Link Relations

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Link Relations are the rel tags that are added into the html tag and many SEO Experts prefer rel=”nofollow” for every link on the website. But why ?? I don’t think that is a good choice to nofollow every link on your website. Matt of Wordpress have these rel tags in wordpress for a reason, and that one reason is what gives wordpress its superior edge in SEO.

Using these rel tags effectively can make your website very organized in the eyes of Search Engine Bots, and I believe that you can eliminate the risk of Paid Links as well. Well I am hoping that all of you know what it means when some one adds a rel=”nofollow” tag in a link. If you don’t then here is what it means. It means that the bot will not follow the site that is listed there, so all that link is going to do is pure exposure on that website nothing else. Your page does not loose any Page Rank Juice or Link juice. But do you really want that?? I don’t and there are multiple reasons for that.

First it makes you look cheap. Why no follow a link ? I mean if you want to put a website’s link on your site then give them a real link, or don’t put their link. Second it just looks like spamming every link with a nofollow tag. Instead you can use these different tags.

< a href = "http://xxx.com" rel="me" >Text go here

Now you can replace the rel tag with following

rel=”me” – Use this tag when it is your own website, or if it is your own personal profile over at digg or something. Use this tag because you want to give link juice to your own profiles from your website.

rel=”friend” – Add this when you are linking a friend’s site. Now you can also be very specific about relations like friend, acquaintence, and contact. You can add subcategories such as :

rel=”friend co-worker” , or rel=”friend colleague”, or rel=”friend crush”, or rel=”friend date” (There is many more in the Wordpress Blogroll area for the sub categories)

rel=”nofollow” – for something you don’t want to index or the bot to follow.

Use these tags wisely because it makes your site look organized in the eyes of a search engine. Now many SEO Experts might disagree as there is no unanimous decision on this topic, so this is just my opinion on base of my experience.

I think everyone should use these tags and make a better use of it.