Dofollow vs Nofollow Links: What the Difference Means for SEO

The difference in one minute

A dofollow link is simply a normal HTML link without a rel attribute that restricts it. There is no actual "dofollow" value; the term is SEO shorthand. These links can pass ranking signals (often called link equity or PageRank) to the page they point to.

A nofollow link includes rel="nofollow" (or one of its newer siblings). It tells search engines that the site is not vouching for the linked page or does not want to pass ranking credit.

In HTML, the difference is a single attribute on the anchor tag: a link with rel="nofollow" versus the same link without it.

The three qualifying attributes

In September 2019 Google introduced two attributes alongside nofollow:

• rel="sponsored": for links that are advertisements, sponsorships or other paid placements.
• rel="ugc": for links in user-generated content, such as comments and forum posts.
• rel="nofollow": for any other case where you do not want to imply endorsement or pass ranking credit.

You can combine them, for example rel="nofollow sponsored". Google said that nofollow remains acceptable for paid links, but sponsored is preferred.

There is also the page-level meta robots nofollow directive, which applies to every link on a page. It is rarely the right tool; use link-level attributes instead.

Hints, not rules: what changed in 2019-2020

Before 2019, Google treated nofollow as a directive: it generally did not follow or credit those links.

With the 2019 announcement, Google moved to treating nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints for ranking. From March 1, 2020, nofollow also became a hint for crawling and indexing. That means Google may choose to use a nofollow link as a signal, or to crawl the linked page, in some cases.

Practically:

• A nofollow link from a highly relevant, authoritative page may carry some value, but you should not count on it for rankings.
• A dofollow link is still the type more likely to pass ranking signals.
• Google can also choose to ignore dofollow links it considers unnatural.

Why nofollow links are still worth having

Plenty of the web's most visible links are nofollow or ugc, including links from many large user-generated platforms such as Wikipedia, Reddit, GitHub READMEs, Medium and Quora. Those links:

• Send real visitors if they sit on pages people read.
• Help discovery: search engines may crawl the linked page.
• Build brand familiarity, which leads to branded searches and direct visits.
• Influence AI answers: mentions in widely read threads and articles shape how AI tools describe products. See how to get recommended by ChatGPT.
• Make your profile look natural. A link profile with zero nofollow links is unusual and can look engineered.

A Reddit answer that sends 200 qualified visitors a month is worth more to most startups than a dofollow link no one ever clicks.

When you must use sponsored or nofollow

Google's spam policies treat links that are bought or exchanged for ranking purposes as link spam. If a link involves payment, free products, a service exchange, or any compensation, Google expects it to be qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".

Common cases:

• Paid sponsorships, advertorials and banner ads.
• Affiliate links.
• Links in content written in exchange for a free product.
• Links in press releases distributed through paid wires.
• Links in comments and forum posts on your own site (use ugc).

For more on the risks of unqualified paid links, read buying backlinks: risks and safe alternatives.

How to check if a link is nofollow

1. Right-click the link and choose Inspect in your browser.
2. Look at the highlighted anchor element. If it has a rel attribute containing nofollow, sponsored or ugc, it is qualified. If there is no rel attribute, or only values like noopener or noreferrer, it is a normal (dofollow) link.
3. Also check the page's meta robots tag in the page source for a page-wide nofollow.
4. For many links at once, backlink tools report the attribute of each link, and browser extensions can highlight nofollow links on a page.

Note that noopener and noreferrer are security and privacy attributes; they do not affect how search engines treat the link.

What a natural mix looks like

There is no official ratio. In practice, healthy profiles contain a mix: editorial dofollow links from articles and resources, plus nofollow and ugc links from social platforms, forums, comments, Q&A sites and some directories.

For a new site, focus on:

• Dofollow editorial links from relevant sites, which are the ones most likely to move rankings. See how to get backlinks for a new website.
• Nofollow links that bring visitors: community answers, GitHub, launch platforms.
• Correctly qualified paid placements when you pay for exposure.

Do not reject a link opportunity just because it is nofollow, and do not accept a dofollow link just because it is dofollow. Judge each one by relevance and real audience. Our backlinks service dashboard lists every placement with its URL so you can check attributes yourself.

Qualifying your own outbound links

If you run a blog or a SaaS site, you also need to mark your own links correctly:

• Affiliate links: rel="sponsored" (or nofollow). Many affiliate plugins can add this automatically.
• Sponsored posts and paid placements you publish: rel="sponsored" on every link the sponsor asked for.
• Comments, forums and user profiles: rel="ugc", usually configurable in your CMS or forum software.
• Normal editorial citations: no qualifier. Linking to good sources is useful to readers and is not a risk.
• Links you are unsure about (for example, a partner who asked for a link): use nofollow if the relationship involves any compensation.

Google's spam policies apply to selling links too. Sites that sell unqualified links can receive a manual action for unnatural outbound links.