Putting valuable links in posts or at list archives; http prefix or no http prefix?

[Clint1]

Putting your valuable links that you want followed and indexed in posts or at email list archives: if they use rel=nofollow for http, use the http prefix or no http prefix?

I've been wondering how SE bots treat links that are from email lists that are archived online, and also any links that are at forums. Many places will use the rel=nofollow tag, but will not use it if the link does not have the http prefix.

At an email list of mine, members' posts are archived, and I noticed that when you put in an email (that's quickly archived) a link with the http:// prefix, it's nofollow'd with <a rel="nofollow" (and note that is two spaces between the "a" and "ref", FWIW. Could be just a site-wide coding error FAIK). The links are also real clickable hyperlinks as seen on the webpages. If you put a link in the email as www.whatever.com lacking the http prefix, no rel=nofollow tag is used. The links are also not clickable hyperlinks.

Similar things happen at many forums.

So here's the dilemma and question: which method is best for possibly helping site owners with SERP's? Use www alone, or use the http prefix?

With http the link is not followed, but, the link is clickable, and the link can also show up in SE indexes when searching for the link's URL. So obviously they "see" the link/URL for if they did not it would not show up in any searches for the URL. I've tested that so I know it does, but does that really help?

*What exactly and precisely, techically, is taking place when a bot sees a rel=nofollow link? Do they really not follow the link? Or do they 'follow' it, but will not actually re-index/visit or index that link/URL (if it did not exist anywhere else on the internet)?

On the other hand, without http and just using www alone, the rel=nofollow tags are not automatically generated. And I also know that SE's do see those kinds of links. (**Check your G WMT area for IBL's or for 404's from elsewhere and you may see some of them are NOT clickable http hyperlinks). But if a "link" (URL) is not really a clickable hyperlink, do the SE bots actually follow those?

**More: I've found some IBL's to invalid pages, site owners using the wrong URL, and when I go to the page (if I can find it), sometimes it will NOT be an actual clickable hyperlink, they either will only use www alone, or, they will not use the href hyperlink code, only having on the page the raw text http://www.whatever.com or www.whatever.com.

So in light of that, I would tend to think just using www alone would be the preferred method. Unless (*) bots may actually still be following in that (*) case described above.

Thoughts? Thanks.

[Canonical]

Results will likely vary depending on the search engine. While Google shows nofollow links in their WMT, they have repeated stated that nofollow links do NOT affect your rankings and do NOT flow page rank. Other engines may ignore the rel="nofollow" attribute at all and actually count the link and its associated link text. Yahoo! for example has been rumored at various times to have counted rel="nofollow" links as valid backlinks. So my guess is that non-clickable references to sites/pages will have similar varying results by engines.

Google does use non-hyperlinked references to sites/pages for discovery purposes. So if they see example.com/folder/page.html in the text of an article but it's not a clickable hyperlink, they will often follow it for discovery purposes and possibly index the page. They do the same when they see URLs in some Javascript.

The verdict is still out on whether such non-clickable references to sites/pages affect rankings or flow page rank... IMO they do not. They're likely only considered for discovery purposes. But others here will likely argue to the contrary.

[Clint1]

Thanks for replying......

Results will likely vary depending on the search engine. While Google shows nofollow links in their WMT, they have repeated stated that nofollow links do NOT affect your rankings and do NOT flow page rank.

Ok, we know that, but the question is do they really no follow it, or do they follow it, or at least "see" it and count it at least as a link in some way?

Other engines may ignore the rel="nofollow" attribute at all and actually count the link and its associated link text.

I don't know if you just threw in the info about the "associated link text" just FYI or not. But what I'm talking about are links with no link text, just the URL alone.

(1)Google does use non-hyperlinked references to sites/pages for discovery purposes. So if they see example.com/folder/page.html in the text of an article but it's not a clickable hyperlink, they will often follow it for discovery purposes and possibly index the page. They do the same when they see URLs in some Javascript.

Ok, that's good to know and sounds like "a vote" for not using http in these cases.

The verdict is still out on whether such non-clickable references to sites/pages affect rankings or flow page rank... IMO they do not. They're likely only considered for discovery purposes. But others here will likely argue to the contrary.

Ok, so whether or not they affect SERP's or PR, even if they did not it still seems the non-clickable www versions are better just for what you said in the previous paragraph (1) alone.

Thanks for the input.

[claybutler]

I would always use a clickable. Links are the foundation of the web. Why remove something so incredibly helpful just to try and game Google over something that will probably have negligible results. Make them hyperlinks. Maybe the website will convert all the links to "do follow" later. Maybe Google with change their mind about "no follow". It's not only hedging your bets for the future but it's gosh darn convenient for users to be able to click on a link.

[Bernd]

The links are also not clickable hyperlinks.

This is just text containing a incompletely URL but no hyperlink.
Have a look into the sourcecode. There won't be a

<a href="www.your-imagined-link.bla">

[Hometutor]

I've had links show up in Yahoo and Google searches from Yahoo group emails

Rick

[Clint1]

This is just text containing a incompletely URL but no hyperlink.
Have a look into the sourcecode. There won't be a

<a href="www.your-imagined-link.bla">

Thanks for the reply. Not sure I follow you Bernd. See my post #3 above: "I don't know if you just threw in the info about the "associated link text" just FYI or not. But what I'm talking about are links with no link text, just the URL alone."

Archives and email lists are all plain text format, meaning that all emails sent to a list are converted to plaint text even if they were sent in HTML format, and then archived in that plain text format. So you couldn't put any kind of code in the original emails. And at forums, users don't have that kind of control.

If what you're referring to is me looking at the source code of the archive page; I already did that, that's how I found the rel=nofollow tag on links with the http prefix. On links with www only, since like I said they are just plain text on the webpage and not clickable, there's nothing in the code for the www links. It's just raw text "www.whatever.com" with no code nor tags associated with it.

[Clint1]

I've had links show up in Yahoo and Google searches from Yahoo group emails

Rick

Y groups are password protected, how is that possible? Now I have seen that before with other types of login-member-protected webpages, and G is not supposed to index those (as per their own guidelines), that is blackhat. But that's never stopped them before! This may be a bit OT for the thread, but still interesting....so is what you're talking about Y members only webpages that's showing up in searches? If so, that's yet another case of G getting access to protected pages.

I just went back to the archives from August for a Y group I'm a member of, searched for text in several posts and they never showed up in G.

[weegillis]

Anything that resembles a URL, in text or in code, is treated as a URL. It may not be followed today, but if the document makes it into an index, it will be followed eventually. Conjecture? Yes. Is there a more certain answer? Probably.

The way I reason it, anything Outlook can do, an indexing robot can do. Why would one not see the URL?

[Clint1]

I would always use a clickable. Links are the foundation of the web. Why remove something so incredibly helpful just to try and game Google over something that will probably have negligible results.

It's not a matter of "gaming" anything, and this has nothing to do specifically with G, it pertains to all of the SE's. This has nothing to do with black-hat or even gray-hat. And no one is talking about "removing" any links. Only the potential for making them non-clickable. It's a simple basic SEO question. There are non-clickable "links" and clickable "links". Either way they are still "links", and both are links that SE's "see". The question of this thread, is in this specific context, which are better for SEO/SERP's for the owners of the URL?

When looking at email archives and noticing the difference between two types of said links, and how they were coded differently, it's logical and sensible to ask the questions I asked to investigate which are better for the link/URL owners. While I thank you for replying, I don't think it's exactly fair nor accurate to accuse someone of trying to "game" something when they are asking those questions. That implies nefarious and malicious intent, NEITHER of which EVER cross my mind!!! So let's get that clear right now. (And to think, I've green rep'd you several times. While I'm not implying that should should be obligatory in return, I certainly at the very least expected something more than a false accusation).

Make them hyperlinks. Maybe the website will convert all the links to "do follow" later. Maybe Google with change their mind about "no follow". It's not only hedging your bets for the future but it's gosh darn convenient for users to be able to click on a link.

That's a lot of "maybe"s--not numerically but chance-wise. Yes, while I also pointed out the http links are clickable, and yes that is convenient, however that (so far) seems to be the only plus in their favor, since they are nofollow. If they are not clickable nothing is stopping anyone from doing a copy 'n paste of the links into the address bar. (And still awaiting definitive info on what precisely and exactly nofollow does and results in. See the * area in my first post. If the bots still do "recognize" and in at least in some manner "count" those types of links, http versions may be better).