Rel="external"

[Sharer]

Hi all,

I got a link and its off a site and marked up with rel="external". Is this a followed or nofollowed link? Does it pass link juice?

Thanks

[NakulGoyal]

Yes, no need to be worried. You are good. rel="external" is the XHTML valid version that informs search engine spiders that the link is external. However, using this does not open the link in a new window. target="_blank" and target="_new" does this, but is not XHTML valid. I hope that helps.

[blu42media]

Hey Robin-

I agree with Nakul - no worry about the link juice not flowing.  If you have rel="nofollow" then the juice stops.  The neat thing is you can combine the two attribute values as long as you put a space between them like rel="external nofollow".

Hope that helps!
John