Google Using NoFollow to ‘Hoard’ Page Rank

Let me start by saying that Google has become an integral part of my life, and that I do not condone a lot of the Google bashing that I see in my online internet marketing watering holes.  However I do think it is important to hold Google to at least the standards that they hold Webmasters to if the web is going to be a healthy cooperative ecosystem.  With that in mind . . . .

I spend a lot more time than probably necessary on understanding and helping companies implement proper nofollow tags.  Most clients have no idea what a nofollow is and even fewer understand the difference between the nofollow on a link and the nofollow on a page.

Nor do they understand that a nofollow doesn’t really prevent spiders from following the link, and that in many cases they should be noindexing the subsequent page.

I was surprised to see how Google handles the links on their blog.  I understand the nofollow attribute is to used on links that you cannot trust.

Yet on the pages of their blog, there are links to some of the most trusted resources on the web - www.searchengineland.com, www.webmasterworld.com, www.oreilly.com - that aren’t followed.

Aside from the fact that link juice hoarding is lame and interrupts the organic order of the web, Google is also one of the biggest link whales in a link-driven ecoysystem - showing a few sites some love couldn’t hurt.

Disturbingly, the page also links to other Google bloggers on the blogspot domain (a google property) but with followed links (passing page rank).

That’s not an accident, and makes it really difficult to swallow some of Google’s other mandates to webmasters when they themselves are not leading by ethical example.  I recognize the challenge in governing the web, which is why it is all the more important to lead by example.