Nofollow

What it means

Nofollow is a link attribute by which a website tells search engines that it does not vouch for the linked page and does not want to pass credibility to it. It is written into the link code as rel with the value nofollow and is invisible to ordinary visitors; the link works as usual.

In 2019 Google introduced two related attributes: sponsored for paid and advertising links and ugc for user-generated content such as comments and forums. At the same time it began treating all three as hints rather than strict directives, so it decides itself how to handle the link.

The attribute originated as a defence against comment spam, when people posted links to their own sites to improve rankings. Today it is an important part of the rules for link building, because it distinguishes natural recommendations from paid or untrusted links.

How it works in practice

All paid links should carry sponsored or nofollow, for example in native advertising, sponsored articles, affiliate programmes or banner ads. Otherwise search engines may regard them as an attempt to manipulate rankings.

For user-generated content such as comments, reviews or forums, the ugc or nofollow attribute is used. The website thus does not take responsibility for links others insert and reduces the risk of spammers abusing it to obtain backlinks.

In internal linking, nofollow is generally not used. Links between a site's own pages should help search engines discover and understand the content. Keeping pages out of the index is handled by other means, such as the noindex meta tag.

What to watch out for

Nofollow links are not worthless. They bring traffic and brand awareness, and a natural link profile includes them. A site with only dofollow links using exact-match keywords in the anchor text looks suspicious.

Unlabelled paid links breach search engine guidelines and, if discovered, can lead to a manual penalty. When working with media and influencers, it is therefore important to agree on correct link attributes, just as with labelling advertising for readers.