no follow on menu links without a major hack

[bruce99]

Hi,

Recently I had the joy of visiting the google product forum about server errors identified in google webmaster tools.

A side topic popped up where It was STRONGLY recommended that I decouple the two main dog sites I own and run. Basically I am a dog walker and I sell dog treats. Google + knows that I own the two sites, i have both sites in one google analytics account and google webmaster tools account BUT...

... they say that I need to at least put a "no follow" on any link I have between the sites.

Reciprocal links have been popular for a long time (and hey I own the sites!), but with Google changes they are apparently now black hat and can get your site penalised, though they wont say this directly.

That said, I have had one menu link on each site pointing to the other site. Large corporates do this with subsidiary sites all the time, but now it is banned I need to either put a no follow on the menu link or remove the link.

As a temp measure I have removed a link pointing from one site to the other, but not the other way round.

I have read a few discussions on here about hacking code to accomplish this, about messing with the robot.txt file or using a pull-down metatag box, (that I cant find in joomla 2.5 when I go into the specific external menu link).

Is there any updated information on how to easily make ONE specific Menu external link a NO follow link.

[muddauber]

Could you explain what you mean by the "no follow" in the links?

[bruce99]

Could you explain what you mean by the "no follow" in the links?

Hi,

This is what I was told by a level 9 google forum person:

"And - very important - you need to add "nofollow" to the links between both of your sites. Cross-linking is perfectly fine (they complement each other), but the "nofollow" indicates there is a relationship:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/a ... 6569?hl=en "


The seo theory as I understand it is that a link from one page to another passes Page rank to the pointed to page. They use no follow for several reasons, but one of the main ones (seo wise) is to stop PR being passed to the second site. You would not pass PR if you personallly didnt like the site, or if Google was going to penalise you for passing PR, which apparently it now might be doing if you happen to own both sites.

SO, if they are right, apparently from previous posts there are ways to stop just a single link passing PR (ie making it a no follow link for google robots). but the methods seem complex and might be outdated.

Just want to see what is the best/ easiest for me to do ...

Thanks

[brian]

It is very easy and part of the default joomla install - no hacks required

Just go to each menu item, and on the right hand side select Metadata Options. Here you will see a dropdown called Robots where you can set the nofollow

[bruce99]

It is very easy and part of the default joomla install - no hacks required

Just go to each menu item, and on the right hand side select Metadata Options. Here you will see a dropdown called Robots where you can set the nofollow

Hi Brian,

I am sure it is simple but I am in the wrong area? If I go to menu manager and edit the menu item, the righ hand side only has Link type options and Module assignment for this menu item.

The Link type options has three sections with short white boxes to add stuff.
Link title attribute, link CSS style and Link Image.

Where do I go in 2.5.16 to find the metadata options? I thought the robots was a file that I had to edit via ftp, is there now just a single button that I can select on off?

C

[Kubik-Rubik]

You don't need to hack anything... just use a template override for it!

Take this file:

modules/mod_menu/tmpl/default_url.php

and put it into the html folder of your template:

templates/YOURTEMPLATE/html/mod_menu/default_url.php

Then open this file and add rel="nofollow" after target="blank" (if you are using the option New Window with Navigation), like this:

Code: Select all

	case 1:
		// _blank
?><a <?php echo $class; ?>href="<?php echo $flink; ?>" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" <?php echo $title; ?>><?php echo $linktype; ?></a><?php
		break;

Result is:

Screenshot 2018-02-17 18.17.15.png

That's it!