{"id":51950,"date":"2021-01-12T12:57:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T11:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.humanlevel.com\/sin-categorizar\/que-es-un-enlace-para-google.html"},"modified":"2023-11-20T18:32:42","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T17:32:42","slug":"what-is-a-link-for-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humanlevel.com\/en\/blog\/seo\/what-is-a-link-for-google","title":{"rendered":"What is a link for Google?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knowing the answer to this question is very useful to know if the indexable contents are crawlable<\/strong> and to apply the Link Sculpting<\/strong> technique. Understanding it helps to improve the positioning and indexing of our web pages. Let’s see why.<\/p>\n

Next, we will differentiate between two types of links or hyperlinks<\/strong>: those that are detected by Google and those that are not<\/strong>. Its behavior towards the user will remain the same, i.e., to take the user to another page, but will have different effects on positioning. We will choose one or the other depending on the situation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When do we want links that are recognizable by Google?<\/h2>\n

We will want crawlable links when the URLs<\/strong> they point to are interesting for positioning<\/strong>, are indexable and, therefore, we want to transmit part of the popularity flow<\/strong> from the page where they are linked to.<\/p>\n

When will we want links unrecognizable by Google?<\/h2>\n

Sometimes, we have useful pages for users, such as sorting filters or price ranges, that do not add value to the positioning of the site<\/strong>. If we have done our SEO homework, we will avoid indexing those pages <\/strong>by adding the robots meta tag with noindex value<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, other problems remain and one of them is exactly what Link Sculpting<\/strong> is trying to solve. It is the one related to the way in which Google distributes equitably the popularity score or PageRank of the page among all outgoing links. If these links include pages<\/strong> that are not interested in positioning, the result is that the rest of them will score less<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another problem<\/strong> that Link Sculpting is trying to solve, is the linking to indexable pages to which we do not want to pass more PageRank<\/strong>for not to give them more importance than they already have<\/strong>when they are already linked from other parts of the web or from the page itself and have only been added for usability.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Link Sculpting consists in choosing certain links to make them unrecognizable to Google <\/strong>and thus force the PageRank<\/strong> to flow towards the links we are interested in<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although it is not often named these days and seems somewhat outdated, Google still uses PageRank<\/a> internally<\/strong>, as Gary Illyes<\/a> states in this December 10, 2020 podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How not to apply Link Sculpting?<\/h2>\n

Links with the rel=”nofollow” attribute are not suitable for Link Sculpting<\/a><\/strong>. The attribute for user-generated content<\/a> (rel=”ugc”) and the attribute for ad and sponsor content (rel=”sponsored”) are also useless, as they have the same effect as rel=”nofollow”.<\/p>\n\n

Therefore, the only way to do Link Sculpting is to add links that are not really taken into account as such.<\/p>\n

How to apply Link Sculpting without applying rel=”nofollow”?<\/h2>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

You can corroborate this information both at the 2018 Google I\/O annual developer conference<\/a> and in the following tweets from John Mueller:<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>
Seen on Search Engine Rountable: data-href attributes are not links and do not pass PageRank<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

Therefore, if we have a tag <<\/strong> a > without href attribute or<\/strong> a label <button>, <span>, <div> or any other that requires JavaScript to send the user to the requested page by clicking on it <\/strong>will not count as a link and we will not lose PageRank<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

By this definition, let’s look at examples of what Google considers a link and what it doesn’t<\/strong>. Some are from the 2018 Google I\/O<\/a>, others from this 2020 WMConf talk<\/a> and others “homegrown”.<\/p>\n

Links that really are<\/h3>\n