COMMENTS
This makes sense as anytime you can drive decent quality traffic to your site from a reputable source it will bring benefits even if they aren't technically SEO related.
As usual, the answer is no one knows for sure. What is "for sure" is that no follow links can not hurt you and may be a source of traffic on their own. So do what makes sense without chasing windmills.
It strikes me that when you make a comment it is more about the value of the comment or your ability to contribute to the discussion than it is about the link. If the only reason you are entering the discussion is to get a new link to your page(s) then why take the time to add. My understanding of the process is to learn, participate and be a part of the overall picture in the areas where you have expertise and can add value. The link is the bonus when it generates more interest in your content.
Of course it's good for SEO 'score' form a traditional sense to get followed links to your site. But, as you note, Brian, those scoring metrics are always changing, and most of the highly trafficked sites are no follow anyways. So it is certainly worth pursuing no follow links from sites that can send you qualified traffic. Links from follow sites that you have influence over getting are probably of little value and will probably be of less value over time. Just market your content genuinely to the right channels and it'll work out best.
How can one use Wikipedia for links or traffic?
Please explain.
I totally agree. Although it seems that nofollowed links don't have any PR values, values of trust and authority should be added to the website. So eventually nofollowed links are valuable. It might be a good idea to balance the number of followed links and nofollowed links for a long term purpose.
I also agree with your post. Definitely no-follow links are valuable. Although, the PR of the blog is not shared due to link's no-follow nature but we can't deny its importance. They have worth less than do-follow but it doesn't mean mean that people leave to put no-follow links.
As many links on the web as nofollow, it will be un-natural to have a link profile without them.
"You can have a nofollowed link on Wikipedia or even Google's main blog and it won't count in terms of improving your rankings." I'm not sure that I agree with that - where a site has low authority links gaining a link from Wikipedia would be invaluable. Addressing an important aspect such as authority ought to therefore have an impact on rankings. Power isn't the only quality that conduces to rankings - authority does too, does it not?
I think the question is kind-of ambiguous. Are we talking about value for SEO rankings or value of the traffic coming to the site? If you're talking about an increase in ranking for a keyword, I don't really believe it helps much, but that's not to say that you couldn't have valuable traffic coming through a nofollow link like Wikipedia or the like.
The theme seems to be that nofollow links do absolutely nothing for rankings, but a ton for traffic.
We can't overlook the value of strong traffic though. If you can get a link on a Wikipedia page and that results in thousands of hits (some of which may be bloggers, for example) and then those visitors decide to link to your resource from their own blogs or website, the nofollow link has then indirectly helped build rank.
Not too far-fetched idea to consider, right?
I would say social no-follow links are being taken into consideration by Google in determining the "freshness" or "hotness" of a specific page or piece of content. That's why new, non-powerful pages sometimes show up above more established pages in rankings for a short period of time, propelled mainly by no-follow links from twitter and facebook.
However, I can't see Google removing the follow/nofollow factor and its impact from their algorithm because it still doing a fairly good job of reducing the impact of millions of spam comments (like a few of the above) posted in blogs, as well as links in banner ads, and links that are manually no-followed by web masters.
If you feel that twitter and blog commenting is being overwhelmed by spam now (it is), just imagine if Google opened the floodgates by giving credence to no-follow links.
Yes. They are even more valuable today then ever. We can run a small test using my comment as an example. As you can see I dropped a keyword for my name. I currently have no links pointing to my site with that anchor. In a few short weeks, OpenSiteExplorer should pick this link up and give me some credit for this link. Let's wait and see. And like David mentioned, social links are being counted more and more and 95% of those are no-followed.
As an SEO/link layman, all great discussion. The idea of getting and building on Wikipedia links makes great sense. Even if the search engines don't follow others might. It all comes down to creating high value content. Need to get back to writing!
Very interesting post. Not sure if it cured my thirst. Like the Wikipedia idea and I will explore. Are blog comments "do follow"?
Funny how I was just thinking that I should still leave comments even on sites that have do not follow because someone might still click on my link and end up there. The more you can be found the better it seems.
Any link is a good link. No-follow or not.
Any link is wonderful as long as it brings in some traffic it wouldn't hurt to post a link no follow or not. How else are you going to get your site notice.
Thanks you for this post. Building Wikipedia links was something new to me.