What is Nofollow?
Nofollow is a directive instructing search engines not to follow a link or pass link equity and PageRank to the page it points to. In other words, it tells search engines that the blogger does not endorse or have confidence in the page receiving the link and does not want the search engine to consider it for ranking purposes.
Nofollow links are the opposite of dofollow links. Dofollow or follow links pass link equity and PageRank to the pages they point to. This makes dofollow links desirable for bloggers who want to improve their SEO and rankings.
You can add the nofollow link to a link or an entire webpage. For example, you can declare a link as nofollow using the rel="nofollow" attribute.
<a href="https://yourdomain.com/what-is-yoga" rel="nofollow"></a>
You can declare all the links on a page unfollow by adding the nofollow meta tag to the page’s <head> tag.
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow"/>
You can add the nofollow tag to the page’s X-Robots-Tag HTTP header.
X-Robots-Tag: nofollow
Variations of the Nofollow Link
Google requires bloggers to label any unnatural link as nofollow. This includes widget links, sponsored links, and generally, any link the blogger did not earn naturally.
However, in 2019, Google introduced the sponsored rel="sponsored" and user-generated content rel="ugc" link attributes. Both attributes are nofollow. However, they provide Google with more specific information about why they are considered nofollow.
- The sponsored link attribute indicates the link is part of an advertisement
- The user-generated content link attribute indicates the site’s user left the link
Visitors cannot differentiate between follow, nofollow, sponsored, and user-generated content links. The links all look alike, and the only way to tell them apart is by checking the site’s HTML code. However, search engines can tell the links apart.
SEO Importance of the Nofollow Tag
The nofollow tag instructs search engines not to pass link equity or PageRank to the page receiving the link. This helps to improve Google’s ability to determine a page’s rankings.
This is important because search engines consider backlinks as a form of endorsement. So, Google may treat an unnatural link as natural when it does not include a nofollow tag.
This would disrupt search results pages as paid and unnatural links would provide the same ranking benefits as natural links. This would also encourage malicious bloggers to use unnatural link building techniques since such links are easier to create.
So, if a site has to link to an external site that it cannot vouch for, it can include the nofollow attribute, indicating it may have some reservations about the site, even though it found its content helpful.
While the general consensus is that these links do not pass link equity and PageRank, some bloggers believe Google considers some nofollow links for ranking purposes. Google itself is somewhat vague about this.
For instance, in the blog post announcing the sponsored and user-generated content link attributes, Google mentioned that it would begin to use the nofollow, sponsored, and user-generated link attributes, along with other signals, as hints about which links to include or exclude from its search results pages.
Non-SEO Benefits of Nofollow Links
While the SEO benefits of the nofollow tag remain disputed, nofollow tags do have considerable non-SEO benefits for the origin and receiving sites.
For instance, nofollow links are a source of referral traffic for the page receiving the link. Such traffic brings in leads interested in your topic. It also improves brand visibility, and the leads can interact with the content and call to action on the site receiving the link.
As for the origin site, nofollow links help to diversify their link profile. Search engines expect your links to be a mix of follow and nofollow links.
If your links are all follow links, they may indicate you are involved in some black hat SEO technique, which could attract the search engine’s attention to your site. However, blogs involved in natural link building methods would have a healthy mix of follow and nofollow links.
When to Use Nofollow Tags
Content creators should consider using the nofollow tag when they cannot vouch for the trustworthiness or have reservations about the site receiving the link. In such cases, the nofollow link indicates the content creator found the page’s content helpful but does not want Google to consider it for ranking purposes.
Some sites also use the nofollow link when unsure about the author’s neutrality or intention. This is common on sites like Wikipedia, which allows multiple third-party authors to create and edit their content.