In this article, we delve into the depths of the nofollow backlinks, uncovering the following key aspects:
- What is a nofollow link?
- What is its importance in SEO?
- When to use it properly
What is Nofollow Link?
A nofollow link is a hyperlink with a rel=”nofollow” HTML tag applied to it.
As the name suggests, a “nofollow” link prevents Google from following the link.
It means the nofollow tag requests search engines to ignore and not follow the link.
Nofollow links do not pass PageRank or Link Juice, so they don’t impact search engine rankings.
How to check if a link is dofollow or nofollow?
Below are two methods to check the nofollow and dofollow status of links.
Check if a link is dofollow or nofollow using Inspect elements
The easiest way to check if a link is dofollow or nofollow is to inspect the HTML code of the page.
To do this:
- Right-click on the link and select “Inspect“.
- This will open the developer tools in your browser, and then scroll down to the “Source” tab to see the HTML code for the link.
- If you see a rel=”nofollow” attribute in the code, then the link is nofollow.
- If you don’t see any rel attributes, then the link is dofollow.
Here is Another example:
Check if a link is dofollow or nofollow using Chrome extensions
There are a number of Chrome extensions that can help you check if a link is dofollow or nofollow. One of the extensions is NoFollow.
- Install the NoFollow extension in your chrome browser
- Open the webpage where the link exists that you want to check for nofollow or dofollow status.
- If you see red border around the link, it means the link is nofollow
- If you don’t see red border around the link, it means the link is dofollow
Do nofollow links help SEO?
Nofollow links do not directly help SEO in terms of improving your search engine ranking.
This is because Google does not pass PageRank or other link metrics through nofollow links.
But nofollow links can help SEO indirectly in many other ways, such as generating referral traffic and contributing to a natural link profile.
What are the benefits of nofollow links?
Following are the few benefits of getting nofollow links.
Referral Traffic:
Nofollow links can still drive referral traffic to your website if users click on them.
If the link is placed on a popular or relevant website, it can attract visitors who are genuinely interested in your content, products, or services.
Natural Link Profile:
Search engines like it when your website has different kinds of links.
When you have both dofollow and nofollow links, it looks more natural to them.
It shows that you are not doing anything tricky or trying to cheat the system with your links.
Diversified Traffic Sources:
It’s not safe to rely only on dofollow links for traffic.
To be safer, try getting traffic from different places, including nofollow links.
This way, you won’t depend too much on search engine rankings alone.
Why to use nofollow links?
Using nofollow links can be beneficial for various reasons:
Avoiding Search Engine Penalties:
Nofollow links can protect your website from receiving penalties from search engines, especially when your website is linked to low-quality or spammy websites.
Complying with Guidelines:
Search engines, like Google, recommend using nofollow links in certain situations, such as sponsored content or paid advertisements, to follow best practices and avoid violating their guidelines.
Balanced Link Profile:
Maintaining a mix of dofollow and nofollow links creates a balanced and natural link profile, which can be seen positively by search engines.
Positive User Experience:
Using nofollow links responsibly shows your audience that you are being honest.
It tells them that you’re not trying to cheat or trick search engines.
This can make people trust your brand more and feel more confident about it.
When to nofollow a link?
You should consider using the “nofollow” attribute for a link in the following situations:
Paid Links and Sponsored Content:
If you have sponsored content or paid links on your website, use the nofollow attribute.
This also applies to affiliate links and advertisements.
Making these links nofollow means search engines won’t give authority to those linked websites, and it follows the rules set by search engines.
User-Generated Content:
When people add content to your website, like comments or forum posts, it’s smart practice to use nofollow for the links they put in.
This stops bad or low-quality links from hurting your website’s SEO.
Untrusted Content or User-Submitted Links:
If you are not sure if a link is good or legitimate, it’s safer to use the nofollow attribute.
This is true for links from contact forms, emails, or anything else you can’t fully trust or control.
Unverified Guest Posts:
If you publish guest posts on your website from external authors, consider using the nofollow attribute for the links within those posts.
This helps stop any tricky link-building tricks and shows that you don’t support harmful or irrelevant websites.
Unreliable or Low-Quality Websites:
If you link to websites with a bad reputation or iffy content, it’s smart to use the nofollow attribute.
This tells search engines that you don’t support or trust those websites.
Non-Editorial Links:
If you add links for things like site-wide footer links or widgets, use the nofollow attribute.
This stops passing too much link power to those links.
Crawl Priority:
If you want to keep search engines away from certain pages or parts of your website, you can use the nofollow attribute for the links on those pages.
Should you add nofollow to internal links?
Generally, it is not recommended to add nofollow to internal links. Internal links are links that link to other webpages on your own website.
When you link one webpage of your website to another webpage using an internal link with a “nofollow” attribute, Google’s bot does not follow that link from one webpage to another.
As a result, the link juice (the authority or ranking power) is not passed from one page to the other. This means that the linked webpage doesn’t receive any SEO benefit from the linking page.
But you can use a nofollow internal link if you don’t want Google to follow that link and pass the link juice to another page.
Is it good to have no follow links?
It is not bad to use nofollow links.
They can be beneficial in a number of ways, such as referral traffic, avoiding penalties, and maintaining a balanced link profile.
What is the difference between nofollow and follow links?
The main difference between nofollow and follow AKA dofollow links is that nofollow links do not allow search engines to follow and pass PageRank to the linked website, while dofollow links do.