Where The Links Have No Follow*

Filed in Google by Matt McGee on March 1, 2007

I think I’ve been hit by the no-following of links on that “important” encyclopedia site. Here’s the deal:

There’s been talk recently of a Google update, and while a lot of people seem happy … I’m not one of them. It’s no big deal, really, since it involves my U2 site, which is a hobby and not a revenue generator. But still, as of last weekend, @U2 dropped to the #3 spot in Google’s SERPs for the first time in … well … forever.

My site held the top slot for a looong time, then was pushed down to #2 shortly after the band’s official site went online in 2001. And it’s been like that ever since. But now, the U2 page from the online-encyclopedia-which-shall-not-be-named finally moved ahead of my site.

U2 serps

I’m well aware that rankings fluctuate naturally, and all that stuff. But after so many years at Nos. 1 or 2, I’ve been trying to figure out what happened. I’ve made no major changes to the site recently, aside from killing off some deep content. @U2 still has lots of inbound links. In fact, last time I looked, it had about two dozen links from the online-encyclopedia site. Yahoo Site Explorer tells me that 17 of my top 50 inbounds are from that site.

So, I can’t help but wonder … am I a casualty of all those links being no-followed? It’s the only thing I can come up with right now.

* Post title is a pun on U2’s song, “Where the Streets Have No Name” 🙂

[tags]nofollow, u2, google[/tags]

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