rel="nofollow" on freesite listings..
 

What do you think about using rel="nofollow" on freesite listings? What do you want as a freesite builder? Traffic + backlink or only traffic? Would you submit to a LL using rel="nofollow" on freesite links?

Working example of LL using rel="nofollow" on freesite listings on cats is http://www.youneedfreeporn.com/

Maybe there are more, I don´t know. Personally I would say this is wrong, but I´m not sure if this is starting to become a common practice?

I think it is bad practice, you do want a backlink to your freesite so it can get listed in the SE.

On the other side the LL would gain higher listings in it only has nofollow links. But you should always keep the submitters intrest at first.

If this was a big LL with lots of traffic and I were to submit to it, you can be sure I'd have a nofollow tag on its recip ;)

Nope, I do not like that as a freesite builder. That is being unfair IMHO. And I would stop submitting to any LL using this tag in this way personally. I am looking for the incoming links for se's, not just the initial traffic surge which isn't always that great anyways.

I had to look this up.
http://www.seoconsultants.com/html/links/nofollow.asp

It's his site so he can set the rules, but yes I agree bad practice.

yes, it´s serious for both submitters and other ll owners.

I think as with most things, people run their sites the way they see fit and people will submit or not.

If you want the traffic then still submit. You get traffic even if small and you dont get pr, but if you dont submit then you still dont get pr and you lose any traffic you would have gotten. Your only gaining if you still submit, not losing anything extra from submitting that not submitting would fix, if that makes sense.

Now, if they are doing traded links supposedly for pr and using it nofollow it is different. If they just do regular traffic trades or listings without pr in mind then thats at their discretion imo. Category or main page PR trades with someone secretly using nofollow is very different than sending traffic to someone using nofollow and possibly getting a link back.

Brad - I had noticed that foxyslinks uses the nofollow also on the links - I guess anyone can run their sites the way they want - I hope at least these LLs do tell their submitters up front? Also is it ok to put nofollow on the recips?

That would scare the shit out of any LL owner.. :D

Personally, I think submitters should blacklist linklists that start doing that.

;-}

Because for years now the submitter-linklist relationship has been as much about an exchange of search engine relevancy, as about a simple exchange of visitors.

I totally agree with Bill, if any relationship is not symbiotic, I don't want any part of it. The whole concept just looks like dirty pool to me.

I just turned it from 250 categories (as usual made it far too big too early) down to the few you see, actually just changed it all a few days ago. I do have nofollow on most of the links, but these aren't submitted sites. These are 100% sites that i have picked up, that don't have recips anyway, so any traffic they get is a bonus that they shouldn't expect anyway, or sponsored sites.

Any submitted sites that i get, or PR trades that i may end up doing in the future, will not use the nofollow. Until then, i was trying to keep the extremely small amount i do have between my sites.

In my mind this is far different then adding nofollow to submitted sites with recips or pr trades.

Actually, if a freesite gave me a decent amount of traffic in return i wouldn't care if i got a nofollow or not personally.

Google Pr of 3 with an extra 30K from all the freesites in traffic a day, or a Pr 7 with nothing coming back in, i'd take the traffic. I get your guys point and this is an overstated example, but i think it rings true.

In my case, the nofollow use was actually more about somebody learning something new and over using it. I think on mine i'll strip it back down to using only on ads for a couple reasons, not really about this thread.

For one, for me it was more of "learning a new tool and overusing it". On my story page and most freesites i didn't use the nofollow on anything, even ads, because i wasn't sure what it's function was. When i learned, like a lot of people, figured if a little was good a lot was better.

And secondly, with all the webmasters doing it i believe there will be, if not already, a penalty they will come up with that (even if not following the link) maybe will count the nofollows and mark down pr anyway removing any point of doing it. No functional reason for 400 nofollows on a page.

So again, i get everyones points and new that i had nofollow on my site on most links and figured people would see that, so i still stand by what i said and i think, at least in my case, it's a little different than others.

Main purpose of nofollow is to prevent spammed urls on blogs to gain any weight in the SEs. If the tag is used, then PR is preserved on that page and it doesn´t matter if there are 400 links or 10 000 links, so I cannot really see a reason why the page itself should get a penalty. There are many "dead" blogs that get spammed continiously and the best way for google and other SEs to deal with this is simply by keeping the PR intact on that page and prevent passing down of any weight to the spammed urls. That´s the main purpuse of rel="nofollow", but it can also be used with any url on any type of site. Take a look at wikipedia for an example, they use rel="nofollow" on all their external links, thus keeping all PR inside itself and creating a really powerful site.

I and many others like to use nofollow on sponsor links to keep most of the PR on our own sites, but as I said earlier, adding it to freesite listings would be wrong.

I see that you use it on freesites you added to fill your LL and there´s no problem with that.

You might consider submitting to it..

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr...edfreeporn.com

I would bet that if he removes rel="nofollow" on his links, his site would take a plunge in the SERPs.

I bet if I got 5 friends to install the alexa toolbar I could be ranked 5000 within one month too :)

Alexa is not the best tool to measure traffic, but that "spike" indicates something at least, and you´ve probably seen him in the serps, because I know you keep a close eye on the serps ;)

This is true when you state it this way, however it would be better to simply remove the recip and find another LL which doesn't do this. Then you get win/win instead.

I read the rest of the thread and understand how you are using the tag, which is fine. I am considering using the tag on all the sponsor links on my index and see if that helps. |thumb

I disagree. It's your linklist, your income - therefore your first interest.

It seems that www.youneedfreeporn.com has now "index,follow" tags back. btw. Anybody recieving acceptation emails from this LL? I havn't got acceptation email long time...

why would any submitter like no follow ...

THERE'S ONE ASSHOLE THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF USING THIS - STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT.

I use the tag on sponsor galleries only. I think thats kinda shady to use it on submitted sites. Personally, I would never do it.

sorry for bumping a month old thread first :)

what about link lists that are listing submitted free sites through script, so free site is not getting search engine friendly backlink... it's same as adding nofollow tag :( i made a small list of sites doing this, if someone is interested it's here

I don't like this practice, but LL owner can do whatever he/she wants with his/her site.

yes, you're 100% right Silver Knight :)

however i think not many LL owners would like to see his/hers recip on the same page with 2-3-4 recips of LLs who are doing nofollow/script thing... why should they take advantage of our PR :( that's why i shared list with others, i made it for myself but thought why not share it with others, i am sure there are some more LL owners thinking the same way i am...

way i'm thinking... lets not mix clean and nofollow sites :) if webmaster wants to submit FS to clean sites why not make table with only clean LL recips... if he/she wants to submit to nofollow and get their traffic (and don't care about SEO and PR) it's ok with me but make recip table with nofollow sites only :)