Pagerank Sculpting

PAGERANK SCULPTING

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Source Code
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PageRank sculpting is a search engine optimization strategy that has been recommended by numerous SEOs before Google realized the spam and neutralized this method. In 2005, Google recommended the usage of NOFOLLOW tag to avoid spam links from being crawled and other search engines and HTML standard readily accepted it. Numerous Content management systems, blog platforms, started using nofollow tag as part of their effort to combat spam.

PageRank sculpting is the act of using nofollow tags in your inner links for selective PageRank distribution. For some site owners there will be difference in the importance of pages. Some inner pages will be much more important than the other ones. To avoid the PageRank flow to pages that are not important, a site owner or SEO company will add a nofollow tag. This will make sure the pages that are linked with nofollow will not get the necessary PageRank and the PageRank is distributed to pages that are important for the website. We can achieve the same effect using robots.txt or by making the link embedded in script that are not crawlable by search engines. But the easiest method is to use nofollow and many site owners use this to achieve better rankings.

For me PageRank sculpting is a major search engine manipulation method. It destroys the way, natural web works and it gives false signals to search engines and mislead them and makes them believe one page is better than the other. For a webmaster there are valid reasons to decide which page is important on the site but for that they should either block the unwanted page or add the link in a script. If they add nofollow tag, the purpose of nofollow loses its value. The whole purpose of nofollow tag was to combat spam not to funnel PageRank.

PageRank sculpting was an effective way to modify PageRank flow to different pages. It was doing well for a long time. Even the leading bloggers like Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz has recommended using PageRank sculpting to control PageRank flow.

A webmaster that uses nofollow for valid inner links is trying to game the algorithm and artificial funneling PageRank where he wants them to flow. Google doesn't like it; they want the natural web to behave the way it has always been. We need to let them decide the importance of a page than hoarding PageRank and funneling them to important pages.
From past a year or two, PageRank hoarding or PageRank sculpting is rarely effective. It's because of the change in the way Google values the flow of PageRank. Matt cutts of Google announced that all links on a page will be treated equally regardless of whether they have nofollow tag or no. It simply means all the linked pages will get equal PageRank from the linking page. This was an excellent move by Google and will leave no option for the webmaster to control the flow of PageRank in using nofollow tag.
We should do what is good for our users and leave the search engines to decide the importance of pages.

Screen Shots

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Source Code

This code is an example where the site owner uses 'no follow' tag to the link contact us in the website. Before the update of the Google's algorithm, this particular link "contact us" would not receive any PageRank as the site is a no follow site. But after the Google's algorithm update in 2005, the sites with no follow will also share the PageRank of the site.

After Google's Algorithm Update

The above image depicts that Google's new algorithm update no longer supports PageRank sculpting. Even if a link in a website is given the no follow attribute, the PageRank is divided equally among all the links, thus not giving room for spamming.

References

Other sites that refer to the same manipulation tactic are as follows

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