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Washington Post blogroll links do NOT pass PageRank

Matt Cutts has confirmed that the Washington Post blogroll links will not pass PageRank.

Here's what a typical link looks like:

a href="https://www.VivaLasVegasBlog.com" target="_blank" onclick="sa_onclick('https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/tracking/textlink/blogroll/');"

Matt says:

...it may look like a clean link, but the fact is that the onclick behavior invokes a new page and different behavior from a typical hyperlink, and that's visible to anyone viewing/analyzing the source code.

This is very good information to have. If I had guessed, I would have thought that this would be a clean link that would pass PR, but now I know differently. And you do too. 🙂

That said, who wouldn't want a link, whether or not it passes link popularity, on the home page of the Washington Post? I'd take that traffic any day of the week.