"nofollow alternative"

[rnd me]

Hi rnd_me,
The number of <a> tags on any given page plays an important role in the PageRank algorithm for assessing the link juice given to any individual link.

says who? what kind of <a> tags? <a> doesn't have to have @href, are you implying that anchors deduct page rank? that's silly. what about area tags? do those count?

i think you are over-analizing some concept that might have a small nugget of truth, but you're extending it out to some universal rule that i simply don't believe.


can you show any evidence that <a> tag count (regardless of links) matters?

[arvgta]

Hi rnd_me,

of course I mean <a> tags that are links at the same time, i.e. have href.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRan...fied_algorithm

-> "divided by the number L(v) of links from page v"

The number of (outgoing) links is simply the denominator of the link juice value.

[rnd me]

Hi rnd_me,

of course I mean <a> tags that are links at the same time, i.e. have href.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRan...fied_algorithm

-> "divided by the number L(v) of links from page v"

The number of (outgoing) links is simply the denominator of the link juice value.

ok. where do i start? hmm.

This is a simplified version of an algo described in a 14-year old paper that google's engine is based upon. It's an academic over-simplification for the purposes of illustrating the concept to undergrad CS majors. It is by no means conclusive, current, or apropos to use in the real world.

i asked for documentation that Google does this. Truth is, nobody knows 100% exactly what google does.


aside from that fact it's not currently relevant, you are understanding/describing it wrong as well.

you imply that YOUR site/page will get a better ranking by using fewer links. That's not the case if you look at even the simple algo you linked to.

are you forgetting that nofollow links would be removed from the count of total links that you're so worried about?

if i have 1000 links and all but one have a nofollow, i have one outgoing link as far as the algo is concerned. again, it's probably because the article is so dumbed-down that it doesn't even address nofollow implications.

use nofollow if you don't want votes.


you've described a system that has no practical advantage to current standards yet manages to add lots of complexity.


the article you linked to says "Google advises webmasters to use the nofollow HTML attribute value on sponsored links".

please read what you post.

[arvgta]

are you forgetting that nofollow links would be removed from the count of total links that you're so worried about?

if i have 1000 links and all but one have a nofollow, i have one outgoing link as far as the algo is concerned. again, it's probably because the article is so dumbed-down that it doesn't even address nofollow implications.

use nofollow if you don't want votes.

I'm afraid that's not up-to-date:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

The algorithm was changed in 2009 so that nofollow links are counted as links on the page in terms of PageRank.

[arvgta]

Anyone else?

rnd me suggested tinyURL, which is neat, but hardly a real alternative to nofollow...

What is your favorite alternative to nofollow, given the algo-change in 2009...

What is better than this:

<an href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook</an>

?

[rnd me]

Anyone else?
rnd me suggested tinyURL, which is neat, but hardly a real alternative to nofollow...
What is your favorite alternative to nofollow, given the algo-change in 2009...

nobody has any better ideas. you arvgta, and you alone, have shown your infinite wisdom and superior mental acuity to all us other posters. I wouldn't be surprised if your site is not at the top of goolge's results for any and all keywords. You are so smart and likable, can i be your friend? no, mere mortals like me are too busy trying to find ways to do our silly common practices easier. We can't hope to ever reach arvgta's level; he is something else.

Congrats arvgta, you have found the secret golden calf of SEO hackery!

</sarcasm>

grow up arvgta, we've already told you what we think in dozen of wasted posts.

[arvgta]

That really is silly!

Anyone else?

[Gray1989]

Or what kind of PHP substitution can I perform server side, to disguise the link:

<an href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</an>

Sorry again for the long wait, I have been busy working on a driver backup program. Anyways, what I mean is use this:

<a href="/redirect.php?http://www.facebook.com/"></a>

The redirect.php file is a file on the root of your server that handles all links. You could justify this by having the want or need of gathering your own statistics on links, or to use some sort of "You are now leaving this site" page. This is OK because there is no JS involved, and you are not changing the actual linking mechanism inside of the browser. That way all browsers should be able to navigate your site.

Think of it this way. Google's web crawler is basically a "smart"-browser with certain abilities when it comes to extracting information and traveling through links at high speeds. I'm sure any redirection techniques you may have in mind will hurt the browsers people use to actually navigate your page before it will actually have any affect on your pagerank. I'm also pretty sure the *number* of successfully detected and working links on your page would have a bigger effect on your pagerank.

The point is, don't try to fool the system. If you do anything that *may* happen to fool the system, justify it with another reason but TRY to keep compatibility in mind. Don't go out of your way risking the integrity of your website just because you think it would get a few more 'clicks'

[arvgta]

What you're proposing has different effects than I want on the PageRank flow, though it would most definitely work.

The point is, don't try to fool the system. If you do anything that *may* happen to fool the system, justify it with another reason but TRY to keep compatibility in mind. Don't go out of your way risking the integrity of your website just because you think it would get a few more 'clicks'

Gray1989 thanks very much for your detailled feedback.
I would argue it would be the job of the "system" to supply a decent alternative to the old nofollow, which was horrendously popular.

Because it's only two lines additionally in my PHP code I'll leave it that way for the moment. Using my approach also makes more sense if you use the tool anyway for the other techniques:

http://4nf.org/tool/

Any other comments on the approach:

http://4nf.org/nofollow-alternative/

[arvgta]

Ok, so nobody's too found of the approach:

<an href="http://facebook.com">Facebook</an>

I've a different alternative:

a! http://facebook.com/ Facebook

(to be placed at the very left of any text node)

If you had to choose between the two, which one would you prefer?

[criterion9]

Ok, so nobody's too found of the approach:

<an href="http://facebook.com">Facebook</an>

I've a different alternative:

a! http://facebook.com/ Facebook

(to be placed at the very left of any text node)

If you had to choose between the two, which one would you prefer?

If you are going to go that far with it, why not use bbcode "[link]" style so you aren't recreating something that already exists.

[arvgta]

If you are going to go that far with it, why not use bbcode "[link]" style so you aren't recreating something that already exists.

Thanks! What is that? I'm not acquainted with it...

Very interesting...

[criterion9]

PHP has some built-in support...

[arvgta]

Much appreciated, I had a look at it, but still don't get it.
What would be visible "on page"? (that's important from an SEO perspective)

[criterion9]

It might look something like:

[link href=http://facebook.com]Facebook[/link]