Using rel=”nofollow” to Control the Flow of Google’s PageRank
Why would you want to control the PageRank flow?
Google’s PageRank system provides a measure of the quality and quantity of websites that link to your website. You can increase you website’s PageRank (PR) by either gaining many links form low PR websites or simply by gaining a few links from high PR websites. By increasing your website’s PR you will not only help your webpages rank for targeted search terms, you will also give Google more reason to revisit your website and keep the indexed content up to date.
PageRank is just one of many factors (by no means the most important) that will help your webpages rank in Google and by controlling the flow of PR you can determine which pages are important within you website and help them gain a higher PR.
What is rel=”nofollow” and how is it used?
When you link to another website from your own you are casting a “vote of confidence” to this external website and will also pass (or ‘leak’ may be a better term) PR. If you do not want this to be the case, if you do not want to vouch for the other website, then you can use the rel=”nofollow” tag within the HTML link. A good example of when you may use this is for forum signatures and other links within your website you do not have control over.
You can also use this method on internal pages to separate your unimportant webpages from the webpages you want to rank well and update more often. So for example, if your contact form webpage is just a point of contact and has no further useful information then it may be worth using rel=”nofollow” on all internal HTML links to this webpage to prevent diluting the PR. Please note, this will NOT prevent your contact form webpage from being indexed in Google.
Conclusion
Google’s PageRank is updated approximately every 3 months and is displayed within a 0-10 format for every webpage (or unranked for newly found or banned webpages). There are formulas on the Web which predict how it is calculated but there is nothing official from Google. It is though official that rel=”nofollow” within a HTML link will prevent the passing of PageRank from one webpage/website to another. By using the methods above you can prevent leaking the PR you have gained and help increase the importance of particular webpages within your website.
Tags: SEO Services, SEO Tricks
