Quick Tips

Dofollow and Nofollow Attributes – When to add these?

March 22, 2015 by Arun Sarathy Leave a Comment

I attempted to put my solo-brainstorm at work and the result is this post.

Hope you find this solo brainstorm about rel=”nofollow” useful.

What is a rel=”nofollow” attribute?

A rel=”nofollow” attribute, in layman’s terms is, simply asking search engines not to follow a link that you’ve given in your blog post. Every webpage acquires certain PageRank in terms of Google search and crawl analysis, which gets passed and shared on to other links if you add them to your blog. This is also sometimes referred to as SEO juice. If you don’t want your SEO juice to freely pass on to other websites that are not worth it, you can simply add rel=”nofollow” attribute to that hyperlink.

When to use rel=”nofollow” attribute?

If you feel that you want to add a hyperlink to a website that you know for sure is good for nothing to your readers, then simply add a rel=”nofollow” attribute.

What is a ‘dofollow’ attribute?

‘Dofollow’ attribute is just the opposite of rel=”nofollow”. In fact, the absence of rel=”nofollow” attribute is a ‘dofollow’ attribute. There is no need to add a dofollow attribute specifically to a URL.

What does Matt Cutts, the head of Web Spam team, has to say about rel=”nofollow”?

As per Matt Cutts, one can add rel=”nofollow” to specific links. Read more here.

What do we gain by adding this attribute value?

We actually are passing our good karma by NOT adding rel=”nofollow” attribute to our links. Thus, one must ensure that the good karma passes on only to deserving websites that are really useful to people. If not, just remember to add rel=”nofollow” tag.

Apart from the Karma metaphor, you can also see it as a positive vote. Because, just like you, there could be many linking to a particular website. This is nothing but positive vote for that target link – which increases its value in turn – because Google thinks that if many people are linking to a website, then that has to be a good one.

What do we lose by adding this attribute value?

Nothing. By adding this tag, we lose nothing. In fact, this helps us in fighting web spam in our own small way – if you look at the larger scheme of things.

Will this increase my PageRank?

Adding ‘nofollow’ attribute actually doesn’t pass any PageRank juice to the target link that you’d added.

Ponder more: PageRank sculpting

What kinds of links should be marked as rel=”nofollow”?

Any link that you feel is not a good resource for your blog reader.

Is there a way to automate the rel=”nofollow” addition to my URLs using any plugin?

There are many plugins available in WordPress plugins database that you can search and use the one you like. However, there are a couple of plugins I recommend and love. They are:

NoFollow Link WordPress plugin. Developer name: Alex Jose (Spikes)
Ultimate Nofollow WordPress plugin. Developer name: bitacre

How to add rel=”nofollow” to a hyperlink/URL manually?

By default, any hyperlink looks like this:

<a href=”http://www.thekeyponderer.com/about”>About TKP</a>

To add ‘nofollow’, just add it this way:

<a href=”http://www.thekeyponderer.com/about” rel=”nofollow”>About TKP</a>

(Just so you know, href means Hyperlink Reference).

Here’s an interesting InfoGraphic created by SearchEngineLand:

How to Create Your Own Affiliate Banners

March 22, 2015 by Arun Sarathy Leave a Comment

Here’s a situation:

DreamHost Affiliate is one of the many options to earn money online. Earlier, I have also written a very detailed guide (a long post) on how to create your own Promo Code a.k.a Coupon Code and earn money online from DreamHost at no cost for you.

Once you signup for their affiliate program you get to earn up to a maximum of $97 per sale. Along with you also get to earn sub-referral commissions when your referrals refer someone else. This is called Tier-2 commission.

However, all these things are good. But as with all rules in blogging, adding images to spread your word about your own promo codes is the key to add a little spice to your message.

If you want to use images and affiliate banners to design your announcement and promo codes, DreamHost offers their own images and affiliate banners in a zipped format which you can see after logging in to their cpanel. But what if you don’t find good variety of affiliate banners there, and what if you wanted to create your own by adding your blog logo?

That’s when I use Canva! Like the one I used above blog post title header for this post.

Canva comes to my rescue whenever I have design needs. Canva helps me to create a banner for almost every kind of need: Presentation, Twitter header, add logos, PNG images, Instagram posts, other posters.

They have also recently added (March, 2015) Blog Title category with which you can create beautiful blog title designs.

There is also this new Ads category with which you can create Facebook ads, Leaderboard ads, Skyscraper ads, Medium rectangle ads, etc.

Check out canva.com.

Actually, you can use Canva for creating any design for any platform, not just DreamHost affiliate banners. Let me know your thoughts, comments – if you know of any other valuable, almost-free-kinda-resource like Canva.

10 Great Videos To Improve Blog Quality – Google Webmaster Videos

March 17, 2015 by Arun Sarathy 5 Comments

Matt Cutts, the head of Web Spam team at Google is currently on a long vacation at the time of writing this post (March 2015). However, his lessons and videos that are on YouTube never stops helping the SEO enthusiasts and bloggers alike. These videos are a part of the Google Webmaster series posted on YouTube.

I don’t know if Matt Cutts will extend his vacation further, but I do know that even if Mr. Cutts does extend his vacation, he is still going to be fine.

The reason am saying is because he has left so much of his “thought-prints” (like foot prints) around the internet that his explanations of SEO, website quality guidelines are all figuratively ever green for years to come.

Since you clicked on this post and are reading this, I assume that you are either a blogger or going to be one.

But whatever the case, am pretty sure you’ll like this post because given here are some of the basic yet useful videos by Matt Cutts which can indeed help both newcomers as well as established bloggers.

Ponder more: Get the summary of all Matt Cutts videos

I have curated some of the best of those videos and posted here in a single article so anyone who wants to learn a few basics and few advanced topics on SEO or blogging can be benefited to improve blogs.

These links are given in no specific order. However, the #1 rank is aptly given, at least in my humble opinion.

This is definitely not a complete list. These are just the 10 videos that I felt which are truly great.

I can go on adding more to this list, but just thought that these 10 videos are really basic as well as under-estimated by many new bloggers. Just focus on these first, even if you want to go further in this exciting journey of blogging.

These helped me learn the basics of SEO and blogging, and will help you too, I guarantee that.

Resources: For more videos like these – subscribe to Google Webmasters Group.

Why are the fonts blurred in my computer and how to fix it

February 15, 2015 by Arun Sarathy Leave a Comment

Does your screen look something like this?

This does cause eye strain ¹, isn’t it?!

Then you will have to do a quick tweak to ‘Smooth out the edges of fonts‘. That’s the cause of this blurred view.

You can do a tiny ‘check-the-box’ setting to set this alright and change screen view…

To make this setting change, we have both, a long route and a short route ². Let’s see both.

Here’s how (Long route):

1. Right click on Computer icon
2. Select Properties (the last item in the context menu)
[Control Panel > System and Security > System] window opens up
3. On the left side, select Advanced system settings
4. Under Advanced tab, select Settings within the Performance group
5. Select the check box which reads ‘Smooth edges of screen fonts‘.

Click OK twice.

The changes would have now taken effect.

Short(est) route: Keyboard users will love this, especially who like using Keyboard Shortcuts extensively

1. Hit Win + R to open Run Command
2. Type in systempropertiesperformance
3. Select the check box which reads ‘Smooth edges of screen fonts‘.

Another way to check for your screen font view settings is by seeing if you have activated ClearType text (Windows 7). Here’s how.

Go to Control Panel > Display > Adjust ClearType text

cleartype text setting — Activate ClearType text setting in Windows 7

Click on Adjust ClearType text and ensure the checkbox is selected – Turn on ClearType

CLEARTYPE TEXT SETTING CHECKBOX — Select the check box

This will walk you through to select your comfortable text view settings in four different ways. Choose any of these and click on Next.

how to activate cleartype text setting in windows 7 — Walks you through the readability check

At the end, you will have modified and customized the ClearType text technology to suit your eyes.

cleartype text setting changes saved — Finish ClearType text setting changes

That’s all it is to change the setting and make your screen look better. Hope this helped! Please leave your comments if you have any question or general feedback to enhance UX that you may have.

—–

Footnote # 1 . at least for some people. And I am in that ‘some’.

Footnote # 2. for the keyboard shortcut lovers.

How to remove fake followers on Twitter without blocking them

February 14, 2015 by Arun Sarathy 2 Comments

Here’s one of the famous Twitter stories that’s common in any Twitter user’s life:

There are times when someone is following you on Twitter and you are pretty sure that he or she has just a fake Twitter account. Managing Twitter followers can be quite a task especially when your see many dubious accounts, some random account with less than 3 tweets overall in their account with junk followers who seem unrelated.

Just look at their following vs. followers list and you’ll be able to easily understand their credibility in Twitter. They can be easily removed on Twitter in a manual process – I personally see this to be a better way of doing – unless of course you have 100s and 1000s of followers who have followed you using a bot, in which case you can use unfollow Twitter tools and apps like Twitblock.org or Tweepi.com to unfollow them or remove those inactive followers on Twitter accounts from your followers list. These accounts are mostly spam followers on Twitter who randomly follow accounts and then unfollow after a week or two. Let’s now see a simple way to remove or delete a follower on Twitter if you see that the account holder doesn’t contribute much or is having just an egghead or a fake Twitter account.

Ponder more: Top 14 tips for great blogging

This is going to be the best way (manual way) on how to Unfollow on Twitter especially to remove fake Twitter followers :

1. Block the person
2. Go to Blocked Users page
3. Unblock the person

This smoothly removes the person from your followers’ list without blocking that Twitter user profile.

Here’s how to remove fake followers on Twitter from your Android mobile app:

1. Go the person’s account and block by hitting on the gear icon
2. Unblock the person
Game over!

Here are some more related resources which you might find useful:

1. If you are of the geek types, you can check this website – it uses a browser script to find fake and spammy followers on Twitter. Be extra careful with this if you don’t know what you are doing.

2. An in-depth article on removing fake followers on Twitter if you are interesting in knowing this a little more deeper.

3. How to send Tweets that are longer than 140 characters.

4. More tools to try: Untweeps,

5. Why you should follow everyone who follows you on Twitter.

6. 59 Free Twitter tools and Apps to fit any need.

7. 10 Twitter tools used by Social Media experts.

8. 21 Twitter tools that every power user must know of

9. 10 Irresistible tools to help dominate Twitter

Do you know of any other way to remove bulk followers on Twitter? Please let me know through your comments below.