Link Building

    Nofollow Link

    Quick definition

    A nofollow link uses the rel='nofollow' attribute to tell search engines not to pass ranking authority through that link.

    Introduced by Google in 2005 to combat blog comment spam, rel='nofollow' signals that the publisher does not vouch for the destination. Since 2019, Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a strict rule.

    Even though nofollow links don't pass full PageRank, they still drive referral traffic, brand exposure, and a healthier-looking link profile. A site with only dofollow links can actually look unnatural.

    Big-name publications, Wikipedia, Reddit, and most UGC platforms apply nofollow (or rel='ugc' / rel='sponsored') by default. Earn them anyway — they round out your profile and often produce real visitors.

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    Related terms

    Dofollow Link
    A dofollow link is a standard hyperlink that passes PageRank and ranking signals from the source page to the destination page.
    Backlink
    A backlink is an inbound hyperlink from one website to another, used by search engines as a vote of confidence in the destination page.
    Link Profile
    A link profile is the complete picture of all the backlinks pointing to a website, including anchor text distribution, source quality, and link types.

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