Should I use the nofollow attribute on internal links?



Regarding “nofollow” on internal links: Does it hurt? Does it help? I read different comments from Matt on this matter over time. What’s the latest?

Roland, Bangkok

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17 thoughts on “Should I use the nofollow attribute on internal links?”

  1. I have a lightbox quick enquiry form scattered around numerous times on my website. It would not serve anybody effectively to actually land on the lightbox webpage. It also drains out page rank for something that's only effective for actually making the page look tidier, more attractive and easier to navigate. I don't see why it wouldn't be a good idea to add nofollow to that. Is there a risk of being penalised for that at all?

  2. Sorry, this time I disagree.
    It's no good to waste GoogleBots' time having 'em crawl to pages of low public interest just to encounter a noindex robots meta tag. Only high quality content should make it's way into the index, and the less time the Googlebots waste, they more they can spend on finding it.
    I use lots of internal nofollow links on may major site and it is prooved this is okay.

    Regards, Thomas

  3. Matt, I gotta say . . . nofollow is evil, period.

    I've written about this several times at Answer Guy Central blog, most comprehensively on January 6, 2010:

    Seriously; I just think that tag is a bad idea. Always. I understand why you guys created it, but it's only REALLY useful when applied BY you; anyone else using it is doing evil (hmmm . . .) And as I recall, and old Google axiom was "Don't Be".

  4. I want to redub Matt's videos based solely on his hand gestures. Try it out for yourself: put the video on mute and let your imagination go wild! I think this one is about waterwheels in a Rube Goldberg machine.

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