Link building

[vendorshop]

What is the difference between External Followed Links and Total External Links, why are the numbers different? Should the numbers not be the same? I have a difference of 24 links can anyone explain why?

[Grumpy_Carl]

I would guess that total links are the total number of links you have and the followed ones are those the bots follow and thusly credit as a backlink.

*waits for someone to say he is wrong..."

[Thos003]

When building a link you have the option to add a 'rel=NOFOLLOW' to the HTML. Follow links, which occur with and without the rel mark up are believed to be more powerful than a NOFOLLOW. However, you want a balance of external follow and nofollowed. Your question as to the difference in your Total External Links and External Folllowed Links is that 24 external links are NOFOLLOW.

Here are some more insights: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-matt-cutts-on-nofollow

You will also find some great dicussion on Matt's blog post here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

[vendorshop]

Many thanks Thomas for your reply, very helpful.

[Thos003]

De nada.

Glad I didn't throw too much at you with that answer.

[Brideau]

Is there a typo in the hover text in SEOMoz Competitive Domain Analysis page?

For External Followed Links, it is: "Number of followed links from outside the source domain."

And for Total External Links, it is: "Total number of followed links from outside the source domain."

These seem to me to be the same thing. Should the latter be "Total number of followed and no followed..."?