Many site give instructions to install node.js on CentOS compiling packages, but is better use packets rpm where available, in this case specifically the user lkundrak has available a yum repository with node.js packages, to use just copy this content: http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/lkundrak/nodejs/epel-nodejs.repo In your /etc/yum.repos.d path, then use yum to install the necessary, for example:
yum install nodejs nodejs-npm
Update: This repository it’s older, don’t have updates since February 2011, not use