A New ‘Do Not Link' Tool
Sometimes you want to add a link to an article simply to prove a point. But, there's a problem with adding links. When you link to another site, that site's rankings go up. This could be detrimental to your own site, so a lot of blogs don't add outside links.
That said, it's crucial that you have a blog on your website – and that your blog gets outside attention. Otherwise, it's kind of like setting up a shop (your site) in the middle of a desert (the social media, linking, or marketing you don't do for your site). See my point? So, what can you do when you need to add that link, but you don't actually want to add that link?
Enter: Do Not Link
If you know anything about coding, you know that you can add a simple ‘do not follow' (rel=”nofollow”) tag to any link, and Google won't follow that link. Your readers can still go to to the site you link to, but Google won't. Well, ‘Do Not Link' is kind of like do not follow. But different.
Using the Do Not Link tool, you can simply place the URL of the page you want to link to into the Do Not Link tool, and a new line of code will be generated for you. This new line of code tells Google not to follow that link, so you can rest assured that you aren't helping another site gain traction. Unless, of course, that traction has been earned, and then it's really not nice not to link to that site.
What's the Difference?
So, what's the difference between entering that Do Not Follow tag and using the Do Not Link tool? Coding. You don't have to mess with code if you don't want to. Just drop the automatically generate code into your site, and you are ready to roll out that new content, with a link, without asking Google to give that linked site props.
See? Linking problems have all been solved. What if you want to link to a site and help that site? Well then, by all means, go ahead and link to that site. But, sometimes it's good to use a site's content as an example (mostly a bad example), or point out an article that you hate without giving the owner of that site or article any credit. For those times, the Do Not Link tool is your best bet.
Should You Link?
Sometimes it's good to link. Other times, it's not. How can you tell? Basically, you don't want to give away too many links when writing content. You should link back to original sources, but use either the code or tool mentioned here to do so.
Just keep in mind that the more you talk about something, the more popular that something becomes. So just because you aren't linking to that site, the fact that you're talking about it may help the site gain readers – just an observation!
Do you use this tool? Do you link to sites? What's your take?
