that only based on the PageRank we see in the outdated PR toolbar.

So the question again: How can we sculpt our PageRank?

My answer is: Only if you have a disloyal employee at Google as a best friend, who has access to the actual PageRank values, and who would shared them with you.

Peace!

[Peter (IMC)]

You need a vacation Webnauts. Seeing conspiracies now?

You don't have to know what the actual PR values are to know where most of it goes. Just apply the PR logic and you'll know where most of it goes.

Greg by the way is talking about bigger sites and is discussing it might be helpful to keep PR in the top level pages. He's also combining nofollow with noindex.

I don't see a real value here. If somebody links to a noindexed page, that PR value is gone completely. Just pure loss if you ask me. I think he's just talking about a temporary fix in order to get results faster. He's also saying PR of the home page should be like 6 or 7. Who works with those kind of sites? Not me.. So maybe PR sculpting is useful with huge sites that have a lot of PR already, and then only temporary. But for most sites, its just a waste of time if you ask me.

He says Matt Cutts says it is ok to do PR sculpting with nofollow. But what does that mean? To me it simply means he doesn't care what you do with PR. He kind of has no choice but to say that nofollow does not harm a site at all. They've been so fanatic on the nofollow they really can't change that into saying that you can't use it on your own pages..

[Webnauts]

Peter you can be sure that I need vacation more than ever before. But still I must add this here:

Greg Boser said that you should not only use the “nofollow” attribute, but you should combine it with the “noindex” tag.
I am just wondering, if web site owners do not have their physical postal address on every page of their site, but only on their “about us” or “contact” page, and those will not be followed and/or indexed, how trustworthy will the site be considered by search engines?

And what about the local search? If Uncle Joe does not know or use the Google Webmaster Tools for the Geo target, how can he be found in his local area search?


And after all, the whole web is picking up only the one option Matt Cutts mentioned: The “nofollow”! Why doesn’t anyone talk about the second option his mentioned: 302 redirects?


In my opinion, the whole “nofollow” initiative is about SEOs taking over the organic search monopoly.

[janeth]

It sounds like it would work to me. Maybe I am way out in left field but here is my thinking.

1. I’ve always been under the understanding that a link from a pr6 page with no other links leaving that page would be better than a link from a pr7 page with 100 other outgoing links.

2. This would leave me to believe that controlling the number of outgoing links leaving a page would help me control the pagerank.

It seems like if I had a site that sold widgets and most links were pointing at my home page I could nofollow the about us page and push more link juice to my red widget page. I could get a couple external links going to my about us page, building up its pagerank juice and point those links back to my home page and red widget page.

By nofollowing any external links I am keeping all my pagerank for myself. By nofollowing internal links I am controlling the flow of my pagerank. I am not taking my page out of Google because I can get external links pointing back at it.

If I have a picture, a button, and a text link all pointing at my about me page and I nofollow two of them I am now allowing more link juice to flow to my other pages.

Just my two cents.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

It sounds like it would work to me. Maybe I am way out in left field but here is my thinking.

1. I’ve always been under the understanding that a link from a pr6 page with no other links leaving that page would be better than a link from a pr7 page with 100 other outgoing links.

2. This would leave me to believe that controlling the number of outgoing links leaving a page would help me control the pagerank.

It seems like if I had a site that sold widgets and most links were pointing at my home page I could nofollow the about us page and push more link juice to my red widget page. I could get a couple external links going to my about us page, building up its pagerank juice and point those links back to my home page and red widget page.

By nofollowing any external links I am keeping all my pagerank for myself. By nofollowing internal links I am controlling the flow of my pagerank. I am not taking my page out of Google because I can get external links pointing back at it.

If I have a picture, a button, and a text link all pointing at my about me page and I nofollow two of them I am now allowing more link juice to flow to my other pages.

Just my two cents.

You don't lose any of your intrinsic PR via outgoing links; such are merely "votes" for others.

And, you don't get to keep and count the PR that you have to pass to others; i.e., you don't get to vote for yourself.

By way of analogy, when someone delegates authority to another, that person does not lose any authority; and, he cannot use his own authority to increase the authority vested in him by others.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by janeth

1. I’ve always been under the understanding that a link from a pr6 page with no other links leaving that page would be better than a link from a pr7 page with 100 other outgoing links.

2. This would leave me to believe that controlling the number of outgoing links leaving a page would help me control the pagerank.

Sure Janeth.
Many 'experts' don't even recognize the original PR idea, freely available:
"PageRank conferred by an outbound link is equal to the document's own PageRank score divided by the normalized number of outbound links."

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

You don't lose any of your intrinsic PR via outgoing links; such are merely "votes" for others.

And, you don't get to keep and count the PR that you have to pass to others; i.e., you don't get to vote for yourself.

By way of analogy, when someone delegates authority to another, that person does not lose any authority; and, he cannot use his own authority to increase the authority vested in him by others.

I disagree, you do get to vote for yourself. And the more links you have on a page the less pagerank you are able to pass on to the other pages. The pagerank is divided by the outgoing links.

[janeth]

This should help in understanding how pagerank works. Pagerank Explained. Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I disagree, you do get to vote for yourself. And the more links you have on a page the less pagerank you are able to pass on to the other pages. The pagerank is divided by the outgoing links.

You can divide your authority between various parts of yourself, but that is not voting for yourself; how you internally spread your intrinsic PR will not serve to increase your total PR.

And, failing to exercise your ability to vote for others does not result in those uncast votes being counted in your behalf; they are simply lost.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

You can divide your authority between various parts of yourself, but that is not voting for yourself; how you internally spread your intrinsic PR will not serve to increase your total PR.

And, failing to exercise your ability to vote for others does not result in those uncast votes being counted in your behalf; they are simply lost.

Do you have any proof of this?

I've seen many pages rank number one for keywords with only one link going to them from the home page of a site.

That would mean that the home page of the site is passing PR to them. I've also seen Google display toolbar PR for pages with only one page (that is on the same site pointing to them).

And on your other point, when you divide your authority you are giving less to each party.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

This should help in understanding how pagerank works. Pagerank Explained. Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it.

But, you still need to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic PR. Without intrinsic PR, everyone starts with nothing, such that their votes count for nothing, and everyone remains having nothing.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

But, you still need to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic PR. Without intrinsic PR, everyone starts with nothing, such that their votes count for nothing, and everyone remains having nothing.

Everyone does start with nothing but gains something every time someone links to them.

Wikipedia's results improved when they started using the nofollow tag.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by deepsand

By way of analogy, when someone delegates authority to another, that person does not lose any authority; and, he cannot use his own authority to increase the authority vested in him by others.

I think that is a great analogy deepsand.

Janth you really believe PR works that way? Each page has a bucket full of PR footballs and the more that are handed off, the less that page is worth? I highly disagree.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by janeth

Do you have any proof of this?

I've seen many pages rank number one for keywords with only one link going to them from the home page of a site.

That would mean that the home page of the site is passing PR to them. I've also seen Google display toolbar PR for pages with only one page (that is on the same site pointing to them).

And on your other point, when you divide your authority you are giving less to each party.

Do you have proof otherwise? No one is saying that links dont pass PR internally or externally. We are saying you cant hoard PR by using a made-up technique like PR Sculpting. Their is no proof of it.

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.

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 - SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog

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?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I think that is a great analogy deepsand.

Janth you really believe PR works that way? Each page has a bucket full of PR footballs and the more that are handed off, the less that page is worth? I highly disagree.

I thought it was common knowledge.

PageRank Explained.

A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared equally between all the pages that it links to.

From this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and 5 outbound links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100 outbound links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important but the number of links on that page is also important. The more links there are on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from it.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

Do you have any proof of this?

Firstly, it should be noted that I am not alone in the understanding of PR as I have here set forth.

A reading of Google's patents, white papers and/or non-technical descriptive literature is sufficient for understanding that the total calculated PR requires the prior existence of a starting point, or intrinsic PR; PR is not created out of nothing. Perhaps it is simply my nearly 50 years experience in the computer sciences and applied mathematics that makes this so obvious to me.

In another discussion here, both I and webnauts raised the issue of how PR is created; in that discussion I mathematically demonstrated the necessity of both the existence of intrinsic PR and the conservation of such.

Originally Posted by janeth

I've seen many pages rank number one for keywords with only one link going to them from the home page of a site.

That would mean that the home page of the site is passing PR to them. I've also seen Google display toolbar PR for pages with only one page (that is on the same site pointing to them).

Given a sufficiently high intrinsic PR, such results are to be expected.

Originally Posted by janeth

And on your other point, when you divide your authority you are giving less to each party.

But, you are only allocating your intrinsic PR, and the use of meta-data is not required for such.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Do you have proof otherwise? No one is saying that links dont pass PR internally or externally.

But this is what deepsand was saying.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

We are saying you cant hoard PR by using a made-up technique like PR Sculpting. Their is no proof of it.

There is no proof that you can not. And it would be what would make this method work.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

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.

Are we to believe that Google would not use a method until all the world knew about it?

Or could this be a benefit that Google did not think about when they came up with the whole nofollow thing?

99% of the people in this country do not know what a Corvette is, am I to believe they do not exist just because of this reason?

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

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.

I can not prove that a Corvette will out run a V.W because I do not have both of them here in front of me. So I have to conclude that the V.W can out run the Corvette.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

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.

Yes it does but Google is not the only one benefiting. The webmaster hording the PR is also benefiting. And I would disagree that Google is benefiting. There are good sites that are not getting links because of the nofollow.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

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

I'll have to look at that later.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

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?

You don't have to know it to decide where you want it. I have no idea how many pieces of sand are on the beach. But I can still build a sand castle.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I thought it was common knowledge.

PageRank Explained.

Mr. Craven's writings, and various interpretations of them, have previously been discussed here. And, the take-away point of such is that he fails to indentify the initial source of PR.

As a result, many have been led astray by his words.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Firstly, it should be noted that I am not alone in the understanding of PR as I have here set forth.

A reading of Google's patents, white papers and/or non-technical descriptive literature is sufficient for understanding that the total calculated PR requires the prior existence of a starting point, or intrinsic PR; PR is not created out of nothing. Perhaps it is simply my nearly 50 years experience in the computer sciences and applied mathematics that makes this so obvious to me.

In another discussion here, both I and webnauts raised the issue of how PR is created; in that discussion I mathematically demonstrated the necessity of both the existence of intrinsic PR and the conservation of such.



Given a sufficiently high intrinsic PR, such results are to be expected.



But, you are only allocating your intrinsic PR, and the use of meta-data is not required for such.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank. It's the original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't telling us what it is. It doesn't matter though, as this equation is good enough.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

Are we to believe that Google would not use a method until all the world knew about it?

Or could this be a benefit that Google did not think about when they came up with the whole nofollow thing?

For the intended purpose of "nofollow" see Official Google Blog: Preventing comment spam .

What you see as a "benefit" of using nofollow is a perversion of its intended use, one that is of dubious value, one that may yet come back to bite those who abuse it.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Mr. Craven's writings, and various interpretations of them, have previously been discussed here. And, the take-away point of such is that he fails to indentify the initial source of PR.

As a result, many have been led astray by his words.

If you put a site online and do not link to it then it want rank. It want get indexed and the little amount of pr it has want matter.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank. It's the original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't telling us what it is. It doesn't matter though, as this equation is good enough.

But, how is the initial value created?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

For the intended purpose of "nofollow" see Official Google Blog: Preventing comment spam .

What you see as a "benefit" of using nofollow is a perversion of its intended use, one that is of dubious value, one that may yet come back to bite those who abuse it.

Sounds like we now agree that it will work.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

But, how is the initial value created?

What does it matter?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

If you put a site online and do not link to it then it want rank. It want get indexed and the little amount of pr it has want matter.

It will be indexed; and, its intrinsic value, or PR, will be determined by Google, based solely on its content.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

What does it matter?

Because we are talking about a mathematical expression.

If the values of the variables in that expression are unknown, then the expression cannot be evaluated. If the expression is re-entrant, as is here the case, such that the value of the current iteration is dependent on the value of the previous iteration, then there must have been an initial iteration whose value is known. Otherwise, the expression cannot be evaluated.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

It will be indexed; and, its intrinsic value, or PR, will be determined by Google, based solely on its content.

It want get indexed. I've built to many sites and never linked to them to believe that it will get indexed.

And now your trying to say that Google's bot would read the text and grade me on this?

I've seen time and time again that a site without links will not get indexed unless someone visits the site with the Google toolbar. And even then it may still not get indexed.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

Sounds like we now agree that it will work.

Take notice that the cited material says nothing about its effect when used internally.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Take notice that the cited material says nothing about its effect when used internally.

I've used internal links in many sites and know for a fact that the home page of a site passes pr to the external pages. I do not need a paper to show me that.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

It want get indexed. I've built to many sites and never linked to them to believe that it will get indexed.

Originally Posted by janeth

I've seen time and time again that a site without links will not get indexed unless someone visits the site with the Google toolbar. And even then it may still not get indexed.

Whether or not you observe an external reference to an entry in an indice is irrelevant to whether such exists. Abence of proof does not constitute proof of absence.

Originally Posted by janeth

And now your trying to say that Google's bot would read the text and grade me on this?

Precisely; although its not the bot/spider, which merely retrieves data, but the indexing engine that it feeds that does the evaluation.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I've used internal links in many sites and know for a fact that the home page of a site passes pr to the external pages. I do not need a paper to show me that.

I didn't say otherwise.

What I said was that the source cited made no statement regarding the internal use of "nofollow," and that one should therefore not presume to know the effects of such.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Whether or not you observe an external reference to an entry in an indice is irrelevant to whether such exists. Abence of proof does not constitute proof of absence.

Man might be able to fly, just because no one has done it yet does not mean that you can't. After all Abence of proof does not constitute proof of absence

Originally Posted by deepsand

Precisely; although its not the bot/spider, which merely retrieves data, but the indexing engine that it feeds that does the evaluation.

I got an idea. Lets build two sites, you build one and I'll build one. I'll get links and a little content and you get content. Lets see which one ranks first.

And the odds are stacked against me because you have all those degrees.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

I didn't say otherwise.

What I said was that the source cited made no statement regarding the internal use of "nofollow," and that one should therefore not presume to know the effects of such.

I can presume to know the effects of what I've tested and seen. And in the start of the thread you did say that internal links PR could not be passed.

[janeth]

It's been fun but it does seem that we agree on the fact that I can use the nofollow to effect the ranking of my site.

And that is what the thread was about.

[Webnauts]

One thing I still did not understand about the whole PageRank Sculpting story.

As we all know, Google is against PageRank manipulation. Or?
And now their employees are telling us how to manipulate the PageRank of our sites, using i.e the nofollow attribute.

Did I miss something?

Just thinking out loud.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

One thing I still did not understand about the whole PageRank Sculpting story.

As we all know, Google is against PageRank manipulation. Or?
And now their employees are telling us how to manipulate the PageRank of our sites, using i.e the nofollow attribute.

Did I miss something?

Just thinking out loud.

It looks to me like there was a hole that Google did not think about. When they were called on it, they just said oh yes it is not a big deal you can use the nofollow to manipulate your PR.

I would guess they either don't think it is a big enough deal to be concerned about or are working on a fix for it now. I would lean towards it not being that big of a deal.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I can presume to know the effects of what I've tested and seen.

Yes, you can, if you have properly identified all of the independent variables and their corresponding coefficients and you have controlled the values of all such variables so as to vary but one at a time.

Originally Posted by janeth

And in the start of the thread you did say that internal links PR could not be passed.

No, I said that intrinsic PR and extrinsic PR are different; that the former is not lost via outbound links and the latter cannot be internally sequestered.

BTW, let us be clear as to what is here meant re. "PR sculpting." We are not talking about extrinsic PR or Google Toolbar PR, but about SERP. Extrinsic PR is but one variable in Google's algorithm for determining SERP. And, as "nofollow" was intended to deal with extrinsic PR, there is no ground for assuming that its effects when used internally are identical to those it has on outbound links.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

No, I said that intrinsic PR and extrinsic PR are different; that the former is not lost via outbound links and the latter cannot be internally sequestered.

BTW, let us be clear as to what is here meant re. "PR sculpting." We are not talking about extrinsic PR or Google Toolbar PR, but about SERP. Extrinsic PR is but one variable in Google's algorithm for determining SERP.

From

Leaking PageRank PR

How PR works

Every page has intrinsic PR, for ease of maths lets imagine every NEW page with no links to it has 1 PR point (not PR1, but an arbitrary unit we are calling PR points). This is intrinsic PR, our starting point for all those PR10 pages out there

When a page links to other pages it transfers** 85% (85% is the dampening factor from the original PR formula, might be more/less now, but doesn’t matter) of it’s PR points to the other pages it links to in a fair way.

**Transfers isn’t the right term as it suggest the original page looses PR, it doesn’t loose PR. You could imagine the “transfer” as creating PR points that is then transferred to the linked to pages, so the original page keeps it’s PR points.

If a page links to 17 pages each of those 17 pages receive 1/17th of the PR points available, in this case 1/17th of 85% of a single PR point equals 0.05 PR points.

Since the 17 pages also started with one PR point now they have 1.05 PR points each. These then link to other pages, transferring 85% of the total value they have accumulated from all links (so 85% of 1.05).

An important point though is once a page has PR it doesn’t loose it directly through links, as I said with the transfer note it’s more of a creation process. When a page links out (internal or external) 85% of it’s PR points are recreated/duplicated and they are shared equally to the linked pages. So it doesn’t matter if there is one link or 1,000 links from a page, 85% (it’s always 85% or whatever the dampening factor is now) of the total PR points of that page is recreated and then shared to all linked to pages. If it’s to one link that gets all 85% if 1,000 links each gets 1/1000th of 85%!!

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

It's been fun but it does seem that we agree on the fact that I can use the nofollow to effect the ranking of my site.

And that is what the thread was about.

Not exactly, as the subject is whether or not "nofollow" can be used to "sculpt PR."

Firstly, it must be recognized that "sculpt" implies "control."

Secondly, "PR" as used here means "SERP."

As "nofollow" was intended to deal with extrinsic Page Rank, as SERP incorporates both intrinsic and extrinsic Page Rank, and as we have no evidence as to precisely how the internal use of "nofollow" affects intrinsic Page Rank, with the result that we cannot be assured of being in control of the consequences when used internally, it cannot be deemed a reliable tool for sculpting.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Not exactly, as the subject is whether or not "nofollow" can be used to "sculpt PR."

Firstly, it must be recognized that "sculpt" implies "control."

Secondly, "PR" as used here means "SERP."

As "nofollow" was intended to deal with extrinsic Page Rank, as SERP incorporates both intrinsic and extrinsic Page Rank, and as we have no evidence as to precisely how the internal use of "nofollow" affects intrinsic Page Rank, with the result that we cannot be assured of being in control of the consequences when used internally, it cannot be deemed a reliable tool for sculpting.

The topic is about controlling PR by using the nofollow tag and in return affecting your rankings.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by deepsand

As "nofollow" was intended to deal with extrinsic Page Rank, as SERP incorporates both intrinsic and extrinsic Page Rank, and as we have no evidence as to precisely how the internal use of "nofollow" affects intrinsic Page Rank, with the result that we cannot be assured of being in control of the consequences when used internally, it cannot be deemed a reliable tool for sculpting.

Well said

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Well said

Are you agreeing that it does work but it is hard to control?

[incrediblehelp]

Just saying their is no proof of it working thus we as SEO's should not rush to use or or at worst tell our clients to.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Just saying their is no proof of it working thus we as SEO's should not rush to use or or at worst tell our clients to.

I believe it works and an understanding of PR proves that it would work.

However not fully understanding how Google would treat doing a nofollow to a Privacy Policy or how they treat a site that the site owner is saying they do not fully trust enough to pass PR to would make me stop and think about using it all together.

At this moment we do not know rather a Privacy Policy helps to build trust in Google and could be a boost in your ranking. Nofollowing that page could cause more harm than good.

And we do not know if Google looks a little more at a site that has 1,000 nofollow tags pointing at it. I'd not use it but I think it works.

Just my two cents.

[incrediblehelp]

Janeth check out this thread:

MasterLink Search Marketing: "nofollow" - Does it Really Work Like Google Claims?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by janeth

At this moment we do not know rather a Privacy Policy helps to build trust in Google and could be a boost in your ranking. Nofollowing that page could cause more harm than good.

Great point!!!

Janeth you get a Rep Point from me.

[Webnauts]

Greg Boser mentioned in his video not only use the nofollow tag, but also add in the not followed page the robots meta tag "noindex".

Why? I assume you all know here that google follows links of the robots.txt. But that is probably another story.

On my site I got rid of all "nofollow" attributes from all links I was using it for.

Now I use 302 redirects instead. That was the second option Matt Cutts recommended anyway, but looks like everyone just ignored it.

And I added X-Robots noindex, nofollow in my .htaccess for the global 302 redirect PHP file.

This technique is far ahead than the nofollow attribute or any other art of link condomizing!

I never wanted to mention my technique in the public, but I just could not hold myself back anymore.

Peace.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Great point!!!

Janeth you get a Rep Point from me.

Thanks, being new to the whole rep thing I need all I can get.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Janeth check out this thread:

MasterLink Search Marketing: "nofollow" - Does it Really Work Like Google Claims?

I've heard from a lot of people that Google did not use the nofollow tag. However...since they keep talking about it I would think that would not be the case in the future.

[activeco]

When it comes to the "rel='nofollow'" threads, in the begin I thought everyone is discussing finesses of that attribute beyond PR, e.g. for evading some possible filters as in my case. Or a disagreement about possible leaking of internal PR to outbound links, which could be a new gadget from Google.
But what surprised me the most is the clear lack of understanding of basics of PR distribution, among other things.
While less knowledge about some other important internet mechanisms (such as networking protocols, in the first place) can be understood, having in mind that most SEO's are actually mainly (web)designers slightly traversing into the underground world of networks, it is a bit shocking that people specialized in pleasing search engines actually do not know the most fundamental facts of Google's PR calculation.

I have no intention to explain it here, there are millions of documents on the web pointing to it.
For the sake of this thread let's suffice it to say that value of PR given from one page to any other page depends also on total number of outbound links on that page.
It doesn't really matter whether internal linking has higher dumping factor nor how much actual PR is passed (sure you can't make $500 out of $100 by simple division), the fact is the more outbound links - less value each of them is assigned to.

As for "rel=nofollow" attribute, there is no big magic about it either, if you know the history of meta elements devoted to robots.
It surely doesn't mean: "I don't trust it, this link is BAD", although the phrase "I don't trust it, I don't know about the value of this link" is appropriate in cases where the links could be added by uncontrolled external sources.
Dealing with the bots was done in two ways: robots.txt file and '<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT=...>" statement in an html document.
By using the robots.txt file it is possible to exclude robots sniffing the entire directories and in some cases particular files. However meta 'robots' element in headers gives more variety in bots behavior per single page.
It depends on two parameters of the "CONTENT" element;
1. index|noindex refering to possible indexing of the page
2.follow|nofollow, action regarding to links on the page,
Any combination of 1. and 2. is possible.
There are other possible values for different bots, but those above should be honored by all of them.

Recognizing the value of links in their search algorithms, the major search engine companies introduced finer granulation of nofollow, this time per single link on page. Rel(ationship)="nofollow" means that a bot seeing e.g: 'Hello this is my <a href="page.html" rel="nofollow">page</a>.' actually sees just this: 'Hello this is my page.'
In fact, the engines are free to interpret the attribute, but this was the original meaning and Google fully complies with it.

Now, with a simple math in connecting two dots it should be clear why rel="nofollow" can be helpful in PR distribution from your pages. No, you can't raise the overall PR by creating a net of infinite loops to your pages, but you can assign more value to some of them, while lowering it to the less important ones.