SEO glossary · N

Nofollow Links

What are Nofollow Links?

A nofollow link is a link with rel="nofollow" in its HTML. It tells search engines that the site doesn’t vouch for the page it links to, and doesn’t want the link to count towards that page’s rankings.

How search engines treat nofollow

Since 2019 Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a strict rule: it may still use the link to discover or understand pages. Google also introduced two more specific values:

rel="sponsored" for paid links, ads and affiliate links
rel="ugc" for links in user-generated content, such as comments and forum posts

When to use nofollow

Links you were paid for, or that were given in exchange for products or services (sponsored or nofollow).
Links added by users that you haven’t checked (ugc or nofollow).
Links to pages you don’t want to endorse.

Nofollow links from other sites still have value: they can send visitors and make your brand known, even if they pass little ranking value. Don’t add nofollow to your own internal links; it doesn’t help steer crawlers.

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