Gary Illyes from Google said it is possible that Google may start counting links from publications that blanket nofollow all outbound links. He said Google isn't sure yet, he has nothing to announce on this yet, but anything is possible.
This comes off the heals of the nofollow link attribute change where Google is now treating it as a hint instead as of a directive. This gives Google more flexibility to use the link and content of the link for other purposes, including treating it as a link, or for spam reasons or other reasons.
Gary Illyes from Google was asked about this on Twitter and responded "The move to a hint based system may cover every link list to nofollow, including those from publications that blanket nofollow. We don't however have anything to announce at the moment, but I'm sure your sites will appreciate this move on the long run."
Here are the tweets:
The move to a hint based system may cover every link list to nofollow, including those from publications that blanket nofollow. We don't however have anything to announce at the moment, but I'm sure your sites will appreciate this move on the long run.
— Gary "鯨理" Illyes (@methode) September 23, 2019
I would love Google to start treating links from major publications that blanket nofollow those links as real links, assuming those are not paid for links.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
