Why do all the links from YE to my site show as nofollow?

[rogercbryan]

Why is that? Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch is basically telling me all the links from my signature to my sites are 'broken'. What can I do to fix that?

[JohnYE]

Hi Roger,

I'll get your question to the right person and let you know what I find out.

-John

[joshuaeric]

The forum automatically sets a rel="nofollow" on most user submitted links.

This tells Google not to pass link juice from YE to these sites.

The reason we do this is to prevent spam, as spambots skip over sites that utilize nofollow links.

[rogercbryan]

Doesn't that diminish the value of the site for posters? Is there a way around this?

[TaraYE]

While your signature links do not help you in terms of SEO, they do help you in the way of gaining exposure to other YE users. The more your name is seen with relevant posts and replies, the more you are positioned as an authority. You gain credibility. And as with most forms of social media (and a forum does fall under that category), it's about gaining trust and building relationships. YE community members will click on your links, bringing you traffic and, potentially, business. Since there are tens of thousands of YE members, it can definitely be a valuable resource.

Let's not forget how much value you can receive from learning what others have to teach, and teaching what others need to learn, as well.

To my knowledge, there is no way around the 'nofollow' tag.