Blogging 101

Posted on October 18, 2009 by shraddha

This blog post is a comment turned blog post from a discussion I participated at MBC.
This is my view on the subject.If it is wrong, you are welcome to point it out to me.

Topic i am covering here is ‘no follow code’ and its relevance and need due to new FTC reccomendations.
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google frowns upon follow links for reviews and giveaways and you can lose your page rank…

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’ deal…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…that link is not to be followed…

hence you have not linked up someone for money…and its all good!
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At this point there was some more confusion and questions asked.Here is my reply and further explanation…
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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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I hope this will be a beneficial info to many of my friends in blogoshere.
Also thanks to my friends who have joined my ‘google friend connect’.
To others, please do join.I always follow back (with in a week or so…i am kinda behind schedule).

Do check out my post on Google Chrome.Its informative!
Other informative posts are about Meta Tags.and Meta Tags for blogspot users.

http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/google_32.png http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://www.theselfloveproject.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png

About shraddha

Shraddha is administrator of The Self Love Project. This is a group blog. Email at theselfloveproject@gmail.com if you are interested to be an author.
This entry was posted in Informative and tagged Blogging 101, blogging for dummies, ftc, google bot, no follow. Bookmark the permalink.

18 Responses to Blogging 101

  1. Grissell says:
    October 18, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    Thanks for 411 it is soo confusing. I haven’t done any giveaways or reviews yet. So this is important.

    Thanks again

  2. blueviolet says:
    October 18, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    Thanks for the code. I’ve heard a lot about it but I didn’t know how to put the no follow in there. :)

  3. Mohan says:
    October 18, 2009 at 10:25 pm

    That is true. Only google bot can understand that ‘nofollow’ stuff. Other engines like yahoo/msn may not be following that. People usually tend to use this while designing the theme itself so that they expect the bot to index all the pages in their site instead of moving away from their site.

  4. shraddha@theselfloveproject says:
    October 18, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    you are right Mohan!
    Infact that evil ‘no follow ‘ plugin to be added onto the theme, only caused my entire site to be blocked earlier.
    I am SO lazy to add plugins back now.
    I need to do this coming week.

  5. Swaram says:
    October 19, 2009 at 12:50 am

    Thatz indeed gonna b useful! Thanks Shraddha :)

  6. Prats says:
    October 19, 2009 at 7:05 am

    thanks !! love such useful posts :)

  7. Michelle Johnson says:
    October 19, 2009 at 11:28 am

    thanks for the heads up. hope all is well. have a great day.

  8. clueless mama says:
    October 19, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    One more question, how would you use both the no follow code and target=”_blank” code at the same time? Do you know what order they would go?? Thanks for the help.

  9. Pam says:
    October 19, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    Thanks for sharing. I thought all we had to do was put the “disclosure” statement in with out contest.

  10. Stacie says:
    October 19, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    Thanks for the info! I didn’t really no the difference between them.

  11. Theta Mom says:
    October 19, 2009 at 7:09 pm

    Ok, now I am totally confused! What’s google bot? I’m a little lost. Maybe I’ll send you an email. :)

  12. SandyCarlson says:
    October 19, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    I have come back to reread this. I think I get it now. Thanks.

  14. Night Owl Mama says:
    October 20, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    UM what? ok so if I post the no follow will the link still work and can you add how that would look (it to show like the pp said) if you can add it to open in a blank window so you don’t loose the reader.

    Does the company know you put in a No follow?

  15. carma says:
    October 21, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    this is all very complex! had no idea…

  16. Brittany at Mommy Words says:
    October 24, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    Oh man I am going to have to figure this out! Grrr..