What Is a Nofollow Link and When Should You Use It Instead of a Dofollow Link

Short answer: a nofollow link is a hyperlink carrying the rel="nofollow" attribute, which tells search engines “I am linking to this page, but do not count this link as an endorsement and do not pass ranking credit to it.” A dofollow link is simply a normal link with no such attribute, and it can pass authority (link equity) to the destination.

That definition is the easy part. The real question business owners and bloggers ask us at PixelBright is: which attribute should I use, and when? Since Google introduced rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc", there are now four practical options instead of two. This guide gives you a plain-English explanation, a copy-ready decision table for the most common real-world cases, and step-by-step instructions to check and edit link attributes in WordPress.

What is a nofollow link?

A nofollow link looks exactly like any other link to your visitors. The difference lives in the HTML:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Example</a>

The rel="nofollow" value is a signal for crawlers, not for humans. Nobody clicking the link can tell the difference, and the link still works normally, still sends referral traffic, and still appears in your analytics.

What it changes is how search engines interpret the link:

• The link is not treated as a vote of confidence for the destination page.
• Link equity (PageRank) is generally not passed to the target URL.
• Google may still discover and crawl the destination, because since March 2020 nofollow is treated as a hint rather than a strict directive.

That last point trips up a lot of people. Nofollow does not hide a page from Google, does not block indexing, and is not a security feature. If you truly need a page kept out of the index, use a noindex meta tag instead.

What is a dofollow link?

Here is the part most articles bury: “dofollow” is not real HTML. There is no rel="dofollow" attribute. The term is SEO jargon for a completely ordinary link:

<a href="https://example.com">Example</a>

By default, every link you insert is a dofollow link. It can pass authority, it helps search engines understand relationships between pages, and the anchor text contributes context about the destination. Dofollow links are the default for a reason: they are how the web signals trust.

Quick comparison

Aspect	Dofollow link	Nofollow link
HTML	No rel attribute needed	rel="nofollow"
Passes link equity	Yes	No (or heavily discounted)
Counts as an endorsement	Yes	No
Can be crawled	Yes	Possibly (hint, not a rule)
Sends referral traffic	Yes	Yes, identical
Visible to users	Normal link	Normal link

The four link attributes you actually need to know

Google supports three rel values for qualifying outbound links, and they can be combined. Plus the default (no attribute). Here is what each one means and what it is for.

1. Default (dofollow): endorsement

Use it when you genuinely recommend the destination: a source you trust, a study you cite, a tool you actually use, your own pages, a client case study. No attribute required.

2. rel=”nofollow”: no endorsement, no obvious category

<a href="..." rel="nofollow">

The generic “I am not vouching for this” attribute. Use it for links you must include but do not want to be associated with, or when none of the more specific values fit.

3. rel=”sponsored”: money changed hands

<a href="..." rel="sponsored">

For advertising, paid placements, affiliate links, sponsored posts, and any link that exists because of a commercial agreement, including exchanges of free products or services. This is the attribute Google explicitly wants on paid links, and skipping it is the single most common cause of link scheme penalties on small business blogs.

4. rel=”ugc”: user-generated content

<a href="..." rel="ugc">

For anything your visitors publish: blog comments, forum posts, reviews, community profiles, Q&A answers. It tells Google “my editorial team did not write this, so do not hold me responsible for it.”

Combining attributes

You can stack values, separated by a space. This is common and perfectly valid:

<a href="https://partner.com" rel="sponsored nofollow">Our sponsor</a>
<a href="https://forum-user-site.com" rel="ugc nofollow noopener">User link</a>

Adding nofollow alongside sponsored or ugc is a safe fallback for search engines that do not understand the newer values.

Nofollow is a hint, not a wall

Two dates matter here, and they still shape best practice in 2026:

1. September 2019: Google announced sponsored and ugc as more granular alternatives to nofollow.
2. March 2020: all three became hints for ranking and crawling purposes. Google reserves the right to consider a nofollow link if it judges it useful for understanding the web.

Practical consequences:

• Do not use nofollow to sculpt PageRank internally. It does not funnel authority to other pages, it just wastes it.
• Do not use nofollow to keep a page out of search results. Use noindex, or block access properly.
• Do use the correct attribute for honesty and compliance. Mislabeling paid links is a policy violation, not a clever tactic.

Decision table: which attribute for which situation

Bookmark this one. It covers the cases we see most often on business sites and blogs.

Situation	Recommended attribute	Why
Affiliate link (Amazon, SaaS referral, coupon)	sponsored (often + nofollow)	You earn a commission, so it is a commercial link
Paid banner, display ad, paid text link	sponsored	Advertising must never pass ranking credit
Sponsored article or paid review you published	sponsored on every brand link	Paid editorial is still paid
Product received for free in exchange for coverage	sponsored	Compensation does not have to be cash
Blog comment links (author URL and in-comment links)	ugc nofollow	You did not write it and cannot vouch for it
Forum, community or customer review links	ugc	User-generated by definition
Partner or client logo wall (no money for the link)	Dofollow	Genuine editorial relationship, real endorsement
Partner logo wall where placement was bought	sponsored	Paid placement, even if it looks editorial
Citing a study, news source or official documentation	Dofollow	Rewards quality sources and builds topical trust
Linking to a competitor or a site you criticise	nofollow	Reference without endorsement
Press release distributed on wire services	nofollow or sponsored	Distributed links are self-placed, not earned
Guest post you wrote on another site	nofollow if paid or bio-only	Self-placed links at scale are a link scheme
Your own internal pages	Dofollow, always	Nofollow internal links waste your own equity
Login, cart, checkout, account pages	Dofollow + noindex on the page	Control indexing at page level, not link level
Social media profile links in your footer	Dofollow	Legitimate brand entities, no risk
Directory or paid listing you bought	sponsored	Paid inclusion
Link to a low-quality or unverified site you must reference	nofollow	Avoid associating your brand with it

Do nofollow links have any SEO value?

Yes, just not the kind people obsess over. A nofollow backlink pointing to your site can still deliver:

• Referral traffic, which is often more valuable than a ranking bump. A nofollow link on a high-traffic site can outperform ten dofollow links nobody clicks.
• Brand visibility and mentions, which feed brand search demand.
• Discovery, since Google may still crawl through the link.
• A natural link profile. A site with 100% dofollow backlinks looks manipulated. Real websites collect a mix of nofollow links from social platforms, Wikipedia, forums, press and directories.

So no, you should not refuse a placement just because the link is nofollow. Ask instead: will real people see and click it?

How to tell if a link is dofollow or nofollow

Four reliable methods, from quickest to most thorough:

1. Inspect the element (free, no tools)

1. Right-click the link in Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
2. Choose Inspect.
3. Look at the highlighted <a> tag in the panel that opens.
4. If you see rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc", it is not a standard dofollow link. No rel value means dofollow.

2. View the page source

Press Ctrl+U (or Cmd+Option+U on Mac), then Ctrl+F and search for nofollow or for the destination domain. There is more on it in Nofollow link and rel=nofollow explained.

3. Browser extensions

Extensions such as NoFollow, Detailed SEO Extension or the SEO toolbars from major suites highlight nofollow links directly on the page, usually with a coloured outline. Best option when you audit many links at once.

4. A crawler for site-wide audits

Tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Ahrefs or Semrush let you export every outbound link on your site with its rel attribute. This is how you find the forgotten affiliate link from 2021 that is still dofollow.

How to add or edit link attributes in WordPress

Block editor (Gutenberg), the manual way

The default WordPress link popup only offers “Open in new tab” and “Add rel=nofollow” in some setups, so the reliable route is HTML:

1. Select the block containing your link.
2. Click the three dots on the block toolbar and choose Edit as HTML.
3. Find the <a> tag and add or edit the attribute, for example:
   <a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored nofollow" target="_blank">Check the offer</a>
4. Click the three dots again and choose Edit visually to return.
5. Update the post and verify with Inspect.

Classic editor

1. Switch from Visual to the Text tab.
2. Locate the link and insert the rel attribute inside the opening <a> tag.
3. Switch back and update. Careful: the Visual editor sometimes strips attributes, so re-check after saving.

Custom HTML block for ads and banners

For banners and ad placements, use a Custom HTML block. Nothing gets stripped, and you can wrap the image in a properly qualified link:

<a href="https://advertiser.com" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><img src="/banner.jpg" alt="Advertiser" /></a>

Using a plugin (recommended for busy blogs)

Several link management plugins add a checkbox interface for nofollow, sponsored and UGC directly in the editor, and some let you apply rules automatically:

• Link management plugins that add rel options to the insert-link modal.
• Affiliate link cloakers, which apply sponsored nofollow to every cloaked link by default. This is the safest approach if you publish affiliate content regularly.
• SEO plugins with an “external links” setting to add nofollow site-wide to outbound links. Use this with caution, because blanket nofollow on all external links removes legitimate citation signals.

Comment links

Good news: WordPress already adds rel="nofollow ugc" to links in approved comments and to commenter website URLs by default on modern versions. Things to verify:

• Your theme or a plugin has not removed it (some “CommentLuv style” plugins do).
• You are not running a dofollow comment plugin inherited from an old setup.
• Spam filtering is active, because attribute hygiene does not replace moderation.

Bulk editing old content

To retrofit attributes across an existing site:

1. Crawl your site and export all outbound links with their rel values.
2. Filter for affiliate domains, advertiser domains and known partner URLs.
3. Use a search-and-replace plugin (with a full database backup first) to update the relevant <a> tags.
4. Re-crawl to confirm the changes took effect.

Five mistakes we still see in 2026

• Nofollowing internal links to “save crawl budget”. It does not work and it leaks value.
• Using nofollow instead of noindex to keep a page out of Google. Wrong tool entirely.
• Leaving affiliate links dofollow. The most common compliance risk on monetised blogs.
• Nofollowing every single external link. Linking out to quality sources is a normal, healthy signal.
• Forgetting noopener on links that open in a new tab. Not an SEO issue, but a security one.

A simple rule to remember

Before you publish any outbound link, ask yourself two questions:

1. Did I get paid, or get something of value, for this link? If yes, use sponsored.
2. Did someone other than my editorial team create it? If yes, use ugc.

If the answer to both is no and you genuinely stand behind the destination, leave it dofollow. If the answer to both is no but you would rather not vouch for the site, use nofollow. That covers roughly 99% of real-world cases.

FAQ about nofollow links

Do backlinks still matter in 2026?

Yes. Links remain one of the signals search engines use to assess relevance and trust, even though their relative weight has decreased compared to content quality, brand signals and user experience. What has changed is that a handful of genuinely relevant, editorially earned links now beats hundreds of low-quality ones, and that a healthy profile naturally includes plenty of nofollow links.

How do I make a nofollow link?

Add rel="nofollow" inside the opening anchor tag: <a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">anchor text</a>. In WordPress, edit the block as HTML or use a link plugin that offers a nofollow checkbox.

What is the difference between follow and nofollow links?

A follow (dofollow) link passes ranking credit and acts as an endorsement. A nofollow link passes little or no credit and signals that you are not endorsing the destination. Both look and behave identically for human visitors.

Does nofollow stop Google from crawling a page?

Not reliably. Since March 2020, nofollow is a hint. Google may still follow the link to discover content. To keep a page out of the index, use a noindex robots meta tag. Much the same conclusion turns up on flexmedstaff.com.

Should I use sponsored or nofollow for affiliate links?

Use sponsored, which is the specific value Google recommends for affiliate and paid links. Adding nofollow alongside it (rel="sponsored nofollow") is a harmless and widely used safety net.

Can nofollow links hurt my rankings?

Nofollow links pointing to your site will not hurt you. Using nofollow incorrectly on your own site can hurt, especially if you nofollow internal links or strip value from legitimate citations.

Is there a rel=”dofollow” attribute?

No. Dofollow is informal jargon. A link with no rel attribute is already a dofollow link. The piece Nofollow vs. dofollow links: What is the difference makes a good next read.

What ratio of nofollow to dofollow backlinks is natural?

There is no magic number and no target to hit. Most healthy sites naturally sit somewhere between 20% and 50% nofollow backlinks because social platforms, forums and large media sites apply nofollow by default. Chase relevance and traffic, not a ratio.

Need a second pair of eyes on your link profile?

Misapplied link attributes are one of the fastest technical SEO issues to fix and one of the most frequently overlooked. If you want us to audit your outbound links, your affiliate setup and your internal linking structure, the PixelBright team can run a full review of your WordPress site and hand you a prioritised action list. Get in touch with us to get started.