A no follow link is an HTML attribute that is usually giving commands to search engines that the hyperlink is not to influence the ranking of the search engines index. A no follow link is designed to decrease the effectiveness of search engine spam and improve the overall quality of the search engines results.
This concept was designed by Google in 2005 in order to remove the spam that can possibly get through to the search results while searching with keywords in the search engines. This do not block the web content but avoid the data to be indexed by search engines.
The code rel=?nofollow?, when used in the syntax can block spam or sway the links that targets page rank. Though it was designed and the copyright is owned by google, other search engines like Yahoo, Windows Live Search, and Bing also started using this concept
It does not mean that the search engines do not follow the links. They do follow, but they merely not index them in the database. The link can be clicked, and the page will be loaded without blocking any contents. This is just used to reduce the spam being displayed in the search result. In Google search, it is taken exactly. The link will not even be followed. There are some disagreements to this in the SEO report. According to the report, Google follows the link but does not index it. Yahoo will follow the link but do not include in the ranking calculations. MSN search neither counts it nor follows it. Every search engine creates has their own difference of what a no follow link should mean.
Major Weblogs as a routine of submitting links with no follow attribute. There will not be any options to change it as well. Some programs though gives trusted users the options to change. And others may allow the writer to submit the way they write it and later remove the unwanted links to be manually removed.
The no follow link protects web owners from unwanted content on their site. Many web owners will begin a blog to encourage new content to be displayed on their page and enlarge the overall page rank of the site. The sites page rank can be dropped dramatically if offensive are left on the site so the no follow link allows the bloggers to leave links but protects the webpage owners from taking hits to their page rankings as of them.
The no follow links is used as a machine readable disclosure for the links that have paid for the services by Google. Whether the No Follow link is safeguarding or hurting the web owners is still a dilemma and the owners are pondering over it as many pages are paying for links to be traded. The no follow link is constantly under contradiction by SEO and it totally depends on the web owner to allow or reject them in their site.
Justin Harrison is an internationally recognised Internet Marketing expert who provides world class SEO Services to website owners. For more information visit: http://www.seorankings.co.za
