Should I nofollow my blog "read more" links?

[bluekite77]

I have a standard blog index page with entries formatted as such:

• Blog title
• Blog excerpt
• read more link

The blog title is linked to the blog post (duh).

The "read more" link is also linked to the same blog post, but I put a rel="nofollow" tag on that link because I don't want the SE's thinking "read more" is relevant anchor text.

Now, is what I'm doing right? Won't having the read more link as nofollow result in some sort of conflict considering the blog title link is set to follow? Will a nofollow link have a cascading effect on any matching "follow" link?

I've frequently read that "read more" should be nofollowed, but I've never once seen anyone address the conflict of having a follow and nofollow link on the same page pointing to the same link. Which one wins?

Thanks.

[danatanseo]

Hii bluekite,

You need to make that read more link in your blog a "do follow." This is only going to bolster your internal linking structure, which is a VERY good thing. In your case especially this is perfectly relevant and helpful to your readers. I hope that helps!

Dana

[SEO5Team]

Don't worry about adding the "no follow" , Google's smart enough to figure out the duplicate "read more" links on your site and index accordingly. You don't want to cause issues by adding the "no follow" and potentially having any legitimate internal links jeopardized on that page.

[bluekite77]

SEO5, do you think it's best to simply not have any "read more" links at all and just let the blog title link serve as the only one? Or am I overthinking this and what I'm asking about doesn't make any real-world difference?

[bluekite77]

Thanks Dana. I've been thinking about this for a while and it's nice to have some clarity on the subject.

[SEO5Team]

I think that the "read more" link would result in better user experience especially on the main blog page that has a lot of blog titles displayed on it. So yep, don't worry about it, you can keep using it.

[danatanseo]

"read more" just makes sense to me. That's what you want people to do isn't it?

If it makes sense for your users AND search engines "get' it....then by all means yes, do it.

Ciao bluekite!

Dana