Google algorithms can still lose trust in sites displaying a strong pattern of manipulative links
Google tries to isolate and ignore spammy or toxic backlinks. However, there still are some cases where a site with a very strong pattern of unnatural links can lose trust and be penalized with a drop in visibility.
No Need to Disavow Links From Sites that Have Decreased in Traffic or Popularity Over Time
It can be natural for some sites to receive less traffic over time, so there’s no need to disavow links from sites that have decreased in popularity, unless the link itself is spam.
Rel=”sponsored” & Rel=”ugc” Attributes Aren’t Essential
It isn’t essential to include rel=sponsored and rel=ugc link attributes, as some sites may find that rel=nofollow is working well for them. These newer link attributes can give Google more context around links, but it isn’t necessary to update all the links on your site if everything is working correctly.
Links Don’t Depreciate in Value Over Time, But Pages They’re Found on Can
The signals that a link has won’t depreciate in value over time. However, the pages that the links are found on and link to externally may become less important over time as they are hidden deeper within a site’s architecture, especially if it is a site that is changed and updated often.
External Links Shown in GSC Can Contain Disavowed or Nofollowed Links
The external links shown in Google Search Console are a sample of all the links found by Google, so not all of them will be displayed in the tool. The sample data may include links that have been disavowed or nofollowed.
Affiliate Links Don’t Impact Site Quality But Should Have Rel=sponsored Attribute
Having affiliate links can be a genuine way to monetise a website, and this doesn’t impact the perceived quality of a site for Google. It’s recommended that you add rel=sponsored to these types of links, which means that they will be nofollowed.
Main Change With New Nofollow Attributes is For Outbound Links
The plan for the update to rel=nofollow links becoming a hint is to make it so that minimal changes are required when using nofollow links internally on a site. John believes they will continue to see internal nofollow pages as not as important to be crawled or indexed. We asked a number of top SEO experts for their opinion on these changes and the impact they anticipate, you can find out more in our post here.
Use Alt Tags as Anchor Text when Linking with Images
When using links within images, make sure the alt attribute is being used in order to provide the anchor text that you want associated with the link.
There is No Ranking Advantage to Marking Outgoing Links as Nofollow
Using rel=follow on outgoing links will not affect a site’s rankings compared to one using rel=nofollow. John explained that using rel=follow outbound linking on a webpage helps Google to see the site is part of the normal web ecosystem.