No Follow Links on Sports-Reference.com Sites

Sports Reference has decided to add rel="nofollow" attributes to all links in sponsorship messages effective January 1, 2013. Sponsors will not have to edit their sponsorship messages, as this code will be automatically added to the messages by our software.

No-follow links refer to an attribute added to a link. For example, a typical link uses the following code: <a href="http://example.com/">. A no-follow link adds the following attribute <a rel="nofollow" href="http://example.com/">. These links work the exact same way for website users, but search engines view them as different.

Most search engines rate the importance of a page by the number of incoming links from other sites. Adding nofollow basically tells a search engine not to use this link in its rating process.

If you are unfamiliar with "nofollow" links, please read Google's comments on the "nofollow" attribute. For most page sponsors, this change won't matter at all. Your links will work exactly as they did before. But if this is a problem for you, please request a prorated refund of your sponsorships. Please give us the page sponsorships you wish to end, your username, and e-mail address via our customer service website.

Thank you for your long-time support of Sports Reference.

Sean Forman, President, Sports-Reference LLC

Request a Refund via our customer service website
Google's Comments on the Nofollow Attribute