In the WordPress SEO theme I develop there’s an advanced SEO feature to make the most out of internal links anchor text in the new Google Hummingbird algorithm. If you are looking for general anchor text info, see my anchor text optimization tutorial. In short Google only counts the anchor text of the first link to a unique URL. What this means is if a web page has two or more links to the same URL only the first links anchor text is counted as anchor text (it’s still indexed by Google as standard body text). It’s essential SEO wise to have the first link (as found in the code) to use your best optimized anchor text since others are […]
Continue Reading Anchor Text SEO Testing
Nofollow Google SEO Test - Anchor Text and Title Attribute Text
This is an SEO test, testing the rel nofollow attribute.
SEObestenchbombSEO
Messed the SEO test up when a theme update replaced the nofollow link with a javascript cloaked link.
Changed the anchor text 15th June 2014 with current anchor text which currently has zero Google results.
Nofollow SEO test will be valid within a month.
David
Nofollow Google SEO Test - Anchor Text and Title Attribute Text
SEO Test Results - Nofollow Links Passing Anchor Text Benefit
Been running an SEO test on nofollow links anchor text benefit for years and the SEO results are below.
Added a link from a comment: it’s the comment above this one, but used to be on another site (moved the SEO Gold site here), now it’s to another page on this website.
Part of the comment is
The above is a screenshot from when the comment was on the SEO Gold site.
Where the made up word “SEOstenchbomb” is the anchor text of a nofollow link to another webpage (where the nofollow link goes wasn’t that important).
Since SEO tests are regularly ruined by web scrapers copying content, I’ve regularly changed the test anchor text (it’s no longer “SEOstenchbomb” if you look close. I’m going to keep the rest of this comment using “SEOstenchbomb” as the text we are looking for, but note you’ll need to search for the text in the other comment to see current test results.
Google has told us nofollow links anchor text is NOT indexed, it’s supposed to be hidden to Google in every way including the anchor text, the anchor text should NOT be indexed in anyway as anchor text or even body text.
A Google search for SEOstenchbomb or “SEOstenchbomb” (with speech marks is useful for SEO tests sometimes) currently (15th June 2014) shows 0 pages indexed in Google.
This site runs WordPress with the Stallion SEO Theme which reuses comments, most pages indexed for our test SERP (if any) are reused versions of the comment text (an excerpt of the test comment with the link replaced by just the anchor text: so plain body text). Those comment pages (if any) are expected to be indexed, it’s this webpage that’s important:
# https://stallion-theme.co.uk/seo-test-anchor-text/
# https://stallion-theme.co.uk/seo-test-anchor-text/?cid=22575
Where the nofollow link is located (the Stallion SEO Super Comment also has the nofollow link).
If information provided by Google is correct that the anchor text of nofollow links are not indexed in anyway those webpages should NOT be indexed in Google for the search SEOstenchbomb.
Also the nofollow link points to: https://stallion-theme.co.uk/wordpress-comments-and-rel-nofollow/#seotests
I added the #seotests to make sure Google counts the anchor text (Google ignores the anchor text of multiple links to the same URL, adding #anything mean Google will index the anchor text).
If Google passes no anchor text benefit to the linked to page it shouldn’t be found in Google for the “SEOstenchbomb” search.
Note: rel=”nofollow” links deletes link benefit, for every rel=”nofollow” attribute you add to your website it’s costing you the equivalent of linking out to a random site for no benefit in return.
DO NOT USE REL=”NOFOLLOW” IT HAS ZERO SEO VALUE
Test SEO update August 2014: Checking the made up keyword in Google shows 3 pages indexed in Google.
# https://stallion-theme.co.uk/seo-test-anchor-text/ – The main article for the test comment (nofollow link present).
# https://stallion-theme.co.uk/seo-test-anchor-text/comment-page-1/ – A paged version of the above page (nofollow link present).
# https://stallion-theme.co.uk/seo-test-anchor-text/?cid=22575 – Stallion SEO Super Comment version of the test comment (nofollow link present).
For all three pages above the “SEOstenchbomb” (remember this isn’t the actual test word, check the first comment or at Nofollow Google SEO Test for the correct anchor text to search for) is the anchor text for a rel=”nofollow” link. This confirms Google indexes the anchor text of nofollow links at least as body text.
The URL the nofollow link is aimed at: https://stallion-theme.co.uk/wordpress-comments-and-rel-nofollow/#seotests is NOT indexed in Google for the made up keyword. This confirms Google is NOT passing anchor text SEO benefit via the nofollow links (three of them).
This could not be a clearer SEO test result. Google indexes the nofollow anchor text for the page it’s on, but not for the page it’s linked to.
David Law
SEO Test Results - Nofollow Links Passing Anchor Text Benefit
Nofollow + Anchor Text links
Hello David,
Thanks for this awesome post. You have done really great job to understand SEO test on anchor text. But still one question playing guitar in my mind.
Someone has 1000s of no-follow links out of which 750-800 links coming from Anchor text.
As per Google Penguin Update: keyword optimized work will also be in target by Google.
So my question is, should I include nofollow (on Anchor text) links in Disavow list? (PS: Many of nofollow links coming from blog comments and cannot be removed even after admin contact)
Please elaborate your answer.
Nofollow + Anchor Text links
Google Disavow BackLinks
Not completely sure of the question, think you are asking about an issue related to Google potentially penalizing a site for comment SPAM?
If you haven’t been comment spamming and not received a warning from Google about unnatural links or there’s nothing wrong with the links, disavowing links because you think Google doesn’t like blog comment links or links with good anchor text isn’t a good idea. There’s nothing wrong with backlinks with good SEO anchor text as long as there’s nothing wrong with the links: link farms, buying links, link spamming… those are penalty issues, good SEO anchor text per se isn’t.
If you have links with good anchor text because other webmasters like your site last thing you want to do is disavow them.
Note the above is based on NOT comment spamming, if you’ve been comment spamming it’s a different story.
Google ignores nofollow links, so even though you’ve spammed comments for links Google is already ignoring them. The nofollow links don’t pass any direct SEO benefit, not link benefit and no anchor text benefit: in effect the nofollow links are already disavowed by the owner of the domains the links are on.
Google doesn’t have a problem with webmasters buying nofollow links, they advise when buying links to only buy nofollow links. They give the same advise for those selling links as well, so safe to believe Google doesn’t have an issue with nofollow links.
If you haven been link spamming I’d be concerned at the links that do pass SEO benefit and what it says about your website. If you’ve resorted to link spamming, what else have you done that’s blackhat, if your backlink profile warrants a look from the Google manual review team it will be a black mark if they find thousands of spamm comments.
Since nofollow links pass no SEO benefit there’s no reason to or not to disavow them: from a direct SEO perspective makes no difference.
My advice if you’ve had a warning or know you’ve used a blackhat SEO technique disavow all** the spammed links (do follow and nofollow) and if you are carrying a manual penalty make a Reconsideration request admitting the “mistake” and what you’ve done to fix it. If you aren’t carrying a penalty no point making a Reconsideration request, your site isn’t currently carrying a manual penalty. If you have an automated penalty fixing the issue should help lift an automated penalty.
** I’d try not to disavow any do follow links that are particularly beneficial if you aren’t carrying a penalty, you can get away with a small amount of blackhat SEO :-) If you have a penalty be ruthless, they aren’t helping your site.
David
Google Disavow BackLinks