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Nofollow Link

Tells search engines not to treat a hyperlink as an endorsement or pass ranking credit to the destination page.

If you have ever assumed a nofollow link cannot be crawled or indexed, you already know the old rule no longer holds.

Key points

  • Google has treated nofollow as a hint, not a directive, since 2020.
  • A nofollow link can still drive referral traffic and help search engines discover pages.
  • Use sponsored for paid links and ugc for user-generated content instead of blanket nofollow.
  • Verify a link by inspecting the page source, not just the visible page.
  • Nofollow links do not pass PageRank in the same way as follow links.

A blog comment that still drives traffic

A travel site publishes a guest post with a link to a hotel booking page. The link carries rel="nofollow" because the post is user-generated. The link does not pass PageRank to the booking page, but 120 visitors click through in the first week, and Google crawls the booking page from that link. The page later ranks for a long-tail query on its own merit.

Three situations where nofollow changes your decision

  • Sponsored content Use rel="sponsored" for paid or affiliate links. A blanket nofollow is less specific and may not match Google's expectations for how you classify your outbound links.
  • User-generated content Use rel="ugc" for forum posts, comments, or reviews. This tells Google the content is untrusted without blocking discovery, which is more precise than a generic nofollow.
  • Untrusted links Use nofollow when you cannot vouch for a link's destination, such as in comment sections or wikis. It reduces spam risk without removing the link from the page.

Three ways it goes wrong

  • Assuming no crawl A nofollow link can still be crawled and indexed. The attribute mainly affects how Google evaluates the link for ranking, not crawling, so pages can still be discovered.
  • Zero-value thinking Nofollow links still send referral traffic and can build brand visibility. They are not worthless for SEO, especially when combined with a dofollow link strategy.
  • Blanket replacement Using nofollow everywhere instead of sponsored or ugc misses the nuance Google introduced in 2019. Each value has a specific purpose for link classification.

Common questions

What is a nofollow link?

It is a hyperlink with rel="nofollow" that tells search engines not to pass ranking credit to the destination page.

When to use nofollow links?

Use them for untrusted links you cannot vouch for, such as in comment sections, or as a fallback when sponsored or ugc does not fit.

What is the difference between follow and nofollow links?

A follow link passes PageRank and link equity by default; a nofollow link tells search engines to treat the link as a hint, not an endorsement.

Sources

  1. Google Search Central Official guidance on qualifying outbound links with rel attributes.
  2. Google Search Central Blog Announcement of nofollow as a hint and introduction of sponsored and ugc values.
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