What Is a Nofollow Link?
A nofollow link is a link marked with rel="nofollow", which tells search engines that the site does not want to vouch for the page it links to or pass ranking credit to it. Visitors see and click it like any other link; the attribute is read only by crawlers. Since 2019 Google treats nofollow, and the newer sponsored and ugc values, as hints rather than strict instructions, and it asks sites to choose the value that describes why the link is there.
<a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">example</a>From Directive to Hint
In its September 10, 2019 announcement, Google recalled: “Nearly 15 years ago, the nofollow attribute was introduced as a means to help fight comment spam.” It then introduced two more specific values. The change came in two steps:
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| September 10, 2019 | For ranking, <!–INLINECODE4–>, <!–INLINECODE5–>, and <!–INLINECODE6–> began working as hints |
| March 1, 2020 | For crawling and indexing, <!–INLINECODE7–> also became a hint |
The announcement put the first step this way: “All the link attributes, sponsored, ugc, and nofollow, now work today as hints for us to incorporate for ranking purposes.” It also said there is “absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.”
Choosing the Right Attribute
Google’s guide to qualifying outbound links defines each value:
| Value | Use it for | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| <!–INLINECODE8–> | Advertisements and paid placements | Ads, sponsored posts, affiliate links, paid reviews |
| <!–INLINECODE9–> | Links inside user-generated content | Comments, forum posts, community reviews |
| <!–INLINECODE10–> | Other links you do not want associated with your site | A link you must host but do not endorse |
| None | Regular editorial links | A source you cite and trust |
The guide’s wording for nofollow: “Use the nofollow value when other values don’t apply, and you’d rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl the linked page from, your site.” For paid links, nofollow “was previously recommended for these types of links and is still an acceptable way to flag them, though sponsored is preferred.” For user content, Google notes that you “might remove this attribute from links posted by members or users who have consistently made high-quality contributions over time.”
Values can be combined “as a space- or comma-separated list,” for example rel="ugc nofollow" for a user-submitted link you also do not want to vouch for.
What Nofollow Does Not Do
- It does not hide the link from visitors or remove it from the page.
- It does not guarantee that Google never visits the destination. Google’s guide states that such links “will generally not be followed,” and adds: “Remember that the linked pages may be found through other means, such as sitemaps or links from other sites, and thus they may still be crawled.”
- It does not cleanse a paid link scheme. Google’s spam policies allow paid links “as long as they are qualified” with a
rel="nofollow"orrel="sponsored"attribute value, but the policies still apply to links arranged to manipulate rankings. - It is not a crawl control for your own site. Putting
nofollowon internal links does not keep Google away from those pages, since it can reach them through other links or the sitemap.
Keeping Your Own Pages Out of Search
Two different tools do two different jobs:
- To stop Google from crawling a URL, use a robots.txt
disallowrule. A blocked URL can still be indexed without its content if other pages link to it. - To keep a page out of Google’s index, use a
noindexrule. Google must be able to crawl the page to see that rule, so do not also block it in robots.txt.
nofollow on internal links does neither job reliably.
Why Nofollow Links Still Have Value
A nofollow link from a well-read publication sends visitors, puts a brand in front of that publication’s readers, and can lead to coverage elsewhere, whatever it passes for ranking. Marking paid and user-generated links correctly also keeps a site within Google’s link spam policies, which matters more than any ranking effect the attributes might have.
Questions About Nofollow
Does a nofollow link ever pass ranking value?
It can. Because Google treats the attribute as a hint, it may use such links as one signal among others, and it publishes no rule for when that happens, so do not count on it either way.
Do many nofollow links on my site hurt it?
No. The spam policies care whether paid links are qualified; for user-generated links, ugc is Google’s recommendation, which a site can lift for trusted contributors. How many qualified links a page has is not the issue.