Should links to your social media accounts be followed?

[bradkrussell]

Hi There,

Just wondering if you guys (and girls) think that your links to social media accounts be followed or nofollow?

This includes sitewide header/footer links and other text links littered throughout the site.

Includes Twitter, FB, Pinterest and G+ specifically (for my site anyway).

Thanks in advance!

[ontarget-media]

Hi,

I would leave them as "follow" ---- and don't see why search engines should have an objection to that.

Personally, I think it is very much part of the 'search + social' integration that is the in-thing currently.

Manoj

[EGOL]

I think that "nofollow" should be used when links are "paid for" or the destination of the link is "not trusted" or "potentially not trusted".

I would link to my social accounts with followed links.

[bradkrussell]

Thanks guys. What about using nofollow for internal links to privacy policy, returns policy, terms and conditions type pages?

[zeepartner]

i wouldn't use nofollow in that case either. link juice is no longer preserved by using nofollow, so other than sites "not trusted" or links that are "paid for" (as stated by EGOL), i no longer see other reasons to use them. i just can't think of an advantage here.

and if you don't want pages like privacy policy etc. indexed, you'd better go with meta robots "noindex".