External links: when use rel="external" or rel="nofollow"?
You may use external for every link to a different website, no matter if it’s yours or not, if it’s on the same host or not.
You may use nofollow for every link that you don’t endorse (for example: search engines shouldn’t assume that it’s a relevant link and should not give any ranking credit to this link).
You may use both values for the same link:
<a href="http://example.com/" rel="external nofollow">Foobar</a>
Note that external doesn’t convey that the link should be opened in a new window.
Note that search engine bots (that support nofollow) might still follow a nofollow link (it doesn’t forbid to follow it). FWIW, there is also the nofollow value for the meta-robots keyword (which may mean the same … or not, depending on which definition you follow).
nofollow links attributes do not allow search engine bots to follow link. If you have rel="nofollow" then the juice stops.
rel="external" dosent act like nofollow. its DoFollow link.
For rel="external" it means the file is on a different site to the current one. rel="external" is the XHTML valid version that informs search engine spiders that the link is external. However, using this does not open the link in a new window. target="_blank" and target="_new" does this, but is not XHTML valid. I hope that helps.
I advise you to use Nofollow Links for the following content:
- Links in Comments or on Forums - Anything that has user-generated content is likely to be a source of spam. Even if you carefully moderate, things will slip through
- Advertisements & Sponsored Links - Any links that are meant to be advertisements or are part of a sponsorship arrangement must be nofollowed.
- Paid Links - If you charge in any way for a link (directory submission, quality assessment, reviews, etc.), nofollow the outbound links
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If you have an external link to your own site then use
<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external">Your Link</a>
If you have external link to someone else's site you don't trust then you can combine both and use
<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external nofollow">Other Domain Link</a>
If you have an external link to someone else's site and you consider it's trustworthy then use
<a href="http://example.com/sample_page/" rel="external">External Useful Link</a>