8 Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow Adam Audette SMX Advanced 2008

8 Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow 1. More Control? (we don’t know enough)

1. More Control?

No idea how much PR we have on the domain No idea how much PR we have on a single page No idea how much our PR fluctuates Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow No idea how much a link is “worth” in PR It’s very imprecise

No idea how much PR we have on the domain

No idea how much PR we have on a single page

No idea how much our PR fluctuates

No idea how much a link is “worth” in PR

If Meatwad were an SEO and that stick were PageRank™

2. It’s a Distraction (it can mask other issues) Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow

2. It’s a Distraction

3. Management Headaches Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow what rules are in place? what department(s) are in charge? how are strategies preserved?

3. Management Headaches

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow

4. It’s a Band-Aid™ Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow never a replacement for good IA

4. It’s a Band-Aid™

5. Where’s the User? Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow lots of PR to float mediocre pages? more power to high authority domains?

5. Where’s the User?

6. Open to Abuse Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow automated filtering based on “aggressively nofollowed internal link profiles”

6. Open to Abuse

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow “ ...the mechanism is completely general.” - Matt Cutts http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/quick-comment-on-nofollow/

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow What’s right for your users. What’s right for search engines. The Balance of Advanced SEO

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow 7. Too Focused on Search Engines

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow “ Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” “ Does this help my users?” (Google Webmaster Guidelines)

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow “ ...the goal is always the same: improve the user experience. This is not the main goal, it is the only goal.” - Udi Manber, VP Engineering, Search Quality, Google

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow It’s all about Google Targets PageRank™ (and too focused on Google)

8. There’s No Standard Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow “ I don’t endorse this page.” - original definition

8. There’s No Standard

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow “ ...everybody gets to choose how they want to handle different tags.” - Matt Cutts http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts.shtml

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

Arguments Against Sculpting PageRank™ with Nofollow 1. blog comment spam (don’t pass reputation, don’t endorse) 2. paid links (don’t use for ranking) 3. internal PR control (control PR internally) 4. ? The Evolution of Nofollow It’s a moving target.

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