Did you know that all the links you add to your Persona Paper posts automatically have the rel="nofollow" attribute?
You can see this by clicking on the source code <> icon or button in the Persona Paper text post editor. For example, I'll add this link about what happens when you reply to the comments on your Persona Paper profile page here. If I click on the source code icon, I will see this:
<a href="URL link here" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>
The rel="nofollow" is automatically inserted. You can try to remove it, but it won't make a difference. The next time you look at the source code, you'll see the nofollow tag again.
Well, some sites do this while some only add this tag to affiliate links. On my own blogs, I add rel="nofollow" to the affiliate links. But on sites I write for (like Persona Paper, HubPages, Writedge, Daily Two Cents, etc) and on my own blogs, if I interlink or link to my articles, I don't add this attribute.
I can see why Persona Paper would do this, and, I don't know, I guess I don't really mind all that much (okay, maybe just a little 😃 LOL. But, really, not all that much, I guess, since I usually interlink Persona Paper articles anyway), but what I wonder about is why Persona Paper would add rel="nofollow" even when you're linking to a post that is on this site? Isn't that odd? I mean, why nofollow links on your own site? Is there a reason for this? Just curious and confused, I suppose. What do you think?
Note: see, all the URL links here go to articles on Persona Paper, but if you check the source code, they're all nofollow anyway. Odd and strange, isn't it?
Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:
GemstonePink wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:28 AM:
Thank you for alerting to this situation. I am very appreciative of those who help the newbies with their informative articles.
FreyaYuki replied to GemstonePink on February 25, 2015, 4:59 PM:
You're welcome 😃. Happened to notice the nofollow links and wondered why even the links on Persona Paper were nofollowed, which is odd, to say the least.
MaeLou wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:48 AM:
I'm not sure but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that when elitecodex did the programming, he didn't limit specific websites, including ours. It was just a basic nofollow for all links.
FreyaYuki replied to MaeLou on February 25, 2015, 5:01 PM:
Ah, I see. I understand why he'd want to nofollow links to external sites though I wonder why even links to Persona Paper would be nofollowed.
arthurchappell wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:50 AM:
no idea what the no-follow means - if we were to click on the link would it not still take us to that page?
FreyaYuki replied to arthurchappell on February 25, 2015, 5:04 PM:
Owlwings explained it correctly below 😃. Yes, for people, it doesn't matter even if the links are nofollow. If you click on them, you'll still be taken to the site or page where the link leads.
Feisty56 wrote on February 25, 2015, 5:30 PM:
I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and for providing a place for Owlwings and elitecodex to explain "nofollow" for a non-techie such as myself.
Feisty56 wrote on February 24, 2015, 11:26 AM:
I know I should absolutely understand what "no follow" means, but I'm coming up empty-headed here. Can you help me out?
FreyaYuki replied to Feisty56 on February 25, 2015, 5:07 PM:
Owlwings explained it correctly below 😃. Basically, it's best to add rel="nofollow" to your affiliate links and to the sources for your pics while it's best not to include this attribute or tag if you're interlinking your own articles or linking to sites that are relevant to your own content.
Owlwings wrote on February 24, 2015, 2:13 PM:
I just looked it up (to be sure I had it right).
'Nofollow' links contain an instruction to search engines not to 'follow' that link and thus add 'Google kudos' to the site specified. You have to know a little about Page Rank to understand this. In brief, Page Rank for a site is calculated based partly on the number of sites that link to it. If someone seeks to gain financially (or in other ways) by spreading links to their site over the Internet, it can be flagged by Google as 'spam' and the site linked to may be removed from the Google database. A site, such as Persona Paper, which allows the posting of links which can be 'followed' by Search engines could find itself in trouble, too, especially if they have an Adsense account. Even though many of the links here don't need to be 'nofollow', it is safer for the site if ALL links are automatically 'nofollow'. It DOESN'T stop ordinary users from clicking on the links to take them to the page: it simply tells search engines (and particularly Google) not to count those links when calculating Page Rank for those sites.
FreyaYuki replied to Owlwings on February 25, 2015, 5:12 PM:
Yup 😃. Thanks for providing the info for those who didn't know about rel="nofollow". I use it on affiliate links and pic sources on my blogs and on the other sites I write for. On some sites, you can choose if you want the link nofollowed or not.
Feisty56 replied to Owlwings on February 25, 2015, 5:29 PM:
Thanks for this down-to-earth explanation. Between you and elitecodex below, I think I have a decent understanding.
elitecodex wrote on February 24, 2015, 2:24 PM:
Actually, we do not put that attribute on links that link internally... however the links in this article for some odd reason start with a ../../ and doesn't contain the domain personapaper.com anywhere in that. So since we can't find the domain, we assume it is an external link and add that attribute.
Like Owlwings indicated, we do not want to be responsible for content on other sites and if we link to them then we have a link to those sites in the eyes of search engines. Most of the links here are perfectly fine and don't really need it, but like they said it is better safe than sorry so we just add it to all of them. Users don't even see it and doesn't prevent anyone from clicking on them. Just tells search engines "yes, we are linking to this page but do not go there because of us".
At least they SHOULD do that... can't really say what they are doing in all honesty :)
Owlwings replied to elitecodex on February 24, 2015, 4:47 PM:
The "../../" is HTML shorthand for "use the same root directory path as the current page". As the current page is at the (public) root "www.personapaper.com/" the "../../" stands for that and is interpreted as such by the browser. In fact, if you hover the mouse over the link in the article above, the 'tool-tip' or prompt at the bottom of the page shows the FULL URL because the browser has already recognised and replaced the "../../". It looks as though the script which adds the 'nofollow' attribute just parses the HTML literally. Depending on whether you have appropriate rights, you may be able to modify it to recognise "../../" as a valid pattern for an internal link (it isn't a pattern that means anything else, so it would be quite safe to do so!). On the other hand, it may be such a minor issue that it's not worth the coding and testing time :)
AliCanary wrote on February 24, 2015, 4:21 PM:
So, um, sorry to be so ignorant, but what ARE "no follow" links? Are they bad?
FreyaYuki replied to AliCanary on February 25, 2015, 5:47 PM:
Owlwings provided a good explanation about this in his comment above. You should add nofollow to your affiliate links but you wouldn't want to add them to your own articles or on your blogs or site when you interlink or link to them from other sites. So, for example, if you're interlinking your related Persona Paper articles, you wouldn't want to add nofollow to these links, which was why I wondered why Persona Paper automatically did that.
AliCanary replied to FreyaYuki on February 25, 2015, 7:29 PM:
Oh, I see. Thank you and also thanks to Owlwings and elitecodex for the explanations!
crowntower wrote on February 24, 2015, 5:00 PM:
I am not a programmer genius but I don't think that is the meaning of that. I mean if you can see the target is blank... it is more on I think to have a smooth flow of program, sometimes programs has that whenever there will be an interruption in the system so views or whatever can still be counted. I think you have to see the whole flow of the program.
FreyaYuki replied to crowntower on February 25, 2015, 5:53 PM:
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here? The attribute target="_blank" means that the URL link will open in a new tab. This is good if you don't want your readers to leave your page/article/blog/site and go elsewhere.
For the nofollow attribute, Owlwings provided a good explanation in his comment above. Basically, you'll want to add nofollow to affiliate links but if you're linking your own articles on your blogs or the sites you write for or if you're linking internally (like linking your Persona Paper articles to your latest Persona Paper post), you wouldn't want to use nofollow.
MakeMoneyOnline wrote on February 24, 2015, 5:59 PM:
I would imagine it's to prevent spammers to use the site only for links. Sad part is that I'm one of the guys who sometimes reference some of my work and now I see it doesn't benefit me much. I never stopped to check, LOL. I don't do it solely for that reason, so it's OK. As for "Nofollowing" internal links, I really don't recommend that. It takes away the power of those links and could make the posts rank not so well as they could...
FreyaYuki replied to MakeMoneyOnline on February 25, 2015, 5:57 PM:
Yeah, I sometimes link to other sites too. Upon checking the source code, I noticed the nofollow. Oh well, I do understand why they'd do that and I don't mind all that much either. But I agree with you about nofollowing internal links, which was what I wondered about. I interlink my related Persona Paper articles and I noticed that even those links are nofollow which is odd, isn't it? I don't recommend it either and don't add this attribute to my own blogs or the other sites I write for (unless the links are affiliate, etc).
Kungfu123 wrote on February 27, 2015, 8:40 AM:
Wowww, I don't know much about this. Thanks for sharing this with us.
FreyaYuki replied to Kungfu123 on March 1, 2015, 11:53 AM:
You're welcome. I just wondered why Persona Paper would nofollow links to their own site, which is odd, though I understand why they would nofollow links to other sites.
scheng1 wrote on March 1, 2015, 3:01 AM:
I have not paid any attention until you mention about it. It is not a big issue for me, since there is no author resource box for me to put link to my blog.
FreyaYuki replied to scheng1 on March 1, 2015, 11:56 AM:
I don't mind so much either though I do sometimes add links to other sites on my articles here. I do get why Persona Paper would nofollow external links. But what I wondered about was why they'd nofllow links to their own site.
cheri wrote on March 2, 2015, 7:10 AM:
This is a good information and very relevant one. I would have never find it out if I have not read this one.
*Notes:
- Image is by FirmBee (Public Domain) from Pixabay
- This was previously published elsewhere
<a href="URL link here" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>
The rel="nofollow" is automatically inserted. You can try to remove it, but it won't make a difference. The next time you look at the source code, you'll see the nofollow tag again.
Well, some sites do this while some only add this tag to affiliate links. On my own blogs, I add rel="nofollow" to the affiliate links. But on sites I write for (like Persona Paper, HubPages, Writedge, Daily Two Cents, etc) and on my own blogs, if I interlink or link to my articles, I don't add this attribute.
I can see why Persona Paper would do this, and, I don't know, I guess I don't really mind all that much (okay, maybe just a little 😃 LOL. But, really, not all that much, I guess, since I usually interlink Persona Paper articles anyway), but what I wonder about is why Persona Paper would add rel="nofollow" even when you're linking to a post that is on this site? Isn't that odd? I mean, why nofollow links on your own site? Is there a reason for this? Just curious and confused, I suppose. What do you think?
Note: see, all the URL links here go to articles on Persona Paper, but if you check the source code, they're all nofollow anyway. Odd and strange, isn't it?
Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:
GemstonePink wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:28 AM:
Thank you for alerting to this situation. I am very appreciative of those who help the newbies with their informative articles.
FreyaYuki replied to GemstonePink on February 25, 2015, 4:59 PM:
You're welcome 😃. Happened to notice the nofollow links and wondered why even the links on Persona Paper were nofollowed, which is odd, to say the least.
MaeLou wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:48 AM:
I'm not sure but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that when elitecodex did the programming, he didn't limit specific websites, including ours. It was just a basic nofollow for all links.
FreyaYuki replied to MaeLou on February 25, 2015, 5:01 PM:
Ah, I see. I understand why he'd want to nofollow links to external sites though I wonder why even links to Persona Paper would be nofollowed.
arthurchappell wrote on February 24, 2015, 10:50 AM:
no idea what the no-follow means - if we were to click on the link would it not still take us to that page?
FreyaYuki replied to arthurchappell on February 25, 2015, 5:04 PM:
Owlwings explained it correctly below 😃. Yes, for people, it doesn't matter even if the links are nofollow. If you click on them, you'll still be taken to the site or page where the link leads.
Feisty56 wrote on February 25, 2015, 5:30 PM:
I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and for providing a place for Owlwings and elitecodex to explain "nofollow" for a non-techie such as myself.
Feisty56 wrote on February 24, 2015, 11:26 AM:
I know I should absolutely understand what "no follow" means, but I'm coming up empty-headed here. Can you help me out?
FreyaYuki replied to Feisty56 on February 25, 2015, 5:07 PM:
Owlwings explained it correctly below 😃. Basically, it's best to add rel="nofollow" to your affiliate links and to the sources for your pics while it's best not to include this attribute or tag if you're interlinking your own articles or linking to sites that are relevant to your own content.
Owlwings wrote on February 24, 2015, 2:13 PM:
I just looked it up (to be sure I had it right).
'Nofollow' links contain an instruction to search engines not to 'follow' that link and thus add 'Google kudos' to the site specified. You have to know a little about Page Rank to understand this. In brief, Page Rank for a site is calculated based partly on the number of sites that link to it. If someone seeks to gain financially (or in other ways) by spreading links to their site over the Internet, it can be flagged by Google as 'spam' and the site linked to may be removed from the Google database. A site, such as Persona Paper, which allows the posting of links which can be 'followed' by Search engines could find itself in trouble, too, especially if they have an Adsense account. Even though many of the links here don't need to be 'nofollow', it is safer for the site if ALL links are automatically 'nofollow'. It DOESN'T stop ordinary users from clicking on the links to take them to the page: it simply tells search engines (and particularly Google) not to count those links when calculating Page Rank for those sites.
FreyaYuki replied to Owlwings on February 25, 2015, 5:12 PM:
Yup 😃. Thanks for providing the info for those who didn't know about rel="nofollow". I use it on affiliate links and pic sources on my blogs and on the other sites I write for. On some sites, you can choose if you want the link nofollowed or not.
Feisty56 replied to Owlwings on February 25, 2015, 5:29 PM:
Thanks for this down-to-earth explanation. Between you and elitecodex below, I think I have a decent understanding.
elitecodex wrote on February 24, 2015, 2:24 PM:
Actually, we do not put that attribute on links that link internally... however the links in this article for some odd reason start with a ../../ and doesn't contain the domain personapaper.com anywhere in that. So since we can't find the domain, we assume it is an external link and add that attribute.
Like Owlwings indicated, we do not want to be responsible for content on other sites and if we link to them then we have a link to those sites in the eyes of search engines. Most of the links here are perfectly fine and don't really need it, but like they said it is better safe than sorry so we just add it to all of them. Users don't even see it and doesn't prevent anyone from clicking on them. Just tells search engines "yes, we are linking to this page but do not go there because of us".
At least they SHOULD do that... can't really say what they are doing in all honesty :)
Owlwings replied to elitecodex on February 24, 2015, 4:47 PM:
The "../../" is HTML shorthand for "use the same root directory path as the current page". As the current page is at the (public) root "www.personapaper.com/" the "../../" stands for that and is interpreted as such by the browser. In fact, if you hover the mouse over the link in the article above, the 'tool-tip' or prompt at the bottom of the page shows the FULL URL because the browser has already recognised and replaced the "../../". It looks as though the script which adds the 'nofollow' attribute just parses the HTML literally. Depending on whether you have appropriate rights, you may be able to modify it to recognise "../../" as a valid pattern for an internal link (it isn't a pattern that means anything else, so it would be quite safe to do so!). On the other hand, it may be such a minor issue that it's not worth the coding and testing time :)
elitecodex replied to Owlwings on February 25, 2015, 11:13 PM:
Your right, and I was aware of that. But we do not analyze the attribute that much... we simply take it as-is and do a few simple string checks on it. It covers 99% of use cases and it sufficient for me.
I do not know why it would automatically put the ../../ in there as I have not seen it elsewhere. I have used that same icon that FreyaYuki is using and have not had that happen to me.
FreyaYuki replied to elitecodex on February 25, 2015, 5:21 PM:
Yes, I understand why you'd want to nofollow the external links to other sites but I'd wondered why you'd nofollow links to Persona Paper. I add links, including Persona Paper ones, to posts using the link icon on the text post editor. I add the full URL link address but it automatically removes the Persona Paper part of the link and adds that .../.../
elitecodex replied to FreyaYuki on February 25, 2015, 11:15 PM:
That is strange that it is adding the ../../ in there. While it is true that those characters do evaluate themselves to the right domain, the script on the server side does not validate those same rules. It simply takes the attribute at face value. So when it sees ../../article/123-my-article-here, it doesn't see the personapaper.com domain and assumes it points externally.
I am curious as to why those characters are being inserted using that icon, I had not heard of this before and not the way it should be working.
Your right, and I was aware of that. But we do not analyze the attribute that much... we simply take it as-is and do a few simple string checks on it. It covers 99% of use cases and it sufficient for me.
I do not know why it would automatically put the ../../ in there as I have not seen it elsewhere. I have used that same icon that FreyaYuki is using and have not had that happen to me.
FreyaYuki replied to elitecodex on February 25, 2015, 5:21 PM:
Yes, I understand why you'd want to nofollow the external links to other sites but I'd wondered why you'd nofollow links to Persona Paper. I add links, including Persona Paper ones, to posts using the link icon on the text post editor. I add the full URL link address but it automatically removes the Persona Paper part of the link and adds that .../.../
elitecodex replied to FreyaYuki on February 25, 2015, 11:15 PM:
That is strange that it is adding the ../../ in there. While it is true that those characters do evaluate themselves to the right domain, the script on the server side does not validate those same rules. It simply takes the attribute at face value. So when it sees ../../article/123-my-article-here, it doesn't see the personapaper.com domain and assumes it points externally.
I am curious as to why those characters are being inserted using that icon, I had not heard of this before and not the way it should be working.
Kasman wrote on February 24, 2015, 2:26 PM:
I believe the 'nofollow' is a kind of default position for links. This is probably why PP has it included.
FreyaYuki replied to Kasman on February 25, 2015, 5:35 PM:
The default is actually just the plain regular link, which is naturally followed. You add the nofollow attribute to affiliate links and links that aren't related or relevant to your content, etc. Owlwings provided a good explanation about nofollow links and what they're for 😃. I understand why Persona Paper would add nofollow to all external links but didn't see why they'd want to do that to links to their own site.
I believe the 'nofollow' is a kind of default position for links. This is probably why PP has it included.
FreyaYuki replied to Kasman on February 25, 2015, 5:35 PM:
The default is actually just the plain regular link, which is naturally followed. You add the nofollow attribute to affiliate links and links that aren't related or relevant to your content, etc. Owlwings provided a good explanation about nofollow links and what they're for 😃. I understand why Persona Paper would add nofollow to all external links but didn't see why they'd want to do that to links to their own site.
So, um, sorry to be so ignorant, but what ARE "no follow" links? Are they bad?
Owlwings provided a good explanation about this in his comment above. You should add nofollow to your affiliate links but you wouldn't want to add them to your own articles or on your blogs or site when you interlink or link to them from other sites. So, for example, if you're interlinking your related Persona Paper articles, you wouldn't want to add nofollow to these links, which was why I wondered why Persona Paper automatically did that.
AliCanary replied to FreyaYuki on February 25, 2015, 7:29 PM:
Oh, I see. Thank you and also thanks to Owlwings and elitecodex for the explanations!
crowntower wrote on February 24, 2015, 5:00 PM:
I am not a programmer genius but I don't think that is the meaning of that. I mean if you can see the target is blank... it is more on I think to have a smooth flow of program, sometimes programs has that whenever there will be an interruption in the system so views or whatever can still be counted. I think you have to see the whole flow of the program.
FreyaYuki replied to crowntower on February 25, 2015, 5:53 PM:
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here? The attribute target="_blank" means that the URL link will open in a new tab. This is good if you don't want your readers to leave your page/article/blog/site and go elsewhere.
For the nofollow attribute, Owlwings provided a good explanation in his comment above. Basically, you'll want to add nofollow to affiliate links but if you're linking your own articles on your blogs or the sites you write for or if you're linking internally (like linking your Persona Paper articles to your latest Persona Paper post), you wouldn't want to use nofollow.
MakeMoneyOnline wrote on February 24, 2015, 5:59 PM:
I would imagine it's to prevent spammers to use the site only for links. Sad part is that I'm one of the guys who sometimes reference some of my work and now I see it doesn't benefit me much. I never stopped to check, LOL. I don't do it solely for that reason, so it's OK. As for "Nofollowing" internal links, I really don't recommend that. It takes away the power of those links and could make the posts rank not so well as they could...
FreyaYuki replied to MakeMoneyOnline on February 25, 2015, 5:57 PM:
Yeah, I sometimes link to other sites too. Upon checking the source code, I noticed the nofollow. Oh well, I do understand why they'd do that and I don't mind all that much either. But I agree with you about nofollowing internal links, which was what I wondered about. I interlink my related Persona Paper articles and I noticed that even those links are nofollow which is odd, isn't it? I don't recommend it either and don't add this attribute to my own blogs or the other sites I write for (unless the links are affiliate, etc).
Kungfu123 wrote on February 27, 2015, 8:40 AM:
Wowww, I don't know much about this. Thanks for sharing this with us.
FreyaYuki replied to Kungfu123 on March 1, 2015, 11:53 AM:
You're welcome. I just wondered why Persona Paper would nofollow links to their own site, which is odd, though I understand why they would nofollow links to other sites.
scheng1 wrote on March 1, 2015, 3:01 AM:
I have not paid any attention until you mention about it. It is not a big issue for me, since there is no author resource box for me to put link to my blog.
FreyaYuki replied to scheng1 on March 1, 2015, 11:56 AM:
I don't mind so much either though I do sometimes add links to other sites on my articles here. I do get why Persona Paper would nofollow external links. But what I wondered about was why they'd nofllow links to their own site.
cheri wrote on March 2, 2015, 7:10 AM:
This is a good information and very relevant one. I would have never find it out if I have not read this one.
*Notes:
- Image is by FirmBee (Public Domain) from Pixabay
- This was previously published elsewhere
