Quote:
Originally Posted by Holy Damage
things have changed, google follows all links, even if it has nofollow tag, no index or it is disabled via robots.txt... it does not index them, but it knows where that link goes
What I am seeing with this broad update is more adult keywords becoming mainstream
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Absolutely correct.
Google follows everything. It does not respect any "soft" directives like meta info and robots.txt.
You can use htaccess to provide G-only-specific renderings of you pages and links, but not all Google spidering and sniffing is done on domains/IPs known to all.
A good portion of my spidering by G is to follow through all my sponsor links, especially including any (remaining) FHG links.
I know this because all my links are coded with my own logging wrapper that shows every outbound (that I care to know about) traffic from my site. This also helps me reconcile sponsor traffic stats with my own independent stats.
BTW, I'm sitting at 50% of my G SE impressions and click-thrus before the core update began.
This is not limited to adult sites. This core update is "not personal", according to Google, and reflects it's re-evaluation of who it "allows" to be seen, by the nature of what they are about.
Considering that most search engines spam their own or purchased affiliate links at the top of their search results, there are self-interested benefits to scrapping any competition (as Google is well known to do - but no one has the will or power to take them on for Antitrust violations).
Google indicated that it will announce when this roll-out is done.
In the meantime, I have spent the last 6 months consolidating and limiting most of my outbound affiliate links to as few as possible.