Many blog platforms let you automatically show "related posts" based on the category, tag or content of the blog post you just published. In many cases, this is all automated but in some, you can do them manually. In any event, one webmaster was concerned that the automated version can be considered auto-generated content and thus be spam. He asked if he should nofollow the links in the related blog post widget.
Google's John Mueller said no, you shouldn't. He answered this in the Google Hangout at the 30 minute and 55 second mark.
Question:
Our blog uses a plugin that automatically generates suggested related posts at the end of all blog posts. Since Google don’t like AGC should these be nofollowed?
Answer:
No, from our point of view that is fine. So essentially what you are creating there is an internal linking structure between articles that are related on your site. And if you can just do that kind of automatically that is kind of up to you.The important part of us is that the primary content on these pages isn’t automatically generated. That there is really something valuable on those pages...
I like the direct answers John is giving in this particular hangout.
Here is the video embed at the start time:
Forum discussion at Google+.
