Sunday, May 25, 2014

How to Make Your Face Show Up Beside Your Google Search Results

Wherein we expose the voodoo of making your picture show up next to your Google Search results, which can increase your click through rate 150%

Image Displayed Beside Google Search Results

Have you noticed lately that Google has begun showing some people’s pictures next to search results? This is known as a “rich snippet” and it’s basically cheating at search engines. Everyone who has a blog and cares about their Google search rank should make this happen, so without further ado, here’s how to make your photo show up next to your search result in Google, and how to test to make sure that you’ve configured everything right. But first, why is having your image show up with your results important?

Benefits of Having Your Photo Show up Beside Google Search Results

Internet marketers know all about the effect a smiling face can have on first impressions and sales conversions. Seeing a human image increases warmth and trust, and generates a better first impression than the same content without a picture. Faces are fascinating, and the effect holds true regardless of the forum. Since people spend mere seconds skimming search results before they click on one, a picture could make the difference between being clicked on or passed over. This is even moreso the case because search engine results are all so competitive and similar, and very few results contain images compared to those that don’t. This is definitely a train worth getting on early!
Having your picture display beside your Google search result will:
  • Catch attention
  • Increase authority and trust
  • Establish a sense of connection between you and your reader
  • Humanize your site, which is important in the age of social media

The Real Reason to Use Google+

Google+ was the best thing ever until you finished dragging half the people you’ve ever known into circles, and then you pretty much forgot about it. I’d bet that’s been the life cycle for most users thus far, but I’d also bet that’s about to change. The fact is that Google+ has more impact on Google search results than any other social media platform, and Google is reminding us of this by putting images next to search results when people’s Google+ profiles are linked to their blog. This is Google’s way of urging content creators to use their proprietary social networking platform: you share your content via Google+, we’ll reward you with SEO benefits no other network can provide. Sounds like a good deal to me, and that’s the pretty much the only reason I’ve started using it. If search rank is important to you, I suggest you do as well.

How to Make Your Picture Show up Next to Your Search Results

There are two ways to make this work, one requires having an email @ the same domain that you want your images to show up beside. The other requires a bit of coding or using a plugin in the case of WordPress. You can do all the steps and it’ll probably work better/ faster, but I’m a perfectionist.

How To: If You Have an Email @YourDomain

1. Go to your Google+ profile. If you don’t have one, create one.
Google+ Configuration Email Contributor2. Make sure that at least one of the emails you list in your profile is from the domain that you want your picture to show up next to the results of. In the case of my website, that’s @fnfweb.com. (If you don’t have an email from your own domain already, you can get one from your host or Google Apps.)
3. Make sure your email is verified. You’ll know that’s the case when a check mark shows up beside the email, as shown in the upper right screencap.
4. Officially link your Google+ profile to the content you create by clicking here and entering the same email you just added to your profile.
5. Go to your Google+ profile and make sure your website is showing up in the “Contributor to” section (step 4 should have done this automatically). If it’s not showing up, add it manually.
Google+ Contributor To

How To: If You Do NOT Have an Email @YourDomain, and/or Have a Compulsion to be Thorough

If you’re using WordPress, there are plugins that you can use to do the following steps for you, such as the wonderful Yoast SEO plugin. If you’re not using WordPress or would rather hard code it, continue on.
1. Go to your website and add a link to your Google+ profile using the rel=author tag. The code is below, so no need to get intimidated. Just replace [profile_url] with your own Google+ profile link and add your name after the + sign. There’s some debate as to if you need the +sign and your name, but rumor has it Google likes it to be formatted that way.
<a href="[profile_url]?rel=author">+Your Name</a>


The finished code will look something like this:
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/114348963186279690859/?rel=author">+Kaitlin Reeves</a>

This code can be put anywhere on the site, such as your bio page where you list your social networks or in the footer. It can also be pushed through the header, which is how the plugins tend to do it.
2. Add a reciprocal link from your Google+ profile to the website you just added the link to (if you haven’t already). Edit your profile and add to the “Contributor to” section. Click “Add custom link” and then enter the website URL.

Tips, Tricks and Words to the Wise

  • Your profile Google +1′s must be publicly visible for getting your picture beside your results to work.
  • Google says that you must have a clear and visible headshot as your Google+ default photo, and it seems pretty well enforced at this point because I haven’t seen logos, LOLcats or genitals displayed beside any search results yet.
  • I suggest posting links to your posts from your Google+ profile as status updates. Basically, the more interplay you can provide from your website to Google+ and back will make this work better and faster. Think of it as hot ouroborotic Google+/ your website action.

How Long Does it Take Before it Works?

Rumor has it that it takes 5-7 days to start working, but it really depends on how often Google crawls your site and perhaps other factors. You can use Google’s structured data testing tool and enter your URL to see if Google is picking up your authorship information, and doing so relatively immediately after setting everything up might help put it on Google’s radar faster. If you don’t see your image by your results after running your site link, then the configuration hasn’t been done right. If you do see the image, then it’s just a matter of time before it starts showing up in search results. It’s worth mentioning here that Google does not guarantee to show your image, and that they may stop doing this at any time. This is “experimental” for them, but I think it’s a good move and will get a lot of the content creators pushing Google+ more.

10 Dead Simple Tips to Take Advantage of Google+ for SEO

It's no secret. When engineers built Google+, they constructed an SEO juggernaut to dominate search results above all other social platforms. Although Facebook and Twitter are essential to marketing efforts, both restrict Google from accessing much of their data. This limits their SEO effectiveness.
Not so with Google+.
Here’s an experiment: If you use Google+, perform a search for your name and check the domain distribution of first 100 results. The graph below shows what happens when searching my own name.

Google+ SEO Dominance
Even though I use Twitter and Facebook far more often, Google+ dominates the search results. Google+ even beats SEOmoz and my own blog. Multiply this for 100's of millions of people, and you can begin to comprehend the scope of Google's platform.
Fortunately, there are several ways to take advantage of this SEO domination for your own benefit.

1. Follow your profile links

Consider this: at SEOmoz you must earn 200 Mozpoints before earning a followed profile link (submit good comments!) On the other hand, Google+ not only allows you to link to your other profiles across the web, but you can embed followed links directly into your bio with the anchor text of your choice.
Google+ Followed Profile Links
The value of a link from Google+ is, in theory, like any other. It depends on the authority of both the page and domain. My own profile shows the following metrics:
  • MozRank: 1.91
  • PageAuthority: 49
  • PageRank: 3
If you can raise your visibility by getting more people to engage with you, share your posts, or link directly to your profile, the more valuable your profile links become.

2. Embed post links

Like profile links, Google+ also allows you to insert followed links directly into your posts – as many as you want. Simply insert the full URL and Google will automatically format it as a link.
The value of these links increases the number of times the post is shared, linked to and +1’ed.
For example, check out this one sentence post from Alexia Tsotsis, which has a PageRank of 3 and is cached by Google every couple of weeks. (Even though PageRank is not highly correlated with rankings, for Google+ it’s often the only metric available.)
Followed Post Links
If your post goes viral or is reshared by high-authority profiles, the value of those links increases.

3. Optimize your G+ title tags

The first sentence of your Google+ post becomes part of the title tag, which is highly correlated with rankings and greatly influences click-through rates. Choose your keywords carefully and consider that the first sentence will be the first thing most people see.
Check out how this simple post from Danny Sullivan ranks for its title.
Danny Sullivan Google+
A widely shared post with a good title has an excellent chance of ranking for its given keywords.

4. Unlimited editing power

Edit this postGoogle+ is just like your own mini personal blogging platform. This means you can fully edit any of your posts at any time. Not so with Facebook or Twitter. Facebook gives you only limited editing abilities. Twitter, after you tweet, only lets you delete.
This is important if your Google+ post goes viral and you want to make updates or changes. If need be, you can also update the title tag and any attached media as well.
You may not own the platform, but Google+ gives you a broad amount of control over your own content.

5. Index new content lightning fast

If you share new content on Google+, chances are that Google will index the page very quickly.
Rumor has it that new URLs are crawled almost instantly. This makes complete sense as part of the purpose of Google+ was to replace Twitter when creating Google's Realtime Search.
In the old days, if you wanted a website indexed you filled out a webform and waited several weeks. Today, it's as simple as pressing a +1 button.
“Google+ is the new Google Submit URL box.”
- Rand Fishkin, GROW 2012 Source
Share your new content on Google+, as well as your other social networks, for quick indexation.

6. Stalk Connect with influencers

Google+ lists 17 different notification triggers that can help you connect with influencers in your industry.
Depending on the individual's account settings, these notifications can take the form of an email, phone SMS, or the omnipresent red Google notification bar.
Google+ Notifications
17 actions that trigger notifications:
  1. Mention them in a post 
  2. Share a post with them directly 
  3. Share a post and you're in a circle they subscribe to 
  4. Comment on a post they created 
  5. Comment on a post after they comment on it 
  6. Add them to a circle 
  7. Suggest new people to add to their circles 
  8. Tag them in a photo 
  9. Tag one of their photos 
  10. Suggest a profile photo for them
  11. Comment on a photo after they comment on it 
  12. Comment on a photo they are tagged in 
  13. Comment on a photo they tagged 
  14. Start a conversation with them
  15. Send them an invitation or update an event
  16. Remind them about events
  17. Any activity on events they created 
Several folks have introduced themselves to me on Google+ by "gently" using the methods above.
Be warned: the few who crossed the line into spamminess have been banned from several inboxes forever.

7. Optimize your author pic for more traffic

Last spring, I performed a series of tests with my Google+ author photo that led to an increase in the click-though rate for my websites.
Google+ Profile Photos
If you successfully implement the author tag and have a catchy photo, it often doesn't matter if you rank 2nd, 3rd or even 4th. With an eye-catching pic you can often grab free traffic away from even your competitor's #1 ranking.

8. Test drive a G+ social media dashboard

Google Analytics has progressed greatly with social media reporting, but if you live and die by social traffic you want to bring the information front and center.
Adam Singer created an awesome social media dashboard that you can use for free. At one glance you can view all your essential metrics from Google+ traffic and all other social networks including:
  • On Site Social Actions, i.e. Google +1's
  • Revenue per Visit by Social Network
  • Overall Traffic Stats by Social Source
Bonus: Install this dashboard for free in your Google Analytics account by clicking here.
Social Media Dashboard

9. Check your CircleRank

My favorite new tool is CircleCount. Try it now by pasting in your Google+ URL to chart your daily follower growth, the virality of your posts, and even see your "CircleRank" score compared against all other Google+ profiles.
Circle Rank
CircleRanks of note:
  • Rand Fishkin: 2,214
  • Barack Obama: 43
  • Brittany Spears: 1
The election is over. Brittany won.

10. Be an awesome (Late) early adopter

Even with it's explosive growth, only 1 in 4 people use Google+ once a month. The rest log in even less, although this number is growing fast.
None of these tips matter unless you actually use Google+. Out of the 400 folks I've circled in my Google+, only about 75 actively participate. No surprise, these tend to be the more savvy SEO and media types.
There's still time. Folks are catching on. Yes, early adopters win the day.
You can do Google+ in less than 10 minutes a day. This means creating a few simple habits to fit it into your workflow.
  • Press the +1 button to spread share worthy comment
  • ...  add comments on the truly great stuff
  • Add +1 Buttons on Your Own Content
  • Engage / Comment / Reshare / Start a Hangout / Create an Event
  • Circle Great People
  • Make it Easy for People to Circle You...

How to set up Google Authorship and get your photo in search results

There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to set up Google Authorship but I thought I’d run over it in this post quickly to save you looking around. I’ve done a video version and a written out version below.

To get your face in the Google search results you need:

  1. A Google+ account
  2. A snippet of code added to your blog/posts that you author.
  3. A link on your Google+ profile back to that blog/those posts.
So you start by getting a Google+ account if you haven’t done so already. Just go here to get started and make sure you think carefully about which email/Google Account that you use as it will be connected to your emails, YouTube Channel, analytics, etc.
set up Google Authorship
Once you’ve done that go to your blog and open up the code for your About page. You need to add a special link back to your Google+ profile from your About page. Actually, it’s just a regular link but with a special element.
The link should look like this:
<a href=”http://YourGoogle+ProfileAddress” rel=”author”>Google +</a>
It is really important that you include the re=”author” part of the code as that is what tells Google that you are the author of that content.
set up Google Authorship
Once you’ve done that, head back to your Google+ account and go the the Profile section.
Click Edit Profile and go to the About tab.
Scroll down until you find the Other Profiles are and then Add a Custom Link back to the page where you just added the special author link.
set up Google Authorship
That’s it! After a few days or weeks you should start to see your face appearing in the search results. You can check my Profile to see what it should look like.
If you’ve authored articles in many places you can repeat the process and add links back to the other sites under Contributor To.

Google SEO Methodology - A Step by Step Guide

We have developed a simple search engine optimization methodology that you can use to optimize a page on your site for a single keyword phrase in Google. We have broken it up into 3 distinct phases: on-page SEO, internal off-page SEO, and then external off-page SEO.
Before you can begin the SEO process for a keyword, you must first select the landing page you hope will rank for the phrase. In most instances, the best landing page to select for Google can be found with the following query: site:example.com keyword phrase. This will show you what page from your site Google considers to be the most relevant for the keyword. If you decide to create a brand new page for the targeted phrase, then you should utilize the keyword in the filename. Once you have selected the landing page you can then begin the following search engine optimization process.

Phase 1 – Optimize your Landing Page (On-Page SEO)

  1. Use keyword phrase in the Title tag. Phrase should end within first 70 characters.
  2. Use keyword phrase in Meta Description. Phrase should end within first 156 characters.
  3. Use keyword phrase in <h1> tag if there is one.
  4. The keyword phrase should be used in the page's text-based body content at least twice. On pages more than 500 words in length, make sure that keyword density is at least 1.5% (but no more than 6 or 7%). Keyword usage should be evenly distributed throughout the page.

Phase 2 – Internal Off-Page SEO

  1. Identify additional pages on your site that can also be optimized for targeted keyword phrase.
  2. Once the support page(s) has been identified, maximize the link relevance passed on to the landing page by: a) using the keyword phrase in page Title and Meta Description, b) using the keyword phrase in non-hyperlinked body content, and c) hyperlinking one instance of the keyword phrase to the intended landing page.
  3. Maximize the number of optimal internal links to your landing page. Vary the anchor text going to your landing page by using slight variations of the keyword phrase (e.g. singular/plural, synonyms, long-tail variations, etc.)
  4. This phase can be extended by creating more pages support the landing page. But unless you have significantly fewer pages than your competition, then you would probably be better served to move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3 – External Off-Page SEO (Link Building)

After you have optimized as many of your pages as possible and linked them to your landing page, you should then move on to external link building. There is no simple step-by-step process for this phase. You will have to determine how to make your content more linkable so that you can develop links naturally. You should also research your competition to find the most relevant links to your landing page. Keep the following guidelines in mind as you try to build external links for Google search engine optimization:
  • Always seek quality instead of quantity. Focus on finding pages that are relevant for your targeted keyword.
  • The optimal link from a 3rd party site is the same as an optimal link from one of your own pages. The targeted keyword phrase will ideally be in the Title and Meta Description, body content and the linking anchor text.
  • Avoid site-wide (i.e. global, run-of-site) links in all circumstances. This is an especially important guideline if the site is not keyword-relevant. Your landing page will more than likely get filtered for the targeted keyword unless you have high quality links to legitimize the relevancy.
  • Brainstorm link bait or link magnet ideas so that inbound links will hopefully develop naturally.
  • Unfortunately, the most relevant links are only attainable by providing an incentive to the site owners. Advertising relationships, partnerships and bartering possibilities should be explored to obtain the most valuable links.
  • Do not pay for a link from a non-relevant site unless it has significant traffic potential.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

SEO for Mobile Site

SEO for Your Mobile Sites

As the world moves towards mobility optimizing your website for desktop search engines is no more sufficient. Note mobile search engines are different from desktop search engines hence the search results will be much different in your smart phones than what you see in your personal computers. If you are new to mobility here are the basics steps what you need:
  • How to Create a Mobile Site?
  • How does a desktop site converted to a Mobile Site?
  • What are the Mobile Site Builders available?
  • How to monetize a Mobile Site?
  • How to create a Mobile App for my site?
  • What are the Mobile App Builders available? And Finally:
  • How to optimize a mobile site for search engines? – Which we will discuss in this article.

Indexing Your Mobile Site in Search Engines

Once you setup a redirect in your desktop site to guide the users to your mobile site when viewed from mobile devices, the next important thing you need to do is to check whether your site is indexed in mobile search engines or not. Use “site:yoursitename” in any mobile device and make sure your all your site’s pages are indexed in the search engines. If your site is not indexed then probably your site may have one of the below issues:

  • Mobile Crawlers not finding your site:
Search engine’s mobile crawlers need to crawl your site before index your pages in the search data base. If your site is new then you can use your webmaster tools account to check the issues in crawling your mobile site. Here is the way to check your Mobile Sitemap and Robots.txt file is accessible by crawlers or not. Login to your Google Webmaster Tools account and go to Health>Blocked URLs. As shown in the picture enter your site’s URL, select the Googlebot-mobile and then press on the “Test” button. 

Picture
Sitemap and Robots.txt Analysis For Your Mobile Site
The result will show you whether valid sitemap is detected by Google and what are the pages blocked by your robots.txt file.
  • Submit Your Mobile Sitemap:
Create your mobile sitemap and submit to search engines using webmaster tools account. This will help the mobile-bots to understand your mobile content and crawl easily.

  • Access issue for mobile-bots:
Your mobile site may stop the bots accessing your pages due to the reason that the mobile user-agent is not included in your site. Make sure your site is included with the mobile user agents (Googlebot-Mobile for Google) so that the mobile-bots are allowed to access your pages without any issues.

Make sure your mobile URLs are identifiable

After mobile-bots crawled your pages the next step is that mobile-bots verify your URLs are compatible with mobile devices. If your URLs are not compatible then search engines will ignore them without indexing. The important criteria for URL validation is the declaration of Document Type Definition (DTD) in your mobile site. Ensure DTD declaration in your site is using correct mobile setup like XHTML or cHTML.
Document Type Definition for Your Mobile Site
Document Type Definition for Your Mobile Site

Setup Your Mobile Redirect properly

Once you are ready with a mobile site the important point is to setup a redirect in your desktop site. This redirect will guide the users to take to your mobile site when viewed from a mobile device as well as inform the search engines the corresponding mobile URLs of your desktop pages. Two more additional points are to be considered here when guiding your mobile users:

  1. Ensure your pages are equivalently matched in both desktop and mobile version. For example redirecting one of your desktop page contains particular product information to a home page of your mobile site is considered by the search engines as against the mobile webmaster guidelines.
  2. Provide your desktop site’s URL in mobile site and vice versa to ensure the navigation of one site to another. This is especially useful when your mobile site does provide all the information from your desktop site due to the size.

Same URL for desktop and Mobile Site

Some of the hosting services offer same URL for your desktop as well as mobile site. (For example – Weebly offers same URL as of now). In this case switching between mobile and desktop are controlled by the user-agent. Check your site in various mobile devices to make sure the design is working in all the devices otherwise you may need to choose appropriate mobile site builders like Dudamobile.

Cloaking

Cloaking is to show different content to search engine bots and the users in order to increase site ranking in the search.  Cloaking is considered as a severe violation from webmaster’s guidelines by the search engines and as a result your site will disappear from the search results. So whether you are using same URL or different URLs for mobile and desktop sites make sure the redirects are appropriately set and the pages are showing relevant content. 

It is absolutely fine to have different content in your mobile and desktop sites due to various reasons but the redirects should lead the users and the search engine bots to appropriate pages.

Dos and Don'ts with Your Mobile Site

Dos
Dos
  1. Design your mobile content effectively to help the search engines and users to navigate easily.
  2. Setup and test your redirects in various mobile devices.
  3. Submit mobile sitemap in your webmaster tools account.
  4. Make sure mobile URLs are accessible by mobile-bots.
  5. Use correct DTD.
Picture
Don'ts
  1. Avoid cloaking.
  2. Congested mobile site stuffed with content.
Content By webnots.com

SEO for Site Promotion

Promoting Your Website in Right Ways

Link building is an important part of website promotion as the sites with more external links are placed top in the search engines results page. Though people interested in your content automatically will link to your pages, this is always not guaranteed even for the very best content. Hence every webmaster needs to promote their site a bit in order to make it popular and to reach the interesting people in the world. Here we discuss simple and search engine friendly promotion methods to get more traffic to your site. Note over doing any of these promotion methods will result your site is being marked as webspam by search engines.

1. Use Your Blog

You can maintain a simple blog to announce a new product addition or new event in your primary site. The advantage of announcing it in a blog is that the blog feed can be made available through various feed readers and interested people can subscribe to your blog and start following your content.

2. Social Media

Social media is actually more powerful than an organic search and every social media companies want to bring their own search engine to the market. This makes a social promotion bit difficult for webmasters since major search engines like Google don’t prefer social traffic from their competitors like Facebook. For example if you are using AdSense ads in your site then you may be banned if few repeat clicks are recorded from social media traffic. Hence it is up to site owners to decide whether to go for a social media traffic or strict to other promotion methods like blog announcements, forum posting and offline promotions.

3. Offline Promotion methods

Offline promotion methods help the user to get your latest content update without visiting your site every time. This includes email subscription, sending newsletter and using business cards.

Site Promotion Methods
Site Promotion Methods

4. Using Forums

Another important and easy promotion method is to find out the same interested communities that of your site and start sharing and receiving updates related to your content. This is as effective as organic searches since only the interested webmasters will be communicating with you and read your content. Find related forums of your site and start post your popular contents in the forums and build your community step by step.   

Analysis Tools for Webmasters

It is not sufficient to just promote your site, every webmasters need to analyze their site traffic to make sure the promotion is working in a proper manner. Following are the site analysis tools freely available for webmasters:

1. Webmaster Tools
Every search engine offers free Webmaster Tools account to analyze the site for various parameters as listed. Learn more about Webmaster Tools Here.
  • What are the keywords bring traffic to your site
  • Top landing pages in your site
  • To find out crawling errors 
  • Submit sitemap and blog feed
If you wonder why your site does not appear in the searches without any valid reason, you can raise a Reconsideration request in Google Webmaster Tools account to get a review of your site from Google.  

2. Google Analytics
Analytics is the foremost tool offers each and every part of your sites performance. You can easily monitor the results of your site promotion and adjust your activities accordingly. For example you can find landing and leaving pages in your site for a particular search query. With this information you can identify the page users mostly leave your site and correct the content in that page to provide more useful information to the users. If you have chosen social media promotions then Analytics provide a clear differentiation between organic, referral and social traffic.     

3. Ranking Tools
Alexa is one of the reliable site shows the number of links to your along with local and global traffic rank of your site. This gives an overall idea for webmasters about the traffic rate to their site and works on their site to improve the ranking. Google PageRank is an another tool provides a quality of a webpage between the rank 0 to 10 which is also used by Google to decide a position of a page in search engine results page.

Dos and Don'ts:

Dos
Dos
  1. Use own promotion methods in a limited and useful way
  2. Use various tools to optimize the site for search engines
Picture
Don'ts
  1. Using follow or like exchanges to get free followers
  2. Buying links from high PageRank sites to increase your link popularity
  3. Promoting every page content in a social media without much interesting topic
  4. Entering spam comments in someone’s blog or posting as many as links in the forums.
Content By webnots.com

SEO for Crawlers

Inform Crawlers through robots.txt and Nofollow tag

Crawler or Spider is a piece of script used to collect the information of all the web pages available in the web. Search engine providers give them a name for the ease of understanding like Googlebot or Bingbot. The important part is that you as an owner of your site need to tell these crawlers what are the URL links to be indexed and what are the referring links from your site are to be considered by the search engine.

What is robots.txt?

robots.txt display
robots.txt display

A "robots.txt" is a text file in the root directory of every website which informs the search engines whether the webpage is allowed to be crawled or not. 


You can simply enter "www.yoursitename.com/robots.txt" in the browser’s address bar to view robots.txt file of your site.

Some of your site’s pages may contain confidential information and if you do not prevent search engines to stop crawling those pages using robots.txt file then all those confidential details will be shown in the search results to the public. Google Webmaster Tools offers a simple robots.txt generator to help you create this file. 

In case of prevent crawling on your subdomains then you need to generate a separate robots.txt file for that subdomain.

Is that enough using robots.txt to hide sensitive information?

It is definitely not a highly secure way to hide your sensitive content from search engines just using robots.txt for the following reasons:
  • As anyone can see the robots.txt file in the browser, some curious user may try to analyze the directories and judge the URLs you are hiding
  • Some search engines do not follow robots.txt exclusion and continue to index your confidential pages
  • Search engines will still show just the URL you blocked (without title and description) if there is a link somewhere on the web pointing your URL

Understanding rel="nofollow" for links

If you do not want certain links on your site to be appeared in the search engine then setting the value of the "rel" attribute of a link to "nofollow" will tell search engines that the link on your site shouldn't be followed.  You need to add “nofollow” to “rel” attribute in your link as shown below:
Adding No Follow Link
Adding No Follow Link

Where can I use Nofollow?

Nofollow can be used in many cases, here we explain some of the important cases:
  • This is very useful to avoid spammy site links entered in the comment section of your blog since blog comment section is highly vulnerable to comment spam like the one shown below. By using No-follow in rel attribute to these links confirms that you are not giving your page's reputation to a spammy site. More over links to the spammy sites will also affect the reputation of your own site in the search engine results.
Comment Spamming
Comment Spamming Example
  • Nofollow will also be useful in forums, guest books and shout-boards. Most of the blogging and forum providers add nofollow to user comments by default otherwise you need edit your comments manually. You can also use comment moderation like entering CAPTCHA code or using social networking for comment login.
  • Nofollow can also be useful when you are referring a link in your site but no interested in passing your outbound link reputation on to it. 
  • If you want to nofollow all the links on any of your site’s page use "nofollow" in your robots meta tag, which is placed inside the <head> tag of that page's HTML as shown below:
Nofollow All the links in a Page
Nofollow All the links in a Page

Content By webnots.com