Understand DoFollow & Nofollow Link: SEO Basics

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Whenever we talk about search engine optimization, some of the common words are noindex, doindex, nofollow, dofollow, meta robots and so on. All the words hold equal importance in the book of SEO. In this post I will be explaining about Nofollow and Dofollow. Especially for newbies who are new to SEO or people who are still not clear about Nofollow or dofollow, this post will be useful.

Did You Know?

Nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct search engines bots that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results and preventing spamdexing from occurring in the first place. This is a concept introduced by Matt Cutts and Jason Shellen in the year 2005.

What Is The Difference between NoFollow & Dofollow

Nofollow links attributes do not allow search engine bots to follow link.That means if the website owner is linking back to you with nofollow attributes, it does not pass on link juice. Only Humans will be able to follow the links. Though some time back Google made it clear that they don’t consider nofollow link attributes but weightage of such links are really less. Even though, it’s a good practice to use Nofollow link attribute to those link, where you don’t want to pass link-juice.

An example of Nofollow Link:

<a href=”http://www.google.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Google</a>

Dofollow links allow google (all search engines) to follow them and reach our website. Giving us link juice and a backlink. If a webmaster is linking back to you with this link both Search Engine and Humans will be able to follow you. The best way to give someone dofollow love is allowing keyword in the anchor text. This means when you are linking to any website or page, use the targeted keyword as anchor text.

An example of Dofollow Link:

<a href=”http://www.google.com/”>Google</a>

Note: By default all the hyperlinks are dofollow. So, you don’t need to do anything to make a link do-follow.

Important Notice:-

Recently Google has said that they will still count the nofollow link as an outgoing link in terms of the distribution of page rank from your page. Though again it also depends on where that nofollow link is placed. Placing a nofollow link at the bottom of the page has the least impact, and when placed at the top of the page, it carries some impact.

Types Of No-Follow

  • Robots Meta Tag : <meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” />

This tells bots/crawlers/spiders not to follow links on the full page.

  • Link Attribute : <a href=”http://www.google.com” rel=”nofollow”>

This tells search engines not to count the link in terms of ranking pages.

  • Save

Quick Tip: Try to keep noindex attribute for pages like contact and nofollow attribute for affiliate links on your blog posts. If you are linking to any spam website for any reason, use the nofollow link attribute.

Do let me know if you have more questions regarding basics of Nofollow or Dofollow?

For further reading:

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Authored By
Anoop Sudhakaran is a Tech Blogger from Mumbai, India.He is the Founder & Editor of HackTabs. His areas of Interest include Computers, Blogging, Gaming, Internet Surfing. At HackTabs he writes about Technology,Internet Security,Ethical Hacking,Blogging,Microsoft Windows,SEO,Mobiles and Gadgets.

146 thoughts on “Understand DoFollow & Nofollow Link: SEO Basics”

  1. Hi Anoop and Harsh

    What I have understood is that on a blog I should keep affiliate links ‘No follow’ and internal links(other posts of my website) should be ‘dofollow’. Have I got it right pls correct me if wrong.

    Contact pages should be kept no indexing too. How is no index different from nofollow? Or are these same?

    1. @Namita
      You got it right…
      I would probably keep the contact page as the index, as it is an important page…

  2. Abdul Rehman

    I have a new website which is 3 months old. Everytime I post comments on high authority blogs, I get a nofollow backlink. Why is it happening like that? Is there a way to check beforehand of putting comments whether it is going to be follow or no follow link?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Abdul
      I believe 99.99% times, comment links are going to be nofollow.

  3. swati

    Hi Anoop,

    I have a new website which is 3 months old. Everytime I post comments on high authority blogs, I get a nofollow backlink. Why is it happening like that? Is there a way to check beforehand of putting comments whether it is going to be follow or no follow link?

    1. Anant Vijay soni

      Hi Swati,

      Most of the websites provide nofollow backlinks in comments. It does not depend on the age of the website or blog. I have a good and older blog. and even I will comment, then I will also get the nofollow link and it doesn’t matter. For any successful blog, you need both types of backlinks… NoFollow and DoFollow.

  4. Sanket Kalambe

    Hi Anoop!
    Before reading this article, I didn’t knew how to make a link no follow or do follow.
    Thanks for sharing this valuable information about link types. A very important resource for newbies to get a basic touch of SEO.
    Keep educating 🙂

    Regards,
    Sanket Kalambe

  5. Dinesh Lodhi

    Hi Anoop,
    Please help me to understand this.
    How can we check website authority before linking it with our website?

  6. John

    Hello Anoop, if i paid for sponsored blog posts should i ask for a dofollow links?
    Paid blog posts should be done to increase SEO backlinks
    and whats the difference between a blog post and if we just commented on post and add a link to the website?

    1. Saurabh

      Yeah, you should! but was it the part of the proposal? Because, in most cases, they’ll also want to check the quality of your blog. Usually, comment posts have nofollow nature of backlinks. Google doesn’ t regard nofollow backlinks as much, whereas in case of a link on the website is useful or not is entirely based on the nature of backlink you get from there.

  7. achuachu

    Thank you so much for this post. I was confused between follow and no-follow links until now, Your post explains it well and helps me understand the differences.

  8. Singh Fact

    Awesome.Thanks for such a knowledgeable post.I was confused between follow and no-follow links until now, Your post explains it well and helps me understand the differences.

  9. John @ BrainSharp Supplements

    Hi Anoop,
    This is a great article thank you for sharing. We have been in the process for creating content on focus and natural supplements or even healthy brain function across the internet via guest posts but we were not are of the dofollow – nofollow difference. From now on, every time that we write a guest post on healthy supplements or nutrition, we will make sure to ask the website owner to include the dofollow attribute.
    Thanks again,
    John

  10. Philip+Verghese+Ariel

    Hi Anoop,
    Nice to meet you here at Harsh’s place.
    Thanks for sharing such an informative piece.
    Many of my doubts in relation to do follow and no follow is cleared with this post. Thanks for sharing it well.
    Thanks Harsh for the opportunity given to Anoop.
    Wish you both a wonderful time of sharing ahead.
    Best
    ~Philip

  11. Harish Bisht

    Hi Anoop Sudhakaran,

    I am somewhat of a newbie to internet marketing and blogging. So with that being said, I am very glad that I found this blog post. I’ve heard talk of “Do Follow & No Follow” but never really new what it was all about; however, I can say that I understand a lot better now. I plan to stay connected to your blog. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to write next. Thanks

  12. Lynn H

    Thank you so much for this post. I was confused between follow and no-follow links until now, Your post explains it well and helps me understand the differences.

  13. Digember

    Thank you, Harsh Aggarwal. This article really helped me clear my doubt about dofollow and nofollow link attribute. Using dofollow links help me to build link juice.

  14. Roderick

    Nice article I’m working on a Dutch article about the negative effect off DoFollow links for your own SEO (which I think is a myth) do you have a link for me for where Google said the following?

    “Recently Google has said that they will still count the nofollow link as an outgoing link in terms of the distribution of page rank from your page. Though again it also depends on where that nofollow link is placed. Placing a nofollow link at the bottom of the page has the least impact, and when placed at the top of the page, it carries some impact.”

  15. Farzana Mou

    I am a big fan of ShoutMeLoud.com. Last few years I am following this site and fall in love of SML. Specially Harsh & Anoop is really boss! Thanks a lot for this nice article.

  16. Nisha Malik

    I can’t thank you enough to build & maintain such a useful site to educate the non technical people who wants to write & build their online identity. My every question is answered here only!!!

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