Talking About Google Announces Significant Changes to NoFollow Link with the Introduction of Two New Attributes, Search engine giant Google made significant announcements on Tuesday, making important changes to the way the ‘NoFollow’ link attribute is treated. The company has decided to add two new link attributes – the first is for sponsored links and the second is for user-generated content links.
The announcement is important from the SEO Services perspective as it will help publishers on how they should mark nofollow links. Google has also informed that nofollow link attributes will be viewed as ‘hint’ instead of directives for ranking purposes.
However, this new announcement has also given birth to a few important questions that need to be answered. Let’s point them out.
- You can attribute the link using three different methods such as NoFollow, Sponsored, and UGC. Each of these ways signifies a different meaning. There’s also a fourth method known as default which means no attribution of value.
- Google will treat each of the nofollow attributes as hints for better SEO Ranking in Canada. If explained in simple terms, it means the attributes will not affect the ranks of the website but Google can use nofollow instead of the directive to establish ranks.
- The new attributes can be used in combination with each other. For instance, the sponsoring of ugc by rel= nofollow is considered viable.
- Keep note that paid links should necessarily be used to nofollow or sponsored attribute links either separately or jointly. In case you are using ugc for paid links, you are bound to pay a penalty.
- The publishers will have no role here. Google is not going to provide any reward for making the change, penalizing or not making the change.
- Lastly, if you want to control crawling through nofollow attribute, then you have to reconsider your strategy.
Reason Why Google Changed NoFollow Link
If you are pondering over why Google made changes to the NoFollow Link, here’s a simple answer – Google wanted to take back the link graph.
Now, what does it mean? Let’s get into some detail.
Google unveiled the nofollow attribute way back in 2005 to address the issue of comment spam and suspected links from User-Generated Content (UGC). The shady links or spam can lower your site ranking and thus the nofollow attribute has come to your rescue.
Talking About Google Announces Significant Changes to NoFollow Link with the Introduction of Two New Attributes, Another reason that allowed Google to introduce nofollow was specifically for sponsored links. It means if you accept anything of value in place of linking without nofollow and get caught, Google will have to pay a penalty.
Major popular websites such as Wikipedia and Forbes strictly followed the nofollow policy as they feared it would get penalized. For this reason, they were not able to monitor UGC appropriately.
The usefulness of the link graphs had also reduced, especially for Google. Google brought changes in the nofollow attribute as it wanted to understand the web better.
Google can now implement improved changes in its algorithms when they treat the nofollow attributes as hints.
What SEO Professionals Need to Note
There are a few essential points which SEO Experts in Canada need to note on a compulsory note.
- First, the attributes still hold the key- The attributes are as important as flag ads and sponsored links that help you in averting the penalty. You can incorporate both sponsored or nofollow as both are fine with Google.
- Second, there is no need to change any nofollow attribute or link. Google will continue to render its support to current nofollow attributes.
- Site owners don’t need to change the way they are using the nofollow attributes for flagging the links or implementing the ads and sponsorships. But you have to move on to a sponsored attribute if the situation demands it.
Using the New Attributes in an Appropriate Manner
You can make use of more than one attribute for a single link. Let’s, take, for example, that Google will accept rel=ugc sponsored to sponsor a link appearing in User Generated Content.
Also, if the link has been marked as sponsored, while that link is a part of an advertisement, the impact of the attribute is reduced.
How Does the NoFollow Link Influence the Ranking
Prior to the announcement, most SEO experts were of the view that nofollow links were not used for crawling and indexing. Also, they (links) were not used to rank a website.
But the truth is there is still a lot of debate and confusion over the second belief that Google has not given any clarity on this issue. Some experimental data suggest that Google has used nofollow links to rank potential websites.
After the introduction of new attributes, the scenario has changed to some extent. For example, nofollow links are still not used for indexing and crawling. And for ranking purposes, all links officially become a hint. Google has ignored directives and used hints in its place.
What’s the Future Plan Ahead
All new attributes introduced by Google – NoFollow, Sponsored, and UGC – will come into effect today. The attributes will continue to be treated as hints, where Google may consider a link as credit or count it as part of a spam analysis.
Come March 2, 2020, the nofollow links will be used for indexing and crawling purposes. Google will use it as a hint.
Talking About Google Announces Significant Changes to NoFollow Link with the Introduction of Two New Attributes, So, if you are an SEO professional who is completely dependent on nofollow attributes, you should consider migrating to the new attributes as soon as possible.
- In some cases, they may be used for crawling and indexing
- In some cases, they may be used for ranking
Emphasis on the word “some.” Google is very explicit that in most cases they will continue to ignore nofollow links as usual.
