I need Wordpress SEO help with nofollow pages & tags

[claybutler]

I use the nofollow to cut down on the possibility of duplicates, 404s and to not follow external links like affiliate etc. I no longer use tags at all. Make sure you use the description (custom fields).

You're mixing up "no follow" with a "no index" robot meta tag. No follow just negates link juice, it doesn't stop a page from being indexed.

Unfortunately Google didn't call it "no juice'" or "no citation" which is what it really is.

[dgswilson]

"robots.txt" maybe /tags /? /trackbacks

page with lots of pdf's "meta nofollow"

links (affiliate, js) "rel=nadapursue"

Is that wrong?

[claybutler]

If you don't want something to be indexed, use no index in the header. If you don't want it to be followed use no follow in the header -or- in the hyperlink itself. The trouble with "no follow" in the header is that is indiscriminate. Nothing will be followed, not just the PDF files. But with "no follow" a page can still be indexed but it is supposed to negate the link juice link juice.

One time I used "no follow" for a link to an old client website thinking it would mean it wouldn't get indexed. Not true. It was indexed immediately.

So I used

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">

in the header of the the index file and that took care of it.

If you want to stop something from being indexed "no index" is the only way and even then it's still a courtesy. There is nothing to stop it from being indexed. It's just a command and commands can be ignored. If you really can't vouch for a link or you really don't want something indexed, then don't link to it or put it on your server.

As for affiliates and paid links the only reason to use "no follow" is to save yourself from a jealous competitors narcing you out to Google and getting penalized. It's ineffective for PR sculpting.

[Seleno]

Hi There
thanx every one

claybutler i tried to not use nofollow in my affiliate links, i notice that my google late then to crawl my posts
when i use nofollow for my posts affiliate links, google index any post in just 1 minute !!

newoptimizer do you mean that matt cutts doesn't recomment the "nofollow" for tags in posts? so we should keep them with follow ?
i read in diff forum that matt cutts advice ppl to add nofollow for tags !
thanx

[PhilipDunn]

from what I remember, Cutts did say to no follow links if you don't want to support an outbound link. I have not seen him specifically talk about blog posts. You might want to search his videos, but as Clay and others have suggested, Page Sculpting of internal pages is not supposed to be effective..

[dgswilson]

If you want to stop something from being indexed

But I don't - I want to stop something being followed. And, on that one page with all those pdf files I know it will cause no links on that page to be followed - don't care - only care that people can read the files. I use no follow js and ? (maybe) not necessarily for ads and affiliates but for all crawlers that waste time looking at js, txt, css, ?ynamix - validation checks, link checkers - cuts down on things I have to look at. Nothing to be penalized for, don't worry about competitors, do no sculpting. Only make pages so that I can write on them.

[Seleno]

thanx for your reply
i nofollow the categories of my blog, by yoast meta tag plug in
i will keep the follow for the tags of posts

what do you think?
best regards

[SteveGerencser]

But I don't - I want to stop something being followed.

Why? What to you expect to gain from this?

[AboutWeb]

I stopped using tags long time ago. By using tags, you're indexing way too many pages, that might look like spam search.
I would rather get my posts indexed. There is no need to nofollow categories. I use noindex for archives.
Comments can improve your ranking, if they are ON TOPIC, they add more keywords to your post/page. Just be careful not to approve a comment with a bad link inside. I use akismet for detecting spam, and I do check manually comments in moderation queue.

[claybutler]

But I don't - I want to stop something being followed. And, on that one page with all those pdf files I know it will cause no links on that page to be followed - don't care - only care that people can read the files. I use no follow js and ? (maybe) not necessarily for ads and affiliates but for all crawlers that waste time looking at js, txt, css, ?ynamix - validation checks, link checkers - cuts down on things I have to look at. Nothing to be penalized for, don't worry about competitors, do no sculpting. Only make pages so that I can write on them.

I still don't know why you don't want them followed. They can still be indexed. So you're not stopping that. PDFs can rank very well in search engines so starving them of link juice is no advantage. And as you noted, you're not trying to PR sculpt anyway, so I just don't see why the bother to do the no follow. I really am curious and not just busting your chops.