Since March 2022, Google treats the “NoFollow” attribute as a cue for indexing and crawling. So this is the ideal time to take a closer look at nofollow links, both internal and external ones. After all, they have many advantages and you can use them in a variety of ways.
In the online discussion about nofollow links and do follow links, it becomes clear that there is confusion within the community about the variety of problems related to nofollow links.
Therefore, this article will elaborate on the basics of nofollow links and provide some link-building tips that every SEO expert or link builder should know.
What are nofollow links?
Google introduced the nofollow option for backlinks in 2005. Back then, the idea was particularly aimed at bloggers, who struggled with people who used comment spam to generate links, hoping to rank for specific keywords.
The nofollow attribute tells search engines not to follow the outbound link being tagged, essentially meaning that the Web site does not endorse the link.
This is what do-follow links and no-follow links look like
A Nofollow link is used in the HTML of your source code. Many CMSs offer a nofollow link option when creating links, but if you have to code them by hand, we have some examples for you.
This is what a do follow link looks like:
<a href=”https://example.com”>Anchor Text Goes Here</a>
And this is what a no-follow looks like:
<a href=”https://example.com” rel=”nofollow”>Anchor Text</a>
Options for nofollow links in Google
In September of 2019, Google announced that two new link attributes will become available. These give web builders and administrators a way to identify a link type to Google.
rel=”sponsored”
For example, Google recommends using the “sponsored” attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of ads or sponsorships. Dat is de voorkeursmethode waar ze om vragen als er voor links is betaald.
Sponsored link attributes look like this:
<a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”sponsored”>Anchor text</a>
rel=”UGC”
While Google recommends marking links generated by users, such as comments and forum posts, as UGC. Do you want to recognize and reward reliable and recognized responders? Then you better remove this attribute from the link.
A user-generated content (UGC) link attribute looks like this:
<a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”ugc”>Anchor text</a>
However, Google recommends using the rel nofollow only in the following way:
Please use the a nofollow link value when other values don’t apply and you don’t want Google to associate your website with or crawl your site’s linked page.
Natural and non-natural internal and external links
Every link that enters your website is evaluated by Google. This determines whether the links look natural. That is, they have a normal link profile with links from relevant websites that contain follow and nofollow links. The number of links also determines how normal the link profile is evaluated.
For anything that looks unnatural, a nofollow tag should be used.
Non-natural links
If Google detects a non-natural or unnatural number of links, they are labeled Unnatural Links. These are links that give the impression that they were not obtained in a clean way, but that there is an attempt to fool the algorithm. Examples include:
- purchased links1exchanged links
- guest posts with lots of keywords and anchor text links
- automatic link building
- directories such as home page links and business directory listings
Recently, Google has been handing out manual actions on outbound links in guest posts. So Google looks at all links coming in and going out from your website.
A nofollow link is used to prevent manual actions from Google, but as of March 1, 2022, that is purely a hint. So you can control Google’s indexing and crawl bots with nofollow.
Should you then use rel=”sponsored” and rel=”UGC”?
Google has somewhat outgrown the original method of nofollow links. Updates like this one from March 2022 are a way to address that old practice. Rel=”ugc” is still a useful feature for bloggers and publishers, but it seems that the sponsored option is not actively inspected currently.
Best to use these other attributes separately from nofollow links:
- UGC you use for comments under blog posts and on forums.
- Sponsored you use for advertorials, paid guest blogs, and paid links.
- A nofollow link is used only when you cannot guarantee the content of a particular link, and the previously mentioned two options do not suffice.
NoFollow links and NoIndex: what’s the difference?
There is some confusion about how to prevent Google from indexing a page. For that, it is important to know the difference between nofollow and no-index.
So nofollow links, as explained above, can be used for individual links. Nofollow links can also be added to the <head> of a page telling search engines not to follow all links on that page.
Then you use this code at the top of your page:
<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” />
If you’re using this code because you want Google not to crawl your pages, you’re going about it the wrong way. This is because it is a way of showing Google that your page does not need to be crawled via a particular link, but that does not stop Google from still crawling the page in its entirety.
If you want Google to skip your page entirely, you should use the Noindex tag.
About the Noindex tag
A no-index tag tells search engines that you don’t want a page to be included in search results. To make sure the noindex does its job, the page must not be blocked by a robots.txt file.
If the page is blocked by a robots.txt file, the crawler will never see the noindex instruction and the page may still show up in search results, for example, if other pages link to it.
You can add noindex in HTML this way:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, follow”>.
So don’t use nofollow anymore to prevent Google from indexing a page. That’s not how it works and may actually work against you in the future.
The difference between crawling, indexing, and ranking
To understand how best to use these attributes, it’s helpful to know the difference between the three main actions Google takes: crawling, indexing, and ranking (or crawling, indexing, and ranking).
- Crawling – Google follows links to discover if there is new or updated content on the Web.
- Indexing – Google neatly categorizes all the content and information that comes from crawling.
- Ranking – Google reviews all that content that comes out of crawling to determine if it matches the search intent, and where in the search results the content belongs.
How do I find nofollow links on my page?
One way to find out if there are no-follow links on a page is to do it manually. Go to a page, use your right mouse button, and choose ‘view source’ or ‘view page source’.
Then use control/command F and search for ‘nofollow’. By using the arrows you can find any nofollow link in the source code.
There are also tools you can use to map links, paid or unpaid.
Are nofollow links good for link building?
Many people believe that link building only matters if you get a do follow link. While quality do-follow links can be great for SEO, there are still clear benefits to getting no-follow links. Here are just a few:
- More traffic on your website – even though many large websites set all outbound links to nofollow links, they still greatly increase traffic.
- Brand awareness – being mentioned on trusted sites that are relevant to your audience is valuable for your awareness.
- Building trust – links on trusted sites contribute to the trust your audience has in you.
- Trust can also build do-follow links.
- No penalty for bad links.
- Right quality traffic – more traffic is nice, but of course, you want visitors who become customers. With nofollow links, sometimes you reach exactly that audience.
Nofollow links in 2023: a new era
So there is definitely still value to be found in the nofollow tag, even in 2023. However, it’s good to know how to use nofollow links in such a way that it actually benefits you. Sometimes other attributes are more applicable.
Moreover, keep in mind that a no-follow link is not the same as noindex. So using the two interchangeably for the same purpose does not achieve much. In fact, it may even work against you.