AP 0757: When Do I Use Follow Links and When Do I Use No-Follow Links?

AskPat 757 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 757 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

All right now here's today's question from Michelle.

Michelle: Hi Pat, it's Michelle here from CustardandBear.com all the way from the UK. I've got an AskPat question for you. April has been a really tough month for me physically and emotionally. I'm a marketing mentor and I work exclusively with mompreneurs. That is moms who have a business, who work that business around their small kids. I deliver seminars, training, one to one mentoring. Throughout April, I've had such a bad back. I'm facing surgery. I've literally been in bed on and off a lot of drugs, which quite simply meant, I can't drive. And I couldn't sit, stand, walk, so all of April's income went out of the window.

It really made me realize, that I need to make a shift in my business. While I still wasn't very well, I listened an awful lot to you and to SPI, AskPat, the podcast, etc. And really found them hugely motivating. I've had an ebook in the works for months now. I used the time that I was poorly to finally finish the ebook and the ebook is now live. It's for sale and it's called Facebook Thirty. I'm really proud that in that time I was ill, I've managed to do something good. I have to say that was down to SPI. You really did give me a kick up the butt to not get despondent. And to keep on working even though things are pretty drastic.

Here's my question: On my blog I've written a blog about why I wrote the book. About why writing the book and selling the book and getting the message out there was so important to me. At the bottom of that blog, I would like to credit you. I'd basically like to do a thank you, a little dedication. Just to say, “This blog is dedicated to Pat from SPI, because he was basically my butt kick.” That's all. Really subtle, really simple. Genuine as well, heartfelt.

The question is: should the link be a follow or a no follow? I'm not getting anything from it. It's not an affiliate link. It's a genuine link. But I'm just finding myself really confused about the difference between follow and no follow links. Any light you can shed on that would be great. Just to finish, a huge thank you for all of your virtual support over the past months. It's been fantastic. You've really touched my life and I'm sure same goes for a lot of other people. Thanks, Pat. Cheers, Michelle.

Pat Flynn: Hey Michelle, thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it. Actually, rather it's a very simple question with a very simple answer. I think it's one that's pretty important to share, because it's kind of like another language to some people. Like what is that? Follow vs no follow. Before I just answer that question really quick for you, I just want to say thanks for all the support.

I'm so glad that you told a story. That's what I wanted to feature this question mostly, not just to answer this question but to feature the fact that you just needed some motivation to get stuff done. I think we all need some sort of motivation and whether that comes from me, or not or something else. We all need that motivation, a kick in the butt every once in a while. Thank you for sharing that story. I'm so glad it sounds like your feeling better now. And I'm just saddened that you went through that experience but happy that you came out on the other end and things are great.

No follow is a way to set an attribute to a link, that basically does not boost page rank. Doesn't help a page's placement in the search engines. They get no love. So if you were to link to me and it would be a no follow, you're basically telling Google, “Hey, I'm linking but don't count this.” Like, “Don't send any search engine love or SEO to Pat Flynn because of that.” Typically, most links are going to be follow links. When you default create a link, it's going to be a follow link. You have kind of manually set it to no follow, unless you've set it up otherwise on your site.

Now when do you use no follow links? The best practice is to, when you have affiliate links on your website, if possible to have them be no follow links. If it's just something that you feel like would potentially be shut down later, you want it to be a no follow link. I know it's kind of a general statement.

The reason is because you want Google to not count those links. In terms of sending search engine juice, if you will, over to them. When you think about it, your website has a certain amount of page rank power, if you will. Whenever you have a link out there, you're giving people little bit of power here and there. That's how google determines the relevance and worthiness of a page typically is . . .there's a lot of reasons and things that they look at from open speed or the page load time to the bounce rate and all that stuff. One thing that they look at are the back links that are coming to a website. And if they are crawling through your website and they see a no follow, they don't count it.

If you're linking to somebody and you want it to be . . .Even if it's not because of a credit, you're just linking to somebody, because you want to share that article. Or because, you want to quote that article. Especially if you're giving a genuine thank you to somebody. It's kind of a slap in the face, if you will, to take the extra time to make it a no follow link.

I wouldn't worry too much about follow vs no follow, if this doesn't make sense to you just write regular links and don't even worry about it. It's going to happen on its own. Just naturally the things that are supposed to happen are going to happen anyway. Don't worry about it too much. There's no penalty for making an affiliate link a regular follow link or anything like that.

There's no huge penalty for that. But if you want to look up an article, there's a good article on no follow links and how they can be used properly on a site called Moz, M-O-Z. Or just look up “follow vs no follow” on Google and you'll see that there as well. You'll be able to see the difference. It literally says on the definition here, the no follow tag is basically a notice sign for search engines saying, “Don't count this.” There is a sad and lonely life. That's exactly what it says. But anyway, Michelle, thank you so much for the question. I appreciate it and hopefully that helps you out. And thank you in advance for placing that link in there. I really appreciate it. And all the best to you and stay healthy please. Thank you.

I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.

Thanks and here's a quote to finish off the day as always. Today's quote comes from Caterina Fake. I think she's the CEO of Flickr. That quote is: “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”

You're a hero. Take care everybody and I'll see you on the next episode of AskPat. Bye