Google No To NoFollow
Google are changing the way it treating the nofollow rule. What’s that ?
Well assume we have a web page that carries a Google PageRank of 4. (Google Ranks your pages on a 0 – 10 depending on how importent they think it is to other surfers).
If this web page links to 2 other pages within the site, it’s understood that the page rank is split and credited in equal amounts of its PageRank on to the destinations pages via the links (i.e. each page receives 2 of its 4 PR points).
PageRank manipulating (Sculpting) involves the use of nofollow tags on links to control where the PageRank value flows within a website. So if a link had the nofollow tags added, then the other page would get the exposure to the full 4 pages PR points. So instead of having 3 page with ranking of 4 – 2 – 2 you can work it to reflect 4 – 4 - 0 where the 0 page does not carry any value to you but the other page gets further up the rankings claiming a higher importance then it might warrent. Bit like having a bag of sweeties and only sharing them out to family members you like :-)
Google’s public SEO voice, Matt Cutts, has revealed that Google’s management of nofollow has changed – potentially rendering the practice of basic PageRank sculpting useless. (NOTE: sculpting can involve more than just using nofollow)
According to Cutts, Google will no longer allow webmasters to build up link juice and funnel it to certain pages. If nofollow is used on links, the other pages wont get a PR boost – instead they’ll just receive the same PR value they would have, if all the links were followed.
This could be the end of PR sculpting as we know it. Given the announcement was made during a Q&A session at a conference; webmasters will be waiting patiently for an official statement on the policy from Google
