A no follow link is an HTML attribute that is used to give instructions to search engines that the hyperlink is not to influence the ranking of the search engines index. A no follow link is designed to reduce the effectiveness of search engine spam and improve the overall quality of the search engines results.
Google designed the concept of the no follow attribute value in 2005 to eliminate the spam that could come through in a search when using keywords in the search engines. The no follow link is not for blocking access to web content, only for preventing the content to be indexed by the search engines.
Hyperlinks that include the rel="nofollow" attribute will not influence the links target page rank or block any content. Although this was a Google design and is copyright owned by Google many other search engines have began using the attribute value as well such as, Yahoo, Windows Live Search, and Bing.
The search engines are not to literally not follow the link; they are supposed to only not index the link in their search engine databases. The link is still able to be clicked and the page will load, no content will be blocked it is just meant to reduce the indexing and spam that comes across in search results. The idea of a no follow link according to Google is for the link not to be followed literally. But in SEO there are some links followed. Google actually follow the no follow link but does not indexed the links on their linked page. Yahoo will follow the link but does not include it in any of its ranking calculations, while MSN Search treats the no follow link as not counting it or following it. Every search engine will have their own variation as to what they believe the no follow link should mean.
The majority of weblog software programs will automatically submit links with the no follow attribute and not give any options to change or alter this. There are some programs that will allow alterations from trusted users and others will allow them to be submitted as the writer wishes and then use human editors to remove any unwanted links.
The no follow link protects web owners from unwanted content on their site. Many web owners will begin a blog or forum posting to encourage fresh content to be displayed on their page and increase the overall page rank of the site. The sites page rank can be dropped dramatically if offensive or negative links are left on the site so the no follow link allows the bloggers to leave links but protects the webpage owners from taking hits to their page rankings because of them.
Google has began using the no follow links as a machine readable disclosure for paid links and therefore keeping them from gaining any credibility in the search engines results. The web owners are still debating over whether or not the no follow links are protecting them or hurting them as many pages are paying for links to be traded on their site in hopes of increasing their page rank. Because of the conflict of no follow links to SEO, it is now depends to webmasters to allow no follow link on their website or not.
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