One of the most important processes for increasing online visibility is linkbuilding, i.e. acquiring links that direct to the promoted site. There are two ways in which sites can be 'linked' to each other. The first way is by linking using a dofollow link, the second by using a nofollow link. While both types of links achieve the same goal of linking from the source site to the target site, they tell the search engine two different things. Read in our article today what is nofollow attribute, how it differs from noindex and its importance for SEO.
Definition and brief history of the nofollow attribute
The simplest definition is that links with a nofollow attribute are links that (in theory) Google should not follow or pass authority to. In contrast to nofollow links, dofollow passes the authority of the source site to the target site. This transfer of authority is referred to as linkjuice. The acquisition of dofollow backlinks is important from the point of view of SEOas it helps to improve a site's authority and search engine ranking. The dofollow attribute is the default attribute of a link.
Google has introduced the rel="nofollow" option in January 2005 for bloggers who were struggling with users spamming links in comments. Until 2019, the use of an attribute clearly indicated to the Google bot not to follow a given link and that such a link had no impact on the position of the linked page.
What has changed from autumn 2019? Google has introduced two further attributes: rel="ugc" and rel="sponsored"which, in a way, specify the use of nofollow. As you can guess, rel="sponsored" is used to mark paid links, such as those in sponsored articles published on external portals. In turn, rel="ugc" should be used to mark links placed in comments and posts by users (UGC is an acronym for User Generated Content).
So what is left for rel="nofollow"? When to use this tag? When you want the link you are placing to be ignored by bots, but your situation does not fit either the use of rel="ugc" or rel="sponsored".
Google suggests also to use the nofollow attribute for external sites that we do not fully trust, do not want them to be linked to ours in any way and do not want to pass ranking power to them.
Does the nofollow attribute matter for linkbuilding and SEO?
Thanks to links, search engine bots can see the relationship between sites. They move from one site to another using dofollow links, bypassing nofollow links. However, nofollow links can also increase the value of a site, although they are considered by some in the SEO industry to be completely worthless. Experiments and tests were carried outThe study showed that sites promoted solely with nofollow links can also achieve high rankings in Google.
Of course, we do not recommend limiting ourselves to these alone, however nofollow links should be a natural part of the so-called balanced link profile of the site. If you are developing a linkbuilding strategy, it is a good idea to have nofollow links directing to your site. Google may consider a situation where a site only receives dofollow links as unnatural and suspect you of trying to manipulate the algorithm.
Nofollow links not only diversify the portfolio of backlinks leading to a site. They can also generate traffic and increase brand visibility. Although links from some high-traffic sites are set to nofollow and do not contribute directly to increasing PageRank linked page, can be an excellent source of exercise. All it takes is for users to click a link to visit your site. Such traffic can have an impact on rankings, even if you do not receive linkjuice. Time spent on the site, clicks - this is also what search engines take into account when ranking a site.
Nofollow versus noindex - what is the difference?
Often the term noindex also comes up in discussions about nofollow, so in this section of the article we will look at what it means and how it relates to nofollow.
To understand what the noindex meta tag is, it is necessary to start by explaining what it is Google index. This is the collection of all websites available in the organic search results. It should be noted that NOT all pages that exist on the Internet are indexed by Google. There are only those pages that have been 'visited' by the indexing robot (web crawler) and successfully indexed by it.
Should all pages be included in Google's index? No! Indexing subpages with search results, product filtering results in online shops or others that are created as a result of product personalisation or do not have unique content is a waste of budget crawl. This is the term used to describe the limited capacity of indexing bots, i.e. the number of subpages they can index within a single domain.
It is at this stage that we arrive at the noindex meta tag. This is the most common method of blocking sub-page indexing. It is enough in the section of the page to place the meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noindex">. So as you can see, the difference between nofollow and noindex is substantial. The nofollow attribute results in the links on the page not passing on the reputation of the linked sites, and noindex ensures that the sub-page is not added to Google's index.
How to check if links on a page have the nofollow attribute? Simple instructions
If you want to check whether nofollow tags are being used on a page, you can do this manually - you don't need any tool. To get started, simply navigate to the page in question, right-click and select "display page source". Then press CTRL/COMMAND + F and in the search window that appears, search for the phrase "nofollow". By navigating with the arrows, you can see all the nofollow attributes on the page.
Diversity is important... also in linkbuilding
Invest the time to make sure your site's backlink profile is diverse and healthy. Once you know the basics of how dofollow and nofollow links work, you are ready to put your knowledge into practice. Remember that dofollow links will help build your site's PageRank, but nofollow links can also attract valuable traffic and engagement to your site.
English 
Polish 
German