The truth behind nofollow, noindex and robots.txt

The truth behind the NOFOLLOW and NOINDEX meta tags has been revealed in one of the latest interviews with Matt Cuts, here on Eric Enge’s site.

I’ve seen lots of topics on the big forums about these tags and how to use them properly. But everyone had a different opinion so everything was extremely confusing. Now, it’s almost clear in my mind. Here are the most important things gleaned from the interview:

• Pages excluded with the Robots.txt still acquire PR and can still be indexed if people link to them
• The Noindex tag on a page ensures that the page does not get indexed. So you can’t find it on SERPs. On the other side, a Noindex page still acquirers PR and passes it further (if nofollowed).
• Nofollow is the way to keep control on how Link Juice flows trough your site
• The Nofolow attribute on a link means that only that link won’t be followed
• The Nofollow meta tag on a page means that all the links on that page won’t be followed
• Also a Nofollow link does not pass PR (correct me if I’m wrong)

That being said, i must add that these tags are a very powerful way to improve your site. Indexing only the pages that count and controlling juice flow internally and externally can really help you get better positions in SERPs. I’m conducting an experiment in this domain right now, and I’ll be back with some results somewhere in the near future.

Tags: Google, meta tag, nofollow, noindex