SEOenthusiast

Conserve Internal PageRank
Make the most of the web clout Google gives you. Outgoing links can either confer PR weight to the outgoing site or they can restrict passing PR through the link anatomy. Fix broken links, and ensure that PR is not being passed through incorrectly defined javascript.
If the last part of the introductory paragraph caught your attention - yes, javascript can pass pagerank. If the URL of the destination page is contained in a javascript syntax structure, it will confer PR just as a regular html href structure will. Ensure that a qualified URL (whether internal or external) does not appear, or simply use the rel='nofollow' tag to stop the PR being passed.
If any page contains broken links, PR is just being wasted. You can demonstrate this for a site with PR and a link that has been broken for more than just a few weeks by going to the page that is broken, seeing the error page and seeing the existing PR. That PR should be in your site working for your pages that exist, not those that don't. Keep the page rank value within the working site.
Decide which external sites need to have PR passed and which don't. If you extend a link to another webmaster, it's generally seen as unethical to include the rel='nofollow' tag in the link - the webmaster will get no benefit from the link except through the direct traffic the link provides. If the link depends upon some reciprocal action from the external site (though, please - no reciprocal linking) then aninitial rel='nofollow' tag may hurry the action along with it costing no PR loss to you. If the link is a resource type link (perhaps for further reading on a subject), you may as well restrict the PR passing to that site - in most cases they don't need the extra PR help anyway. Certainly if a link to some competitor is needed on the site - the link should have it's PR restricted by use of the rel='nofollow' tag.
Despite the disingenuous claims of some SEO practicioners, PageRank is an important measure of the health of a site. Like the water supply (or should we say 'unlike'), spot the leaks and fix them to maintain the health of your site.
Further Reading: Page Rank Leak | Use of the NoFollow attribute


View the original article here