Yesterday I was asked a question through a comment on my post, PageRank Is Back. The question is valid and I thought instead of hiding the answer in a reply to the comment I’d make a post to answer and explain.

The question that was presented is this:

I don’t really get it what is the meaning of ˜nofollow” or ˜dofollow”. Hope you could help me out. Thanks in advance.

For this type of question I can go in two directions. Give you a good breakdown on what a bot sees when it crawls your site or just answer the question.

Because of the multiple complexities and the length it’d take me to write up an explanation of what happens when your site is crawled, I’m going for the easier route.

Each time you link to another website/blog post from your website/blog post Google considers this link to be a “vote” for the site.

Using the method of “dofollow” this means that you’re are indeed telling Google that you’re making a vote for this site. You like the content and you believe it to be “worthy.”

By default, most blogging platforms have a “nofollow” installed for all links. A “nofollow” tag within a link structure (or site wide if you do not change the default) tells Google that you are not placing a vote for the site that you are linking to.

When the WordPress plug-ins appeared on the scene that removed the site wide “nofollow”, a trend started. And thus we now say “dofollow” meaning that we have removed the default no follow.

Let’s get more simple.

If you leave a comment on I’m Blogging That that includes your URL, I’m automatically giving you a vote for your site because I am a “dofollow blogger.” When a bot crawls my site, it will follow the URL you have left on my site thus giving you a vote from my site to yours. This is where that famous PageRank passing comes along.

If you”re not nofollow, you’re dofollow.

Now, if you install one of the multiple dofollow plugins but manually link to a site you do not want to “vote” for, you still have the manual option to do that.

Let’s break down a link to understand how to nofollow on a link.

Basic HTML code for a link is as follows:

<a href=”http://www.imbloggingthat.com”>I’m Blogging That!</a>

This simple line of code will do nothing more but link the words I’m Blogging That to my blog URL.

<a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.imbloggingthat.com”>I’m Blogging That!</a>

By adding target=”_blank” I have just coded into the link that the words I’m Blogging That should open my blog URL in a new window.

<a target=”_blank” title=”Visit I’m Blogging That” href=”http://www.imbloggingthat.com”>I’m Blogging That!</a>

In this link structure, I have added in title=”Visit I’m Blogging That” which is what would be displayed when your cursor hovers of my link of I’m Blogging That.

<a target=”_blank” title=”Visit I’m Blogging That” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.imbloggingthat.com”>I’m Blogging That!</a>

Finally, this link structure I have added rel=”nofollow” which removes my vote in the link for I’m Blogging That.

It’s a lot to take in, especially if you’re just starting out. Understanding something of this nature is vital especially when it’s such a hot topic. I highly suggest that every webmaster and/or blogger know how to properly structure a link without a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

I also want to add to this that the last example for a link structure should be used when you’re placing a URL in a comment and have already left your URL in the requested box. Don’t just paste in a URL, structure the link properly so that you do not hurt the blog’s design.

If you still have questions, feel free to ask. I hope that this explanation was helpful and not more confusing.