Hey all,

It sounds like G has become more intelligent when it comes to following java links. Is there a definite way to prevent G from following specific links? There are of course both good and bad reasons to want to do this. In my case, I have a page that has a bunch of resources including some big name sites in the industry who don't even know I exist. We set the page up that way so that we'd preserve our pagerank for ourselves figuring that those big guys didn't need any more backlinks...and we were doing them a favor by displaying links on our site spontaneously anyway.

Anway, from what people say, it seems that G is getting smarter on the subject and now I wonder if we shoud update our technique?

Also, I had seen someone using that kind of code in their directory...I didn't bother linking to them...though it could have been their recip management software...I wonder if javalinks really make a difference anymore.

I think that G is able to read JS links now, but not 100% sure on that. An easy test would be to create a new page in your site and link to it with JS from the homepage footer. Give it a little time and see if it's cached, also watch your stats to see if the bot hits it. Make sure to have some content on the page so it looks good to G.

As for all of the links to the resources you could just use the "no follow" tag. It will stop all the big SE's from following the link and you don't have to have all that JS on your site.

As for link exchanges I still wouldn't bother with anyone that uses any sort of script as they are trying to cheat the system. If they fugure out that it doesn't work they will just switch to something that does.

G can follow some javascript links but still with a lot of difficulty, many more advanced javascript instances no spider will be able to parse through to so it is still a good idea to provide a text link alternative to your javascript navigation

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The "nofollow" tag sounds like the best way to get this done. It's simple and looks like the SE's are onboard with the idea. Has anyone played with these things yet? I think I'll set up an experiment and see what happens.

Hey, Webmaster, what's your favorite technique for java? I saw you use some java on the "real estate articles" section of this site...


For anyone else who hasn't seen this stuff yet, a quick search pulled up this nice article which explains it:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728

And here's a simple example of the nofollow in action:
<a href="http://www.site.com/page.html" rel="nofollow">Visit My Page</a>
OR
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.site.com/page.html" >Visit My Page</a>

I have tested the no follow tag from my homepage 2 ways. One with a page that was listed in all of the big three SE's to see if it would get dropped as this was the only link to it. Plus one with a new page to see if it might get indexed.

The page that was indexed got dropped very quickly from G and it took a few weeks in the others.

The new page never (waited over a month) showed up in any of the big 3. Also at the same time I added a new page w/o the no follow tag and that one was indexed in 2 days.

From my experience the no follow tag is working.

Also I have a page that is only linked to with JS and it is in G and shows backlinks plus has a PR3. This proves that a simple JS (as basic as they come) will not stop G from seeing the link or passing PR. As for more complicated JS links I can't say for sure...seems they see some, but not others.

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My thoughts on the Sarasota Association of REALTORS actions.

Cecil, I am wondering why you want to not let these resources on your site get spidered, pagerank in it's very nature is meant to be passed not conserved, and there are certainly elements in many algorithms that look at who you link to, and if these are relevant resources to your topic then I would honestly let it get spidered.

IMO - Use the nofollow tag when there is potential for abuse (Such as in blogs and forums where non authenticated users can post live links) or when you have a document that you do not want to show up in the index

Do not use the nofollow tag to conserve pagerank - it is counter intuitive to pageranks function and thus will likely not make much sense. Ask yourself this - would you feel comfortable explaining to google if they asked, why that page had the no follow?

Just my 2 cents

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Good thoughts guys. Thanks for the info.

Webmaster, you have some good points regarding the natural flow of things. The single resources page I'm talking about is just a collection of sites we thought may be helpful to users (therefor relevant) but never made any agreements with those sites for the links. Because of that, I was thinking of conserving the "PR" for our link partners and our own internal links. There may be a limit as to how far one should go with optimization. After all, outbound links are a big factor in the algorhythms also.

Another thought I had rolling around in the head was over using an RSS feed for news here and there. I think that's a good place for a no follow tag because there's no way to guarantee what kind of info or text will be displayed in the links from that feed. In that case, one could faithfully answer G with a statement of "these aren't my links and I can't guarantee what kind of content they have."

Perhaps the tag would be best used on a newsfeed if we decide to implmenent one. Thanks again.