“No follow” has become the new html tag– a code phrase that tells search engines (the Google search engine, at least) to ignore the link. This is supposedly meant to reduce the passage of PageRank juice and improve the Search Engine Optimization of your website and the Internet in general. I use it from time to time, when I don’t want my blog to be associated with another for some reason. But this html tag is relatively new. It’s being used more as a tweak.

Most blogs are set up to be “no follow” by default. Some blogs change this default setting with a plugin. You may see a blog’s comment area that says “I Follow” or “Comment Luv” or something like it. There’s a popular Wordpress plugin called No Follow Free that customizes your links on your blog (mainly your comments) and makes all your comments “follow.” Which means that you pass on PageRank (if you have it) or search engine authority to anyone who leaves their website link in your comments. It’s a nice plugn and I used it for a while, but stopped using it because 1) I got a lot of spam comments, and 2) it was buggy with the theme I’d chosen (this was a year ago). I know a lot of people use it and it works well.

There’s also a new plugin I recently read about. I just may use this one. It’s called NoFollow Links in Posts.

Nofollow Links in Posts plugin enables you to add the “nofollow” attribute into links in a post within a specified category.

This plugin is useful if you are doing sponsored posts. You can set the plugin to add rel=”nofollow” into links in posts older than “X” days.

Currently, the plugin only works with Wordpress 2.5+ (works up to Wordpress 2.7). There are no plans yet in making this plugin compatible with prior versions of Wordpress.

It looks very good, especially if you want to batch-customize archived posts. I have not tried it, but I know people who have with success. Another good plugin to keep in mind!

Tags: nofollow, Wordpress plugin