What Is a Nofollow Link? Meaning, Uses and Google's Guidance

Every link on a web page can carry a small label that tells search engines how to treat it. Most links don't have one. The few that do are known as nofollow links, a term that's confusing to a lot of site owners because it sounds far more dramatic than the reality.

I've gone through Google's own link guidance, the MDN Web Docs and Wikipedia's history of the attribute to explain what a nofollow link is, why it exists and when it's used. It's written for business owners rather than developers, so there's no code knowledge needed.

Nofollow link meaning

A nofollow link is a link with the rel attribute set to nofollow. MDN says the nofollow relationship tells search engine spiders to ignore the link relationship, and that it may indicate the owner of the current page does not endorse the page being linked to.

In plain terms, an ordinary link is a signal that says "I'd point you to this". A nofollow link says "here's a link, but don't count it as my recommendation". The reader can still click it as normal. Only the way search engines treat it changes.

What a nofollow link looks like in HTML

You can't see a nofollow in the page itself. It sits in the code, and the link carries an extra piece of text, rel="nofollow", inside its opening tag. The rel part is the attribute, and nofollow is its value.

Several values can sit together. Google says you can combine them, separated by a space or comma, so a link can carry more than one label.

Why nofollow links were invented

According to Wikipedia, in early 2005 Google's Matt Cutts and Blogger's Jason Shellen proposed the nofollow value to combat comment spam on blogs. Google announced that year that nofollow links would not influence the target's PageRank, and Yahoo and Bing also respect the attribute.

The idea was simple: if anyone can leave a link in your comments, you shouldn't have to vouch for every one of them.

Nofollow link versus the other link attributes

In 2019, Wikipedia says, Google announced two more attributes for qualifying outbound links. Google's current guidance now lists three values:

Value	Use it for	What Google says
nofollow	Cases where the other values don't apply, when you'd rather not associate your site with the linked page	Use it when other values don't apply
ugc	User-generated content such as comments and forum posts	Recommended for user-generated content links
The advertising value	Advertisements and compensated placements	Preferred for those links; nofollow remains acceptable

Google's page says nofollow was previously recommended for advertising-related links and is still acceptable there, but the dedicated value is preferred. It also suggests that you might remove the ugc attribute for consistently high-quality contributors.

How Google treats a nofollow link

Google's guidance says links marked with these attributes will generally not be followed. It adds that the linked page may still be found through sitemaps or links from other sites, so a nofollow isn't a way to hide a page.

Wikipedia adds that from the first day of March in 2020 Google began treating nofollow as a hint rather than a strict directive for crawling and indexing. In other words, it's guidance that search engines weigh, not a command.

How to check whether a link is nofollow

You don't need special software to check one link. Most browsers let you right-click a page and choose the option to view its source, or inspect an element, then look at the link's opening tag for a rel attribute. If you see nofollow among its values, the link carries the label.

If you manage a site with a content management system, check whether it adds a label automatically in some places. Some systems label comment links by default, which is useful to know before you start adding labels by hand.

It's also worth remembering that nofollow describes the link, not the page. The same page can be linked with a label from one site and without one from another.

When to use a nofollow link on your site

• On links in user comments or forum posts, where you don't control what people add.
• On advertisements or placements where something of value changed hands, using the value Google prefers for that.
• On other links where you'd rather not be associated with the page, and none of the other values fit.

For ordinary editorial links to sources you trust and recommend, there's no need to add anything.

Nofollow link myths worth ignoring

• It stops visitors clicking. It doesn't. People use the link as normal.
• It hides the page. Google says the page can still be found through sitemaps and other links.
• It's a command. From 2020 it's treated as a hint, according to Wikipedia.
• Every outbound link needs it. Google's guidance applies it to specific situations, not every link.

Nofollow link and anchor text

A nofollow link still has visible words. How those words are written is covered in what anchor text is, and it applies whether or not the link carries an attribute.

Sharing what you know about nofollow links

If you work in technical SEO and have practical experience of how link attributes behave, there's a list of search marketing sites open to outside contributors.

Technical SEO specialists can see search marketing sites open to outside contributors here.

Frequently asked questions

What does nofollow mean?

It's a value of the rel attribute. MDN says it tells search engine spiders to ignore the link relationship and may show the page owner does not endorse the linked page.

Can people still click a nofollow link?

Yes. The attribute changes how search engines treat the link, not how a visitor can use it.

Does nofollow stop Google finding a page?

No. Google says the linked page may still be crawled through sitemaps or links from other sites.

When was nofollow introduced?

Wikipedia says it was proposed in early 2005 by Google's Matt Cutts and Blogger's Jason Shellen to combat comment spam.

Is nofollow a hint or a directive?

Wikipedia says Google has treated it as a hint rather than a strict directive since the first day of March in 2020.