Using NoFollow to adhere to first link priority

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Using NoFollow to adhere to first link priority

kflanagan

9:50 am on Aug 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hey

I have a question on first link priority and using nofollow to force Google through keyword links. I have a site where the top nav contains a Jscript drop down box of sub categories i.e.

Top Nav - Dog
Sub Categories - Dog Training, Dog Walking, Dog Washing

It's a roll over. This means the first link Google crawls is through one word links i.e. Training, Walking, Washing.

I know this is a Jscript menu, so my questions are:

1. On each page I have proper keyword links to the different pages i.e. "dog training" etc. Is it worth nofollowing the links in the Jscript menu to ensure only keyword rich links are followed OR should I just trust Google is not crawling links in the Jscript nav.

2. In general, is the use of nofollow in this way ok i.e. with the recent announcement by Google about PR just disappearing, is it still worth nofollowing navigation links to ensure the first link crawled is keyword rich ?

Thanks

canadafred

2:04 am on Aug 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

I wouldn't use nofollow this way. Why wouldn't you want the SE to find all your web pages? Wouldn't these pages offer unique content and internal links?

kflanagan

8:12 am on Aug 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hi Canadafred

I don't think you understand the question. Do you understand what the first link priority is ?

There is no danger of the search engines not finding my pages, there are plenty of other links to them from within the pages themselves.

ogletree

8:55 am on Aug 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Google does not rank links by how far they are up on the page or which one they see first. Putting nofollow all your links will still have the same value.

adipkn

11:18 am on Aug 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Is there really anything called first link priority? I have read some random trials by some seo people in the past regarding this. The results are non conclusive.

In my experience it is pointless these days to try and set up nofollow to any internal links for any reason. I have tried this method in more than 30 sites without any positive results.

kflanagan

11:32 am on Aug 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hey

Thanks for the replies. I read a lot on it from stompernet and seomoz.

It didn't make a whole pile of sense when reading it as surely most sites would have their navigation links first.

I just wanted to know was this a good use of nofollow but after reading the replies, I am going to leave it.

Thanks

Excellira

4:07 am on Aug 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

The reason to use no-follow is to channel PR. This may have made sense a year ago. Then if you had two links on a page and one was no-followed, all the PR would pass to the naked link.

Last year G shut the door on this practice. Now if you have two links on a page and one is nofollowed then the naked link will still only pass 50% of the possible PR to the naked link and the remaining 50% is wasted.

In the past it may have made sense to nofollow a privacy policy page (or other non money pages). Now, I don't see any value in this. If the PR is gong to be wasted, why not pass it to the privacy policy and let the privacy policy pass PR to an important page.

kflanagan

8:12 am on Aug 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hey Excellira

You have totally misunderstood the question. I am NOT trying to channel PR !

I was asking is this something worth doing in terms of the "first link priority", which has been discussed by Stompernet and SEOmoz ...

Excellira

3:34 pm on Aug 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

@kflanagan Sorry, I did misread your question. I have read conflicting reports from authoritative sources but I haven't tested this theory personally. I'll also look forward to some input from others.

londrum

4:06 pm on Aug 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

most people structure their code with content first and navigation after, and then style it with css.
so first link priority will probably turn up some kind of content link for most sites.
i don't see how google can know which is more important