Short presentation produced for BlogCampUK in April 2012 about when you should use follow/nofollow links on your blog.

1. What do you need to
know about Follow?
Ruth Arnold
geekmummy.com
@geekmummy @R2UK

2.  What is page rank?
◦ A measure of your web site’s authority
◦ A number from 0 – 10
◦ Established blogs are typically PR3 – 5
◦ Check yours at http://prchecker.info
 What is nofollow?
◦ When you link to another web page, you share
a little bit of your page rank with them
◦ Setting the link to nofollow prevents this
Definitions

3.  Google does not prevent selling text links
BUT
 Google says such links must be set to
“nofollow”
◦ <a href=http://www.mysite.com rel=“nofollow”>
Can I sell links on my blog?

4.  If Google detects suspicious links:
◦ Page Rank decrease
◦ May even remove your blog from their results
completely
 What do I do?
◦ Fix the links
◦ Resubmit your blog to Google
◦ Wait approximately 90 days
What if I don’t use nofollow?

5.  Site infected with malware
 Lots of broken links
 Lots of spam comments
 Site down
 Duplicated content
 Use Google’s webmaster tools to monitor
your site
◦ http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Can anything else damage my
Google ranking?

6.  Blogs / Tweets are covered by laws and
regulations
◦ Advertising Standards Authority
◦ Office of Fair Trading
 MUST disclose if we
◦ Have been paid to write about a particular subject
◦ Have received complimentary product/service
◦ Have been paid to include specific keywords
 Can be fined if we don’t
What about disclosure?

7.  If you are paid to place a “follow” link, and
don’t include a disclosure in the post, Google
won’t know it was paid
 You won’t get penalised for “follow” links to
sites that already rank highly with Google
 If you disclose with an image rather than text
Google won’t notice
 If you avoid using the words “sponsored
post” Google won’t notice
Common misconceptions