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Do You Use "No Follow" Codes on Your Review and Giveaway Posts?

I kept reading about the fact that bloggers should be using "no follow" codes when writing review and giveaway posts. Finally, I read HOW to do that. So, I thought that I would share it with you.

Instead of using
Company

you would use
rel="nofollow">Company

when linking to the sponsoring company's site.

I think that it is more of a Google issue, than an FTC one, but it never hurts to be aware of such things. Do you use this type of coding already?

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Permalink Reply by Shraddha on October 13, 2009 at 12:58pm

yes..

google frowns upon follow links for reviews and giveaways and you can lose your page rank...

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Permalink Reply by Catherine on October 13, 2009 at 1:36pm

I haven't heard anything about this. Would someone mind cluing me in as to what "no follow" links are?

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Permalink Reply by Shraddha on October 13, 2009 at 5:12pm

no follow code is like this...

say i have a site to be reviewed....I give you free online access to the site.(which could cost you 50$ otherwise)

you go ahead..use the site...and review it...

BUT

Now your mentioning my site and link up to your site has costed me 50$...hence it is a paid link( even though no money has been exchanged...it was just a no membership fee...but as per FTC...it will considered your earnings now)

Ok

So when you do the review...google bot does not want to follow this link...as it is a paid link....as you would not have linked it without that 50$ membership...

hence when you do link up my site

your html code will be

< a href="http://www.theselfloveproject.com" rel="nofollow">The Self Love Project </a>

instead of usual

< a href="http://www.theselfloveproject.com" >The Self Love Project </a>

This way google bot knows...ok...i need not follow that link...

hence you have not linked up someone for money...and its all good!

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Permalink Reply by Laurie Cooper on October 16, 2009 at 5:44pm

Ok, I am still a little confused. Would this apply for linking to any company at all?? Like I just did a Kushies review, would I need to put it then?

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Permalink Reply by Shraddha on October 17, 2009 at 9:03pm

i just gave you a real life example..

this could be any review

it could be a toy review.....any freebie you are reviewing...

the freebie is not free any more...it is income.....

if you are reviewing out of goodness of your heart and you have returned the product...and have not benefitted with it in any way...just write a disclaimer at the end and give a follow link...no body would care..

but if you have 'gained' in any way...go 'no follow'

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Permalink Reply by Tina{Mad Hatter Mom} on October 16, 2009 at 5:59pm

So let me get this straight.. any time I post a review or giveaway I need to make sure the links have the "no follow" attribute to them or else my page rank will go down. Is that correct? Or is it just when its a membership website and I've recv'd a period of time free?

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Permalink Reply by Shraddha on October 17, 2009 at 8:57pm

i just gave you a real life example..

it could be a toy review.....any freebie you are reviewing...

the freebie is not free any more...it is income.....

if you are reviewing out of goodness of your heart and you have returned the product...and have not benefitted with it in any way...just write a disclaimer at the end and give a follow link...no body would care..

but if you have 'gained' in any way...go 'no follow'

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Permalink Reply by Heather Krebs on October 17, 2009 at 1:57pm

This explains a lot to me! I do reviews & giveaways weekly and cannot get a page rank above 0 for anything. I now wonder how long it will take for the rank to change. Should I go back and edit my old links as well?

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Permalink Reply by Shraddha on October 17, 2009 at 9:02pm

many people do that.....its a very good idea to go back and sculpt your site to get a better rank..

wordpress plugins are available that would automatically make all your links 'no follow' after certain time limit....

there are plugins who would automatically create 'no follow' link in a particular category...so you could choose reviews as a category....

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Permalink Reply by Catherine on October 18, 2009 at 1:12am

Wow, thank you for explaining that, I had no idea!

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Permalink Reply by Mary Avent on October 22, 2009 at 12:44pm

Thanks for this info. I was not aware of using this code but will be using it for now on.

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Permalink Reply by kdc521 on October 22, 2009 at 5:04pm

Honestly, I think that it's a "better safe than sorry" type of thing. I have a Google Page Rank of 4 and would like to preserve or better it going forward. However (unless I'm instructed otherwise), I have no intention of going back through my last 1,000 posts and adding the code.

To me, it's like anything else in life..when we know better, we do better. At least, I hope. Smile.