Why are links used in ranking when they all have the nofollow attribute?

How can linking remain a major part of a search algorithm when the majority of Internet users are unable to post a 'followed' link on the World Wide Web? For example Twitter, Facebook, wiki etc. are all 'nofollow'. It seems only a very small percentage of links count.

Ed, Caribbean

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• google
• seo
• nofollow
• links

[iLovePalestineDotCom]

You shot yourself in the foot with the nofollow tag because in order to defeat spammer you've created an equally bad or worse problem. SO MANY important sites that otherwise would be voting for a external sites are currently NOT voting because of the overwhelming stinginess with follow links. Why leave ANY LINK as a follow when that can not help but hinder your site by leaking PR. Sculpting is now done at a massive scale that Google PR is now unrepresentative of the web. Google FAIL!

[mattdiehl12]

How is Ed grumpy? He's in the Caribbean!

[careerhuntsville]

thanks, great info

[aseohosting]

awesome clip .. thanks and god bless =)

[sesshoumaru3st]

I have a question for Matt,how many of those Do-followed links are PAID links and link schemes? It's easy to say hey,few no-follow and lots of do-follow.It could be that most of those links are paid and are generated through black hat SEO techniques.V-V I could take the guess and say MOSTLY BLACK-HAT methods.Plus,when you're on webmaster forum they encourage you to add no follow tags to affiliates. Face it Matt, there are only a few willingly given links out there.I am a fan of Google's methods.

[sesshoumaru3st]

V-V The guys working at Google are geniuses.I'll give them all the respect they should get.See,this is what Google wanted in the first place. Putting the fear that giving out do-follow links will lower your PR,so that this way webmasters will only link to what they really like.Therefore,making sure only the best of sites get do-follows and rank. Very IMPRESSIVE INDEED!!!!

[nattsurfaren]

I don't think Matt / Google is thinking clear. Not everyone are into the link bait/entertainment/Celebrity business. Some people actually sell things that uninteresting to 99% of the people and interesting to 1%. So if 1% of the people are for example company employees how likely is it that they are going to put a link on their company website that are managed by a completely different apartment of the company.

[ferodynamics]

The truth is, nofollow is a meaningless tag. Google indexes nofollow! If you want proof, look at your backlinks in Google Webmaster Tools.

[brianpfitzgerald]

To say that people should make their own websites if they want their links to "count" is a very poor answer. That is not how the majority of internet users share or want to share content and information with their networks. I would hope that despite the nofollow attribute Google is still able to look at and consider signals from the social world to help identify content and factor into rankings. I would hope that this is already in place and maybe just something that can't be discussed in detail

[seopodcast]

It would be interesting to know what percentage of links are no follow. I am sure they have the stats. It would also be interesting to see a break down of the hosters of those no follow links. Does Facebook represent 5%(or some number) of no follow links?? How else is a major hoster of no follow links??