Should I Use NoFollow On Affiliate Links?

Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on March 23, 2010

color rubber bands Recently I added a few affiliate links to this website. One of which is BOTW.org, which requires no additional affiliate code to track referrals. Technically speaking, it should be getting its full share of link juice. I have always recommended Best of The Web Directory to my readers and my clients, and was blogging about them in a positive light long before I ever added them to the sidebar. So here’s my question for you: should I fear being penalized if I don’t use NoFollow on the outbound link?

Using the NoFollow attribute is unnatural for me. I have never recommend a company to my readers that I wouldn’t use myself. I think the only NoFollow attribute I use is in the comments and in the footer of this blog; and that is only because I don’t know much about the company who created this template. However, at the same time I feel kind of bad about that because in my eyes they’ve earned a DoFollow link by creating the very template that i like and use for my website.

I don’t actively sell links on this blog, and when anyone has contacted me to add a DoFollow link to their website through a product reveiw or similar, for compensation, I have denied. In some cases, if they had a product that I felt might be a good fit for my readers, I have offered to let them write a guest post with a DoFollow link as long as the post was informational and not promotional, and the links complimented their message. Also I’ve said they could put one non-promotional link in their author bio at the end of the post.

What are you’re thought on using NoFollow? When and where should it be used when putting advertisements on your website? Am I doing it properly on this blog?

I’d love to hear your experiences and opinions. Thanks!