So unless you have been on holiday for the last couple of weeks you will know all about the recent issues with nofollow. This has arguably been one of the biggest changes in the SEO landscape for some time now and has caused a bit of a stir when it comes to PageRank sculpting.
A lot of people are worried about what this means for containing PageRank and many people are suggesting that that they will use fewer links on their pages and will stop accepting links in blog comments. Well the funny thing is that this change in how Google deals with nofollow and PageRank has been in place for some time now and no one has really picked up on it (I’m guilty of it too). Matt Cutts himself stated that:
“we figured that site owners or people running tests would notice, but they didn’t.”
So after many hints from Matt Cutt’s he finally took the opportunity to tell it straight at SMX Advanced 2009 and here we are – everyone at panic stations and saying how ridiculous this change is. Well in my opinion the fact that this change has been going on for some time now and no one has really noticed should mean that all this panic is unfounded. I have always felt that PageRank is not the be all and end all and (without sucking up to Google too much) I am a firm believer that it is about having good content and good site architecture. If you have this then surely you need not worry about containing precious PageRank and, moreover, people will naturally link to your site helping you gain good PageRank anyhow.
Interestingly Michael Martinez is one of few people who appear to have spotted this change early on. Almost a year to the day he posted his thoughts on Page Rank sculpting and you can see that he was right all along. This is well worth a read and you get the sense that Michael Martinez will be sitting back with a big grin on face right about now. Also if you haven’t already then you really should read Matt Cutt’s post clarification on page rank sculpting.
To dust off an old chestnut hindsight is a wonderful thing however we had been living in ignorance of this change for a while now and the fact that no one has really picked up on it surely means that no real problems have arisen from it. I personally see the nofollow tag as a great way to prevent pointless pages on your site (like the shopping basket) from getting indexed and this is what I have and always will use it for.