External links: when use rel="external" or rel="nofollow"?

Question

In most of my web site I have a lot of external links to my other sites and other external sites. I need to know when is better to use rel="nofollow" or rel="external" in a website?

Thorwald

Answer 1

You may use external for every link to a different website, no matter if it’s yours or not, if it’s on the same host or not.

You may use nofollow for every link that you don’t endorse (for example: search engines shouldn’t assume that it’s a relevant link and should not give any ranking credit to this link).

You may use both values for the same link:

<a href="http://example.com/" rel="external nofollow">Foobar</a>

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Note that external doesn’t convey that the link should be opened in a new window.

Note that search engine bots (that support nofollow) might still follow a nofollow link (it doesn’t forbid to follow it). FWIW, there is also the nofollow value for the meta-robots keyword (which may mean the same … or not, depending on which definition you follow).

Vertical

Would you use nofollow on a tel anchor? e.g. <a href="tel:[phone]"> – Amur

@ksav: No, I don’t think that nofollow would make sense for tel URIs. (Also, it should only be used for links which you don’t endorse or for links that are advertisements etc., so these reasons probably can’t even apply to tel URIs.) – Vertical

does this logic still hold true in 2020? – Antiseptic

also, do i think i should use nofollow for a link to our instagram page? lastly, should i be using 'external' and or 'nofollow' for the form on my website which will be handled elsewhere on the back-end by a PHP script via AJAX? – Antiseptic

Answer 2

nofollow links attributes do not allow search engine bots to follow link. If you have rel="nofollow" then the juice stops.

rel="external" dosent act like nofollow. its DoFollow link.

For rel="external" it means the file is on a different site to the current one. rel="external" is the XHTML valid version that informs search engine spiders that the link is external. However, using this does not open the link in a new window. target="_blank" and target="_new" does this, but is not XHTML valid. I hope that helps.

I advise you to use Nofollow Links for the following content:

• Links in Comments or on Forums - Anything that has user-generated content is likely to be a source of spam. Even if you carefully moderate, things will slip through
• Advertisements & Sponsored Links - Any links that are meant to be advertisements or are part of a sponsorship arrangement must be nofollowed.
• Paid Links - If you charge in any way for a link (directory submission, quality assessment, reviews, etc.), nofollow the outbound links

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If you have an external link to your own site then use

<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external">Your Link</a>

If you have external link to someone else's site you don't trust then you can combine both and use

<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external nofollow">Other Domain Link</a>

If you have an external link to someone else's site and you consider it's trustworthy then use

<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external">External Useful Link</a>

Assignor

do you think i should use nofollow for a link to our instagram page? also, should i be using 'external' and or 'nofollow' for the form on my website which will be handled elsewhere on the back-end by a PHP script via AJAX? – Antiseptic

For external sites (especially those you don't trust) you should also use noopener noreferrer. – Enkindle

Answer 3

It depends what you mean by "better". Those are two comopletely different attribute. rel = nofollow tells the Search engine crawlers not to look at this link (probably you don't want this to happen for your other websites, but you will use it for other's web sites). Documentation: rel=nofollow - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en

rel = external tells that the link is not part of the web site and open the link in a new window (it's not working for older IE). It is used as a valid XHTML attribute instead of target="_blank". Here you can learn how to use it: http://www.copterlabs.com/blog/easily-create-external-links-without-the-target-attribute/

Garate