Can No Follow Links Hurt Rankings?

[Luia]

Thanks to sites like SEOmoz and good folks like yourselves I was able to understand enough about SEO to know that the company we outsourced the SEO to were doing at best a sloppy job.

I have seen that the link profile of site is totally unnatural in terms of factors such as relevancy and anchor text but also that around 95% of the 800 links are no follow.

My question is whether these low quality no follow links causing unnatural anchor text ratios and poor link relevancy would hurt our rankings? I am basically wondering if I have to now go and try to have all those links removed somehow to avoid any problems going forward?

[RyanC1]

Hi there from my understanding as I have had similar situations there are 2 schools of thought on this subject.

School 1 No Follows are a waste of time and as such should no tbe concerned or bothered with.

School 2 No Follows whilst not juicing the site play a part in a more balanced linking structure and a better overall make up of the total amount of links one's site has.

Ok now as I say I am self taught over the last 12 years, and I went to the search engine school of hard knocks so I stand to be corrected but I approach our companies SEO with the following policy on this, bearing in mind nearly all SEO stats sites including our best chums here at SEO MOZ including follow and no follow in reports it makes sense to me to have a balance of both, and reading between the lines with the guys at Google they are saying the same. So a good mix of both I believe is the best recipe.

Best wishes

Ryan

[Luia]

Thanks for your input Ryan. My concern is just the sheer volume of no follow links they have created, out of 800 links the ahrefs tool is showing 95% of them being no follow. To simple old me thats a big red flag but like you said there is a consensus that no follow dont pass juice so really not sure if we could be penalized going forward.

[pshithappens]

An even amount of followed vs. no followed is always beneficial. But, the SEO company did you a great disservice buy charging for links that were obviously- pointless. You will maintain your link juice, and page rank- however your theme and overall relevance may be impacted. Removing the links is unnecessary as they are already irrelevant in as much as SEO goes.

They may however be sending traffic which is your goal I assume. With the Penguin update, links have really moved to the forefront in our world. That being said, now you get to build relevant amazing links. Create valuable content, alter your anchor text ( some experts say navigational anchor text is the best now) and look forward to expanding your link profile to be extremely relevant and valuable for your SEO campaign.

[PedroM]

Hello,

No folow links dont pass juice, so in my opinion there is no harm from those type of links.

Matt Cutts talking also about no folow links....

[Luia]

Well thanks guys - that sounds like a resounding 'no it's not going to hurt the site'.