What Is a Nofollow Link? Here's A Simple Plain English Answer
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What Is a Nofollow Link? Here’s A Simple Plain English Answer

Brian Dean

Written by Brian Dean

What Is a Nofollow Link? Here’s A Simple Plain English Answer

This post will break down everything you need to know about nofollow links.

What they are.

Why they’re important.

And whether or not they help with SEO.

Let’s dive right in.

What Are Nofollow Links?

Nofollow links are links with a rel=”nofollow” HTML tag applied to them. The nofollow tag tells search engines to ignore that link. Because nofollow links do not pass PageRank they likely don’t impact search engine rankings.

Nofollow vs. Dofollow Links — What’s the Difference?

The only technical difference between the two is that a nofollow link has a nofollow tag.

Nofollow link – Technical

As a user, it’s impossible to tell the difference between a nofollow and dofollow link. You can click on, copy and use a nofollow link like any other link on the web.

However, when it comes to search engine optimization, there’s a big difference between nofollow and dofollow links.

That difference is this:

Dofollow links help your search engine rankings. Nofollow links (generally) don’t.

I’ll explain:

You see, Google and other search engines use links as a key ranking signal.

Top ranking pages have more backlinks than lower ranking page

However, they only count dofollow links in their algorithm. In fact, according to Google, nofollow links don’t pass any PageRank.

And if a link doesn’t send PageRank (aka “link authority”) your way, it’s not going to help your Google rankings.

(That said, there might be some exceptions to this rule. More on that later.)

That’s why, when it comes to link building, you want to get dofollow links whenever possible.

Let’s quickly look at a real-life example…

Here are two backlinks pointing to my site:

Ahrefs – Backlinko – Backlink

and

Location Rebel – Backlinko – Backlink

The first link is from the homepage of an authority website.

But when you look at the HTML of that page, you can see that the link is nofollow:

Ahrefs – Nofollow backlink

This means that the link isn’t going to help with my SEO.

The second link is from a blog post on a site that doesn’t have nearly as much authority.

However, the link is dofollow:

Location Rebel – Dofollow backlink

This means that link will likely have an impact on my Google rankings.

How Do You Check If a Link is Nofollow?

Here’s how to check if a link is nofollow:

  1. Right click on your browser and click “View page source”.
    View page source
  2. Next, look for the link in the HTML of the page.
    Backlink in source code
  3. If you see a rel=”nofollow” attribute, that link is nofollowed. Otherwise, the link is dofollow.
    Dofollow links

You can also use the “Strike Out Nofollow Links” Chrome extension.

Chrome Webstore – Strike Out Nofollow Links

This handy tool automatically puts a line through any nofollow links on a page:

Strike Out Nofollow Links in action

(That way, you don’t need to manually check the HTML.)

Why Did Search Engines Create the Nofollow Tag?

The nofollow tag was originally created by Google to combat blog comment spam.

As the popularity of blogs grew, so did comment spam. Specifically, spammers would leave links back to their site in the comments:

Spammy comment example

This caused two major problems:

  1. First, spammy sites started to rank really well in Google. This pushed high-quality sites out of the search results.
  2. Because the tactic worked so well, blog comment spam quickly spun out of control.

In 2005, Google helped develop the nofollow tag… and rolled it into their algorithm.

The tag was ultimately adopted by other search engines (like Bing and Yahoo).

What Types of Links Are Nofollow?

Any link that has the nofollow tag is technically a nofollow link.

But in general, inbound links from these sources tend to be nofollow:

  • Blog comments
  • Social media (for example, links in Facebook posts or YouTube video descriptions)
  • Links in forum posts or other forms of user generated content
  • Certain blogs and news sites (like the Huffington Post)
  • Links from “widgets
  • Links in press releases

And these popular websites use the rel=”nofollow” tag on all of their outbound links:

  • Quora
  • YouTube
  • Wikipedia
  • Reddit
  • Twitch
  • Medium

And there’s one more category of links that should be nofollow:

Paid links.

According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, any links that you pay for should be nofollowed (or use the newer “rel=sponsored” attribute).

Google guidelines on nofollow links

(Why? Google wants all of your links to be earned.)

For example, if you pay for a banner ad on a website, Google requires the link in the banner to be nofollowed.

Google banner ads – Nofollow

Otherwise, your site could get penalized by Big G.

Google guidelines – Link schemes

Do Nofollow Links Help With SEO?

Some people say: “Nofollow links have zero impact on SEO”.

And others claim: “Nofollow links aren’t as powerful as dofollow links… but they still help.”

What’s the truth?

First, what does Google say about nofollow links?

“In general, we don’t follow them.”

“In general”?

That implies that they do follow them in certain cases.

Next, let’s look at a really interesting case study.

Adam White wanted to rank his blog for the keyword “backlink software”.

What did he do?

He bought a bunch of nofollowed links from a high-quality site in the SEO space.

And all of those links had “backlink software” as their anchor text.

Backlink software – Anchor text

So: what happened?

His ranking shot up from #19… to #1 in Google for his target keyword.

Number 1 ranking for target keyword

Third, let’s check out another cool little experiment.

This time, the head of SEO at SurveyMonkey decided to answer the question: “Does Google actually follow nofollow links”.

Internet Marketing Ninjas – Link building – New case study

To find out, he added a nofollow link to one of SurveyMonkey’s 404 pages.

SurveyMonkey – 404 page with link

That link led to a page that wasn’t indexed yet.

In theory, Google should ignore that link.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, Google followed the link… and indexed the page within 48 hours.

Finally, let’s check out the results from an industry study that analyzed factors that influence the “power” of a backlink.

Ahrefs – Links with traffic – Study

And they discovered that both dofollow and total backlinks (including nofollow links) had similar impact on rankings.

How rankings correlate with backlink metrics

Bottom Line? Nofollow links seem to have some SEO value… especially if those links are from related sites. Google may also use anchor text from nofollow links in their algorithm.

What Are the Benefits of Nofollow Links?

Let’s take a look:

1. Nofollow links can directly help with your SEO.

As you just saw, experiments and industry studies have found that nofollow links can lead to higher rankings in Google. Although the data isn’t clear on that.

2. Nofollow links can bring you traffic.

Don’t forget: the right nofollow link can send targeted traffic to your site.

For example, I posted this to Facebook a while back:

Brian Facebook post

As you can see, it has a nofollow link to my site.

Brian Facebook post – Nofollow link

Will this type of nofollow link help with my SEO?

Probably not.

That said, the link sent me 2,745 visitors:

Brian Facebook post – Visitors

The same approach applies to leaving helpful blog comments.

Even though they’re nofollow, comment links can send you a decent chunk of targeted traffic.

(Especially if you’re one of the first people to comment on the post.)

For example, when I first started my blog, I left helpful comments on SEO and marketing blogs.

Brian site comment

And these comments brought me a handful of targeted visitors.

Brian site comment – Visitors

3. Nofollow links can = dofollow links.

A nofollow from a popular site can lead to dozens of dofollow links.

I’ll explain with an example…

A while back I wrote a guest post for Noah Kagan’s blog.

OkDork – Brian's guest post

I’m not 100% sure why, but Noah nofollows all of his outbound links…

….including the link back to my site.

OkDork – Nofollow backlink

So, is that link totally worthless?

Fortunately not.

I got a boatload of referral traffic from that post.

Backlinko – OKDork guest post – Traffic increase

But more important than that:

Lots of people that found me from that post ended up linking to me:

Backlinko – OKDork guest post – New links

(With dofollow links.)

And those dofollow links did help my rankings in the SERPs.

Let’s look at one more example…

A while back I published a massive Google ranking factors study.

Backlinko – Search engine ranking

Thanks to a successful PR campaign, my study got mentioned on Forbes.com.

Backlinko – Google Ranking Factors study – Forbes mention

But that link was… nofollow.

Backlinko – Forbes link – Nofollow

Fortunately, lots of people read my study thanks to that nofollow link.

And those people cited my study on their blog… with dofollow links:

Ahrefs – Backlinks to Google Ranking Factors study

4. Nofollow links are part of a natural link profile.

If your link profile looks unnatural, you’re at risk for a Google penalty. To avoid such penalties, you can undertake a simple but detailed backlink audit on your site. A domain with quality backlinks ranks higher.

Search Engine Land – Link profile analysis

As it turns out, nofollow links are an important part of a natural link profile.

For example, look at YouTube.

According to Semrush, 23% of their links are nofollow.

Nofollow – Backlinks – YouTube

That’s not to say that you need 23% of your links to be nofollow.

It just goes to show that natural link profiles have a decent amount of nofollow links.

What’s the Difference Between Nofollow and Noindex?

The noindex directive is a metatag that you add to certain pages on your website. This tag tells search engines to not add a specific page to their index.

Noindex links

On the other hand, nofollow links tell search engines to not follow a particular link. So if you don’t want a page indexed, a nofollow link isn’t going to work. Use the noindex tag instead.

How Do I Use Nofollow Links on My Site?

Short answer: it depends on the technology your site runs on.

For example, if your site uses WordPress, all blog comment links automatically have the nofollow attribute.

Backlinko blog comment – Nofollow

There are also WordPress plugins that can make all of your links nofollow.

WordPress plugin – Nofollow for external link

Otherwise, it’s a matter of working with a developer to manually or automatically add the rel=”nofollow” tag to your external links.

Now It’s Your Turn

Now I’d like to hear from you:

What’s your experience with nofollow backlinks?

Or maybe you have a question about something.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

86 Comments

  1. Bill Avatar Billsays:

    Hi Brian,

    Good post. My thought is as long as Nofollow brings referral traffic, then it should not be an issue.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Well said, Bill. I agree

  2. Thanks – this is a pretty interesting scenario.
    I agree that No Follow links do not pass value. I do, however, agree that they can be seen as an authority single and indirectly increase rankings.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Mia. I agree. There might be a small direct ranking factor in the algo in certain circumstances that “count” nofollow links. But for the most part they’re more for getting people to go to your site via that link.

  3. This was posted just in time!

    Thanks Brian, I was wondering about whether nofollow links actually help or not and whether only follow links make your site look spammy or not.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to help, Veronika.

  4. Darren Avatar Darrensays:

    Hi Brian, I’m a newbie so please bear with me…would it be logical to just use a plug-in to make all your links No Follow (so you don’t get penalized by “Big G”) and manually go in and change the links you want indexed? Or, is that not necessary? I hope I’m asking this question correctly:)

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Darren, I only recommend nofollowing blog comments and other similar links. There’s no need to nofollow legit sites that you link out to.

  5. Awesome Brian! All my life I have been always thinking that nofollow is worthless and I get discouraged every time I get a nofollow link but after reading this I feel relief.

    Thanks a lot for your insights.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ricardo. Nofollow links definitely aren’t as powerful as dofollow links. But they have some value for sure.

  6. Good to see I’m not the only one who appreciates nofollow links. I’ve always rolled my eyes at people who don’t. One thing I’ve always asked them is something like this – If you could get a link from the New York Times, but it was nofollow, would you take it? Oh, you would? Of course you would. But I thought nofollow links are worthless… 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      HA! Exactly, Sam.

  7. Hi Brian, Big fan!

    We have some quality inbound links to our site. Occasionally we link back to their site, especially when it is a media source awarding or recommending our trips and services in an article. To not lose the link juice from the inbound, is it best to nofollow our link back to their domain? Thanks in advance.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hey David, good question. I’d still link back with a dofollow. It’s not anything shady (like a link exchange), so you can use a dofollow link.

  8. I’m wondering how this applies to paid directory sites like Yelp. They obviously get high rankings in google. Do I need to have no follow links for our paid members -in our niche community/membership site? They are legit businesses.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sandra, it depends. If they’re paying for a link, then yes. But in most cases, they’re paying for a listing of some kind that also includes a link. There’s nothing shady about that so you probably don’t need to nofollow those links.

  9. As someone who works for a company that posts 3-6 onsite and offiste blogs each for clients’ SEO (each client is a dentists in different cities, although some are in similar cities) how do these customers rank well even though most of the blogs we post are A. duplicate content and B. nofollow links (medium, penzu, blogger, tumblr…)?

    Any thoughts, Brian?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hey John, it’s hard to say for sure what’s happening because there are probably some dofollow links in there too. If the site was rankings with 100% nofollow links that would be really interesting to look at.

  10. Hi Brian!

    Thanks for the helpful article. I’m new to blogging (seriously, only two posts so far), so please forgive if this is a dumb question. If I just do a plain link will it automatically turn itself into dofollow?

    Thanks in advance!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Claudia, that’s not a dumb question at all. Yes, plain links are automatically dofollow

  11. Hi Brian – are there any cases (besides money changing hands) where you would want to make outbound links from your site nofollow? Specifically, my job website has dofollow outlinks to thousands of employers. Any reason(s) to make thise nofollow? Tks!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Chris, I’d definitely nofollow any comments that are from user generated content (like links in a forum or in a comments section of a website).

  12. Hi Brian,
    Thank you for this valuable article about nofollow links. I am slowly studying SEO and always end up here in your blog every time I searched keyword related to SEO. You are really one of my inspirations as I build my career online.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Francis

  13. Interesting, that’s a great dive into the dofollow and nofollow differences. I didn’t expect that the nofollow still had value. But It makes sense why they can be great, given they come from a site with a high amount of traffic that will actually follow a nofollow (ironic, isn’t it).

    Thanks for the article

  14. Hey Brian,

    OK, I’m a SEO dope and I am still trying to get a basic hold on this follow/nofollow thing. In my case I haven’t made any sponsored posts on other sites and we have only had few sponsored posts on our own site. So THAT issue doesnt come up often. But here are my questions:
    1. I write a post for our blog that contains links to other posts on the blog – those are “dofollow”, right?
    2. If I link to a reference post on another site, or to a product we mention, should THOSE links be “nofollow”?

    Thanks!

    1. Hakim Avatar Hakimsays:

      As Brian stated in a previous replay top about Darren’s comment (the 4th one) he said

      “There’s no need to nofollow legit sites that you link out to.”

  15. Charlie Brook Avatar Charlie Brooksays:

    Hey Brian! A couple of questions: I just got a link from Elite Daily, which is listed as ‘noopener noreferrer’. From my understanding, these kinds of links should still help you with SEO. Is this correct?

    However, when I go into Ahrefs, it lists the link as nofollow…which I find strange because the link isn’t attributed this way. This was only last week so perhaps Ahrefs needs to recalibrate? Or is this link really nofollow?

    Thanks!

  16. Hi Brian, I just started out with SEO and I’ve started by reading your content. I am just trying to gather as much knowledge as I can before I start working on my blog. So this might not a correct question but anyway: If I put dofollow link on my blog post to an external website, will I be losing my site ranking because of this?

  17. It says in plain english. And in the first sentance you write *rel=nofollow…html.blah blah.. instantly talking language from another planet. Everything else made no sense after that because we non computer literate people still had no idea of a nofollow link.. we can make out enough of a do follow link given it is self explanitory really. *Hey there, this link will take you somewhere that this text is saying*. See , pretty easy.. but nofollow links????? We dont know if it is just text on a page or if it is a link to nowhere or if it is just bold text in a paragraph. Still no idea..

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      HI Wayne, this is as plain English as I could make it. SEO is a technical topic so it require some basic computer literacy to understand.

  18. So glad I stumbled upon this article. I was under the impression that nofollow links are somewhat necessary to keep a natural link profile, but never really understood why. Now that I’ve seen some case studies it makes so much more sense.

    And if you think about it from the vantage point of the user, it’s really not that hard at all: does the link and the way it’s presented appealing to their interest and desire? If so, the chance of it benefiting you is much higher than if you just throw in a link out of nowhere.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Thomas, exactly: I barely even check if a link is nofollow these days. I’ll take any link as long as it’s from a relevant site that can send me some targeted traffic.

  19. Great post, Brian. Thank you for the info. I learn something new from your site everyday.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi George you’re welcome. I’m glad it helped.

  20. I have always been a believer that if you cant get a dofollow, settle for a nofollow to get referral traffic and also for link profile. Thanks for the post Brian, it has confirmed and settled an argument in the office today 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to help, Andrew.

  21. jan Avatar jansays:

    thanks a lot for the great content. so if you do outbound links (ex: mobile repair company links to apple) would you set the link on nofollow or on dofollow? in another post you said to use 2-5 outbound links per page but i dont know whether to set it on follow, nofollow or a mix 🙂 would appreciate your comment. thanks and greetings

  22. Love your articles and YouTube channel! I’ve been blogging and Tubing for a long time but only just started to learn about what I can do for SEO on my own (as a non techie person). I get asked almost daily to accept paid and non paid guest posts from marketing companies and from individual products whose marketing people may reach out to me. Does accepting guest posts dilute the strength of my ranking if they require a dofollow link? And it looks like if I do accept a guest post, it violates G’s terms? That said, what about sponsored posts?

  23. Thanks for the article, I was surprized to learn about the experiments done with NF links. Is this information still valid today?

  24. Hi Brian,

    Great article. There is so much to learn from your insights. I just wanted to know if you had a chance to re-visit the study this year and if things have changed in the past year?

  25. Hi,

    Really interesting article.

    I just “accidentally” learned about nofollow back links today.

    I was bored at work so I entered my site’s name wealthbuildertips.com to Niel Patel’s Ubersuggest.

    Then I was happy to see I have backlinks! But then I saw I only have 3 dofollow links and most of them are nofollow links. (I am just a 1 year old site doing my best to improve my domain score)

    Anyway, I did some research and I ended up in your article, which by the way is really helpful.

    Okay, so in my investigation most of my nofollow links are from comments I made to blogs (such as this since I entered my website details) but I realize there is one site that I can leave a comment and put my URL and it results to a dofollow link count.

    This site has a domain score of 90 (based from ubersuggest).

    Here is my question for you.

    Does it mean if I engage “more” on the site that gives me dofollow link, then I’ll get to build a strong backlink score? Or Google will just say.. meh this guy is spamming the same domain name?

    One more.

    Yes, I understand Social Media use nofollow links, but I wonder why all of my social media post didn’t register in ubersuggest’s nofollow link section.

    Arghhh..

    I hope it make sense to you what I am asking about.

    Anyway.

    Thanks for your article!

  26. What is the impact of Noopener and Noreferrer on a site SEO? Btw great post 🙂

  27. Great article Brian, came to re-read and get my head around rel =”nofollow” in the wake of Google’s announcement about adding “sponsored” and “ugc” to the tag mix (ugh.) https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en

    Any chance you’ll be updating this article at some point to reflect these changes?
    (FWIW, I intend to ignore “ugc” until there’s some solid data, and to tag my current affiliates links with rel=”sponsored nofollow”, as soon as I pull my finger out. 😉

    Thanks for sharing such great information, when ever I’m doing a SEO related search and see one of your pages in the results, I always visit, and you never disappoint.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Jo-Ann, I do intend to update this article to reflect that announcement from Google. With 2 new tags to work with, this post definitely needs a big update (and maybe even 2 additional posts about “sponsored” and “ugc”.

  28. Dharmendra Sharma Avatar Dharmendra Sharmasays:

    Thanks Brian! This nofollow thing was troubling me for some time. Other websites did not explain so well with examples and pictures. Now I’m much more informed on both nofollow and dofollow. 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍👍👍

  29. Brian, ever tested negative SEO attacks? i.e. tons of links from spammy sites. Google says it’s not something to worry about, but they have a Disavow Backlinks tool. Hmmm

  30. Thank you, Brian. I just loved the explanation. This is the first time I understood the difference. Thanks again! Keep up the great work! 🙂

  31. Hi Brian, thank you so much for the post! You have cleared all my doubts. I can confirm that nofollow links impact SEO as well. They might not be nearly as strong as dofollow links but they do help.

    I have seen nofollow links push the rankings. I was working with a website and I wanted to hit the first page for a specific keyword. We were on #23 for that keyword.

    I started building links. Most of these links were from high-authority and niche-relevant forum posting and blog postings. 2 links were from free publishing sites (high-authority but nofollow. Hubpages, for example).

    And after 37 days, we were on #6 spot. Now, the keyword was not too competitive. But I think I had nofollow links to thank!

  32. I’ve always thought no follow links are useless! Thanks for this post! Now I’ll work hard for those no-follow links as well!

  33. Thank you for this informative, yet easy-to-understand post! I’m brand spanking new to the SEO world and this was so helpful.

  34. Sarah Avatar Sarahsays:

    Hi Brian, thank you for this article. I have been reading numerous articles on dofollow and nofollow links and this has definitely been the most insightful so far!

    I write blogs on a small local cleaning webiste’s page. The majority of links are inbound, to other blog posts we’ve written and relevant service pages etc. At the moment I have these as non follow, is that correct?

  35. Thank you for getting this to rank #1 on Google so the first choice is an actual useful and thorough article explaining all this. I’ll bookmark this and look forward to updates about the new “sponsor nofollow” tags coming into play soon. Thanks again and best regards.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Joe. I guess I earned that #1 spot!

  36. Hi Brian, thank you for this article. I have been reading numerous articles on dofollow and nofollow links and this has definitely been the most insightful so far!

  37. Hi Brian, really helpful blog post. Thank you! Can nofollow link hurt websites ranking?

  38. Hi Brian, thank you! Maybe you also know whether ‘noreferrer’ ‘noopener’ links add any value?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Julia, you’re welcome. Yes, those still add value.

  39. Good explanation Brian, I have been following your posts for a couple of months and learned a lot.

    I just wanted to know that if I’m creating any external links to any good site then which is best to have Nofollow attribute or Dofollow attribute? Should we use Nofollow attribute to the infographics that we use from other websites? Please help me out.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      I recommend using dofollow for all editorial links.

  40. Thanks Brian for a really interesting article. Was just searching for a more concrete answer on this subject. I actually was of the belief that nofollow links did increase rankings before i read the post. I still believe they do, but in a much more indirect way – as you write: they help make the overall link profile as natural as possible, and I believe that is the main takeaway. A strong website will have a certain percentage nofollow links.
    Greetings from Denmark

  41. I am following Brian for a few years now, because of his approach in SEO field, being different from others. Explaining with details and examples is the best way for people to understand the intent, and he does exactly that. One thing i don’t understand is there any benefit for a starter site to link to a trusted site? I also hope you will write an article or perhaps update this article with the new rel sponsor&ugc attributes.

    1. Thank you for clarifying a normally not so clear subject.

      Q: What do you consider a healthy balance/ratio between nofollow/dofollow back links ?

  42. may I approach for promoting my website Whereas help to nature and earth?

  43. Your work is great, but what about Earth Savior blogs and news, I heard niche matters, my niche is Earth Savior,
    Reusable Home Care Products, please can you add them to the lists. I will check back, thank you!

  44. Hi Brian, thanks for this article, I was confused about the value no follow links may have for SEO. I love the fact that you always have case studies to support your claims. It clarifies all concepts in a much better way.

  45. Hello Brian,

    I am new to blogging, and I’m using 3-7 relevant to my content affiliate links to other sites products and services. I’ve heard you can be down ranked or worse for having to many affiliate links, but no one can give me a number of what’s too many.
    Should I use nofollow for my affiliate links? If I do would that reduce the chance of penalty for having multiple affiliate links?
    Also I’m wanting to put one side bar banner up to showcase my favorite affiliate site I’m a member of, should that be nofollow?
    Sorry to ask so many questions and I really appreciate your time. Thank you for your very informative posts

  46. Oh guy, rel is not a tag, it is called attribute of a tag, and nofollow is a value of rel attribute

  47. Hi Brian,

    Thanks fot this great article.

    I have a question for you: I’m writing a big piece of content that links to various sources.

    Should these links use the rel=no-follow attribute?

    Or it doesn’t matter?

    Thanks,

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      It’s ultimately up to you. But I prefer to keep all editorial links like that dofollow.

      1. Laurent Avatar Laurentsays:

        That’s what I did, thanks 🙂

  48. So if I leave a comment here below and my website… is that a no-follow link or a follow link?

  49. Very interesting article Brian.

    When I do a search for backlinks to my site I get different results if I leave the www. off and just put mysite dot com into the search.

    Do you know why that is?
    R.G. Ramsey

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      What search are you using?

  50. Hello Brian,

    Amazing comparison between dofollow and nofollow links. I have personally done some experiments and find it relevant to your research. I think If we get nofollow links from the high authority sites then it will definitely boost up the ranking of a website. Thanks again for sharing these valuable tips.

    Have a Great day 🙂
    Vishwajeet Kumar

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