Nofollow Link
A nofollow link includes a rel="nofollow" attribute that instructs search engines not to pass ranking authority to the destination page. Common on paid placements, social media, user-generated content, and news sites.
Nofollow was introduced by Google in 2005 to fight comment spam. The rel="nofollow" attribute tells crawlers: "I'm linking to this page, but don't count this as an endorsement." In 2019, Google expanded the system with two more attributes: rel="sponsored" for paid or affiliate links, and rel="ugc" for user-generated content like forum posts and comments.
Google now treats nofollow links as "hints" rather than hard directives — meaning it may still pass some crawl signals or indirect authority through them at its discretion. This is a technical nuance that rarely changes practical decisions, but it means nofollow isn't a complete authority blocker the way it was originally designed to be.
The practical implication: don't automatically reject a link-building opportunity because it results in a nofollow link. High-authority nofollow links from major publications still drive direct referral traffic, brand impressions, and indirect authority signals. A Forbes mention with a nofollow link can outperform a dofollow link from an obscure blog in real business terms.
Nofollow links also contribute to a natural-looking backlink profile. A site with only dofollow backlinks looks like it was built through manipulation rather than earned organically. Press releases, social shares, and directory listings typically generate nofollow links — and a healthy backlink profile contains both.
Knowing a link is nofollow correctly sets expectations for its SEO value — it won't directly move rankings, but referral traffic and brand exposure from high-authority nofollow sources can justify the effort
Sponsored content, paid placements, and affiliate links must carry nofollow or sponsored attributes — failing to mark them correctly risks manual action from Google for link scheme violations
A natural backlink profile mixes dofollow and nofollow links — monitoring the ratio helps detect unnatural patterns that could attract algorithmic scrutiny
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Full glossaryDofollow Link
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