December 18, 2010
PageRank Sculpting, Hoarding, & NoFollow Misconceptions
Too many webmasters still don’t understand how NoFollow links affect PageRank. Much to the chagrin of many, NoFollow links do affect the total amount of PageRank a link can pass by affecting the both numerator & denominator in the PageRank calculation.
For example, if a page has 10 outgoing links, in theory each of those links will receive 1/10 of the page’s total PageRank. However, if one of those links is NoFollow, each link still passes 1/10 of the page’s PageRank, except for the NoFollow link, which passes no PageRank.
Yes, it is likely true that where a link appears on the page, e.g. header, footer, sidebar, or content, significantly affects how much of the PageRank a link actually passes, but this doesn’t change the underlying principle: NoFollow links affect the amount of PageRank that the other links on a page effectively pass.
What’s the point of all this? If you are going to link to a quality site, stand behind your link(s) and don’t hoard your PageRank, it will not likely do you any good.
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