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Boosting your site's PR with forum posts
Thread poster: Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Jan 24, 2010

G'day everyone

I just noticed that if you put a URL in a forum post, the forum software converts it to a hyperlink and adds a "nofollow" attribute to it. This means that although search engines may follow the link, they won't award pagerank points to the site.

But... if you type the hyperlink yourself, in HTML, then the forum software does not add a "nofollow" attribute, and theoretically search engines like Google will not only follow the link but also award pagerank
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G'day everyone

I just noticed that if you put a URL in a forum post, the forum software converts it to a hyperlink and adds a "nofollow" attribute to it. This means that although search engines may follow the link, they won't award pagerank points to the site.

But... if you type the hyperlink yourself, in HTML, then the forum software does not add a "nofollow" attribute, and theoretically search engines like Google will not only follow the link but also award pagerank point to it from ProZ.com's pagerank.

Here, let me test it:

1. http://www.archive.org/

2. http://www.archive.org/

In your browser, go View > Source (or similar) and search the source code for these two URLs that I had added to this post.

I wonder if this behaviour is intended...

Samuel
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Kay Barbara
Kay Barbara
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:39
Member (2008)
English to German
+ ...
Strange indeed... Jan 24, 2010

I checked the source code and you are right, the 2. URL is missing the *rel="nofollow"* bit.
What baffels me, though, is that on my profile page (in the "about" section) I cannot circumvent this "spam prevention" (see http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html) when I insert a URL directly using html. So why is this possible in the forum
... See more
I checked the source code and you are right, the 2. URL is missing the *rel="nofollow"* bit.
What baffels me, though, is that on my profile page (in the "about" section) I cannot circumvent this "spam prevention" (see http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html) when I insert a URL directly using html. So why is this possible in the forums?

Moreover, should I feel cheated that I pay my membership fee for ProZ and still cannot choose to post my own website's URL in my profile without the rel="nofollow"? I appreciate that is might make sense in forums... but in our profiles?

Best,

Kay
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Roel Verschueren
Roel Verschueren  Identity Verified
Austria
Local time: 15:39
English to Dutch
+ ...
Sorry Samuel Jan 24, 2010

I try to understand what you are telling because I think what you write is important, but help me out here: what should I do on my own profile page to make the url's that I have on there work properly in search engines?

Tx pal,

Roel


 
mediamatrix (X)
mediamatrix (X)
Local time: 11:39
Spanish to English
+ ...
IMHO ... Jan 25, 2010

Kay Barbara wrote:
... should I feel cheated that I pay my membership fee for ProZ and still cannot choose to post my own website's URL in my profile without the rel="nofollow"?


... most certainly 'YES!'.

What I find unreasonable is that it is possible to circumvent the blockage of 'free plugging' to personal/professional/agency websites in the forum.

MediaMatrix

[Edited at 2010-01-25 00:50 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
How to cancel nofollow in your profile page Jan 25, 2010

Kay Barbara, Dipl.-Übersetzer wrote:
What baffels me, though, is that on my profile page (in the "about" section) I cannot circumvent this "spam prevention" when I insert a URL directly using html. So why is this possible in the forums?


I had assumed that it would be same for the profiles, but you're right -- typing the hyperlink without the nofollow causes ProZ.com to add the nofollow attribute.

But... after one little experiment I discovered a way to get rid of the nofollow in the profile page: simply add a fake rel attribute to your hyperllink. For example, when I type rel="123" between the "a" and the "href" in URLs of my profile page, ProZ.com removes it but doesn't replace it with a nofollow attribute.

Now I wonder what kind of pagerank boost a site would get if it is linked to from a high PR site that has 99% nofollow hyperlinks... and I still ask myself whether this behaviour is truly intended.


 
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:39
Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Very interesting observation Jan 25, 2010

However AFAIK no follow links also count - at least when it comes to Google - I am not sure if as much as normal ones but they influence importance assigned by Google to your site (PR is not everything).

BR
Stanislaw

Edited to add:

Btw. am I the only one who notices correlation between answering Kudoz and position of my profile in Google searches?

[Edited at 2010-01-25 07:59 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
ProZ.com's PR Jan 25, 2010

mediamatrix wrote:
What I find unreasonable is that it is possible to circumvent the blockage of 'free plugging' to personal/professional/agency websites in the forum.


I agree with you in principle, but I might add (for the benefit of others) that ProZ.com's pagerank is a mere 6/10. My own site's pagerank is 5/10, so I probably won't get any mojo from ProZ.com even if I do optimise my links. I can see, however, that it might be beneficial for users whose sites sit at 3/10 and 4/10.

I would have thought that ProZ.com's pagerank would be higher than 6, particularly because forum posts are indexed by Google near instantaneously, but perhaps ProZ.com is being penalised for some or other reason...? The advertising banner at the top of this page doesn't have nofollow in its hyperlink, although ProZ.com probably regards it as an internal link, because it links to ads.proz.com (which, unfortunately, Google regards as a completely separate site). But I'm no expert and I can only speculate wildly.

Stanislaw Czech wrote:
AFAIK nofollow links also count - at least when it comes to Google - I am not sure if as much as normal ones but they influence importance assigned by Google to your site (PR is not everything).


I was under the impression that although Google will follow nofollow links, and will cause the target sites to be indexed, it will not take the source site's pagerank into consideration when calculating the target page's pagerank. And yes, I do realise that pagerank isn't everything. When I designed my own site, I took note of the existence of this thing called "pagerank", but I did not implement a strategy for it.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Correlation between KudoZ and Google ranking Jan 25, 2010

Stanislaw Czech wrote:
Am I the only one who notices correlation between answering Kudoz and position of my profile in Google searches?


Veering off-topic here, but I might as well respond: It would have to be tested, but a quick test of my own doesn't seem to confirm your theory:

Ranking according to:
http://www.proz.com/english-to-afrikaans-translators

1. SM = 51 KudoZ points
2. AP = 43 KudoZ points
3. SN = 20 KudoZ points
4. MB = 4 KudoZ points
5. HD = 4 KudoZ points
6. AK = 4 KudoZ points
7. KS = 0 KudoZ points (and the rest are all 0 from here)

Google search result for "site:.proz.com/profile/ english afrikaans translator":

1. MB (4th on the above ProZ.com list, with 4 KudoZ points)
2. BL (26th on list, 0 KudoZ points)
3. KS (7th on list, 0 KudoZ points)
4. BL again (in different subdomain)
5. CH (not in the top 30 of the above ProZ.com list)
6. LT (not in the top 30)
7. KV (30th on the above list, 0 KudoZ points)
8. HS (not in the top 30)
9. IP (not in the top 30)
10. SC (not in the top 30)

None of the top 3 KudoZ leaders came up in the Google search. How would you test your theory?


 
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:39
Member (2006)
English to Polish
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SITE LOCALIZER
I keep track of visitors during periods of activity and inactivity in answering Kudoz questions Jan 25, 2010

and I don't mean just results for let's say English to Polish translator only that when I answer more questions more keywords and keyphrases from my profile appear on 1st page of results in Google.

Best Regards
Stanislaw


 
Charlie Bavington
Charlie Bavington  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:39
French to English
Links TO proz? Jan 25, 2010

Samuel Murray wrote:
I would have thought that ProZ.com's pagerank would be higher than 6, particularly because forum posts are indexed by Google near instantaneously, but perhaps ProZ.com is being penalised for some or other reason...?

Not enough links TO proz from elsewhere? I always thought the links TO a site were a key factor in ranking? I could well be mistaken, of course.


 
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL
Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:39
Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
links could be the reason Jan 25, 2010

however Yahoo shows 426,628 incomin links - what is IMHO quite good result.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.proz.com&y=Explore%20URL&fr=sfp
Of course it also matters where this links come from.

BR
Stanislaw


 
Claudia Alvis
Claudia Alvis  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 09:39
Member
Spanish
+ ...
That didn't work Jan 25, 2010

Samuel Murray wrote:

Kay Barbara, Dipl.-Übersetzer wrote:
What baffels me, though, is that on my profile page (in the "about" section) I cannot circumvent this "spam prevention" when I insert a URL directly using html. So why is this possible in the forums?


I had assumed that it would be same for the profiles, but you're right -- typing the hyperlink without the nofollow causes ProZ.com to add the nofollow attribute.

But... after one little experiment I discovered a way to get rid of the nofollow in the profile page: simply add a fake rel attribute to your hyperllink. For example, when I type rel="123" between the "a" and the "href" in URLs of my profile page, ProZ.com removes it but doesn't replace it with a nofollow attribute.

Now I wonder what kind of pagerank boost a site would get if it is linked to from a high PR site that has 99% nofollow hyperlinks... and I still ask myself whether this behaviour is truly intended.



Thank you for bringing that up Samuel. I had no idea and it is a big deal. I tried your solution applying the fake rel attribute but that didn't work for me. I placed it in lieu of the nofollow attribute in the source page of my profile: both before the '>' and between the 'a' and 'href', but the nofollow attribute is still there.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Claudia's web site Jan 25, 2010

Claudia Alvis wrote:
I tried your solution applying the fake rel attribute but that didn't work for me. I placed it in lieu of the nofollow attribute in the source page of my profile: both before the '>' and between the 'a' and 'href', but the nofollow attribute is still there.


Are you sure? Because I checked your profile and the nofollow attribute wasn't there. It was there at the top of the page, where ProZ.com inserts your URL automatically, but lower down on the section that you yourself can edit, the nofollow attribute is gone. Take a look at your source code and search for "If you need more information, you can visit my website at".


 
Claudia Alvis
Claudia Alvis  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 09:39
Member
Spanish
+ ...
Am I looking at the wrong thing? Jan 25, 2010

Thank you for checking the code. I reloaded the website and pull up the code and all my links still have the nofollow attribute:



 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Weird... Jan 26, 2010

Claudia Alvis wrote:
Thank you for checking the code. I reloaded the website and pull up the code and all my links still have the nofollow attribute:



Very strange. This is what I see in Opera 10.10:



...and in Firefox 3.5.7:






[Edited at 2010-01-26 09:01 GMT]


 
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