What Is (A) Nofollow?
Nofollow is an indication that can be added to a link to tell search engines you recommend they not follow that link. Basically to tell them not to pay attention to that link at all.
In practice search engines do follow the link but in most cases remove that mention of the link from their ranking calculations.
It is used to identify:
- unimportant or useless links on your site. A good example is a register link: Google can't register so why have them follow the link?
- links for which you are paid links, such as ads or sponsored links.
- content you can't trust. Usually links people can add to a comment form or their user profile on your site.
History Of Nofollow
Originally, the nofollow attribute was used on the page-level with a meta tag. It instructed search engines not to follow (crawl) any of the outgoing links on a page. Example:
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow" />
Another way to tell search engines not to follow (crawl) pages was to include them in a robots.txt file.
But it was more difficult to prevent robots from following individual links on a link by link basis. The rel=nofollow attribute allows webmasters to easily instruct the search engine robot to not crawl a link.
Nofollow as a value for a links "rel(ation)=" attribute was introduced in 2005 by Google. Originally, the rel="nofollow" attribute was added to discourage comment spam in blogs.
From the Google Blog:
From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn't a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it's just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.
From Google Content Guidelines:
"Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link."
Nofollow FAQ's
- What's the value or use of using nofollow?
In on-site SEO nofollowing links in your own site can be extremely useful in guiding a search engine crawler.
Proper use on links pointing to other websites can help you keep being perceived as a trusted player.
- Why would I want to use nofollow on a link?
You might want to use nofollow on a link you don't endorse, but has information you want to point to.
On blogs, you may want to give a nofollow link to spam comments and give credit to comments that are well thought out or contribute to your post.
To help not waste the time a search engine crawler spends on your time, nofollow may also be used to block links a search engine has no use following.
- Does a link with nofollow count as a backlink?
In the vast majority of cases it does not count or function as a backlink.
There are some indications that massive use of nofollow, such as on Wikipedia, leaves the consideration up to the discretion of the search engine.
Depending on the source a nofollowed link can still act as a citation. While a nofollowed link from an article on the New York Times has no link ranking value it does carry citation value.
- Does nofollowing a link on a page increase or pagerank?
Nofollowing a link on a page does not increase or decrease the amount of "ranking power" that flows through the other links
- How do I add nofollow?
For more control of your inbound and outbound links, you can add tag rel=nofollow. Example:
<a href="your-url.com " rel="nofollow">Url Name</a>
Many popular blogging and CMS systems, such as Joomla or WordPress, already automatically add nofollow to links in user submitted comments.
- How do I remove nofollow?
In general you don't want to do so.
Plugins and extensions exists for many popular blogging and CMS systems, such as Joomla or WordPress, to either mass remove the nofollow value or to add/remove it on a case by case basis.
- How can I see if a link is nofollow?
For most non-developers the easiest way is to add an extension or plugin to their web browser. The extension will highlight or outline links that are nofollowed.
- Chrome:
- Firefox:
- Opera (* most Chrome extensions work in Opera as well):
* Leader image with photo by Aerofossile2012
This is the best explanation of “nofollow tag” I’ve ever seen! Thank you for this great post!
I’ve been using an SEO plugin and seeing an increased use of nofollow as a result.
I initially only had it on my comments but started adding the tag to internal links such as read more, register, login, home, and others.
I wonder how much spam comenting increases when the dofollow plugins are used in WP. Time to research.
Excellent explanation on No-Follow attribute. I would also add that Yahoo and MSN also are in support of No-follow to defend against the comment spam
quite a good explanation of the attribute, especially for a beginner like me. i do wonder sometimes if no follow links are completely discounted. anyway, i look forward to the next post.
Great explanation of nofollow Shannon, and thank you for explaining this in detail.
The use of nofollow has increased dramatically. I’m seeing sites nofollow all their natural links and dofollowing paid/advertiser links.
Nofollow is a doubled edged sword. While it may help search engines determine which links to not count, it is also being abused. In the end, I believe nofollowed links do pass some SEO benefits. As the abuse of the nofollow tag continues to grow, I believe the importance of these links will as well.
Nofollow tag can be well-used in focusing link juices on a site, either internally or externally. There are links such as contact us which appears twice on a page which in this case may be used to nofollow one of it. If done properly, nofollow can also benefit your internal link juices. Rif Chia
Excellent explanation on No-Follow attribute.Thank you for explaining this in detail.
Matt Cutts said that we should not worry about nofollowing internal links. But link juice is precious, so why waste it on pages that don’t stand a chance of ranking?
This is a great topic Shannon. I am sure your next post on nofollow will spark some more interest as well. 🙂
@Lenen, Letting the cat out of the bag you are 😀
@VMOptions, I agree again VMOptions, will be talking more on this.
Again, thank you all for your comments.
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This is a great explanation on no follow. I have been looking for a post on it.
I have two questions:
1. Does it matter whether it’s counted as a backlink since you won’t get any PR juice anyway?
2. Why would we want to comment on no follow blogs as part of our link building strategy? Isn’t it a waste of time?
Please help.
My tip: Have several pages of articles related to your website’s topic. Use a different keyword search term for each article. For instance, one article might use frequently the term “safe car for girl”, while another might use the term “girl safety”.
it doesnt matter for me to leave comment on nofollow blogs. there are other many ways to building links
I also think that a nofollow link helps. I happen to have only one link to one of my blogs and Google indexed the blog, although that one link was nofollow.
The Google Answer you referenced is all wrong. Per the Specification for Nofollow @ http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow:
“RelNoFollow is an elemental microformat, one of several microformat open standards. By adding rel=”nofollow” to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink SHOULD NOT be afforded any additional weight or ranking by user agents which perform link analysis upon web pages (e.g. search engines). Typical use cases include links created by 3rd party commenters on blogs, or links the author wishes to point to, but avoid endorsing.”
Nofollow is a misnomer. The SEs can and will actually follow the link to the other side. Yahoo Slurp follows the links and is documented on their Search site. Google says they do not follow the link, but I do not really believe that.
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Matt Cutts said that we should not worry about nofollowing internal links. But link juice is precious, so why waste it on pages that don’t stand a chance of ranking?
This is a great topic Shannon. I am sure your next post on nofollow will spark some more interest as well.
Thanks a lot.
It’s true that the nofollow tag doesn’t work in a literal sense, as some engines do follow the links and take into consideration their value, but of course also take into consideration the non-endorsement of the link by the page where it’s located. It’s a foggy area as some engines don’t follow the nofollow tag to it’s intended definition.
There are bunch of debates over the No-Follow attributes over the internet. The basic idea behind is that, if you have no follow attribute, then that link will not pass the page rank. BUT it will surely pass the link juice to your website. Many experts are saying that, getting no-follow link is waste of time but I prefer to acquire them as well. Because link juice and link counts still does matter for higher ranking in SERP. Also if you have balanced link counts of do follow and no follow, it will help you as well for getting higher ranking.
Nofollow links are also good. They are still used by Google to calculate the ranking. I have seen several times my sites ranked like 5 or 6 places higher after adding just one new nofollow backlink.