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The bloggers’ guide to NoFollow links

April 28, 2017 10 Comments

Everything you should know anout NoFollow links

If you have ads on your blog or if you accept sponsored content, you should understand DoFollow and NoFollow links.

What are DoFollow links

To understand NoFollow and DoFollow links, you have to learn how search engines work. Google and other search engines crawl your blog using bots. Once the bot understands what your page is about, it will index it and your page will appear in search results.

If there are links in your page, the bot will also crawl and index the page you link to. Search engines assume that these pages are recommended by you. And it’s only natural for bloggers and website owners to want other people to endorse their sites.

When a reputable site links your content, your Page Rank will receive a small boost. If a lot of sites are linking to the same website or page, search engines will see that your content is popular and will display it higher in search results.

Every link is a DoFollow link. So when you link to another website, you’re not only telling your readers that you like that post, you are also telling search engines that the website is trustworthy and has high-quality content.

What are NoFollow links

NoFollow links were introduced to combat spam and they are the opposite of DoFollow links. When you use NoFollow links, you are telling search engines not to crawl the other website. Humans will be able to visit the website, but the bots will ignore it.

NoFollow links do not influence a website’s PageRank. So the page you are pointing to will receive a boost, but its search ranking will not be decreased because of it.

When to use NoFollow links

Search engines like Google ask that you add the NoFollow attribute to any paid links on your site and to any links that you buy to point to your site. There are a few other instances that require a NoFollow link.

Paid Links

If you have ads or affiliate links in your posts, you should always use the rel=”nofollow” attribute. It doesn’t matter if the links are in your post or in the sidebar.

Some advertising networks, like AdSense, already add the NoFollow link so you don’t have to worry about it.

Any type of sponsored content

If you are paid to write about a product or service or if you receive free items to review, you have to add a NoFollow link.

Some companies might tell you that you should add a DoFollow link, but that goes against Google’s rules and you might be penalized.

Link parties

This is a bit of a gray area, but some of the link building strategies like the ‘link to me and I’ll link back to you’ posts might also need NoFollow links. You will still send readers to those blogs and other people will find you, so this doesn’t mean that you should stop participating in link parties.

Comments

On Blogger and WordPress, the comment section is set to NoFollow by default. So if you leave comments on blog posts, you search ranking will not improve. You can change it to DoFollow, but it’s a good practice to leave it like it is because it might prevent comment spam.

Links that appear multiple times

If you have buttons in your sidebar or a blog roll, you should set those links to NoFollow. Search engines might see those links as spam because they will crawl them every time they index a blog post or page. You can prevent this by using a NoFollow link or by setting an individual page for your blog roll.

Sites that you don’t want to endorse

You might have to link to sites that you don’t trust or sites that have content that keeps changing (forums, guestbooks). There’s no need to send crawlers to those sites, so just add a NoFollow link.

How to add NoFollow links

This is very easy. If you are on WordPress, I’m sure that you can find plugins that do this for you, but there’s no need to install another plugin.

A normal, DoFollow, link looks like this:

<a href="http://www.websitename.com">Your text here</a>

You can make it NoFollow by adding rel=”nofollow” to it. You can do this by switching to your Text/HTML editor. Your link should look like this:

<a href="http://www.websitename.com" rel="nofollow">Your text here</a>

If you are on Blogger, you can choose the Add ‘rel=nofollow’ attribute when you add a link and it will be automatically added. Squarespace users should use a code block instead of the normal link block and type in the code.

Why they matter

If you have ads or sponsored content on your blog, there are laws and regulations that state that you are required to disclose paid links. However, the law doesn’t say what type of links you should use. On the other hand, Google and other search engines do require you to add a NoFollow tag to paid links.

I’ve heard about a lot of companies that will pay you to add DoFollow links to sponsored posts and that’s a violation of Google’s guidelines. It’s up to you if you want to risk being penalized for a small paycheck. But if you are discovered, your site can be removed from search engines and your Page Rank might drop and you will lose many readers.

I know this might sound scary and using NoFollow links can be a bit overwhelming, but it’s something that you can easily get used to. Link building is important and search engines want you to link to valuable content because they also want to give you quality content. You shouldn’t start adding NoFollow links to all links, just focus on paid links and sites that you don’t fully trust (or just don’t point to those sites).

Do you use NoFollow links? Hopefully, I covered all the questions you might have about this subject, but if you want to learn more, leave a message in the comments.

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About the Author

Hey there! I’m Cristina, and I’m a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator. With an everlasting love of all creative endeavors, I found joy in sharing with others what I’ve learned over the years and helping bloggers and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life through beautiful designs.

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Comments

  1. Angela | Mary Angela's Blog says

    April 29, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    Hi Cristina,
    This post was super useful! I’ve read about no follow links before but never thought they were absolutely necessary. I will definitely make it a point to include no follow links from now on. Thanks a lot for taking the time to write down all this information. <3 I love it!

    Reply
    • Cristina Silvia says

      April 30, 2017 at 10:25 pm

      Hey Angela,
      I’m so glad to hear that you found it useful! I’ve read about bloggers receiving emails from Google concerning unnatural outbound links because they didn’t use NoFollow, so it’s better to add them.

      Reply
  2. Bren Lee says

    April 30, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    Hi Cristina,

    Fabulous post and yes, very helpful. I know many are confused on when to use DoFollow and NoFollow. Even I forget at times to make something NoFollow. I appreciate you sharing this with us. I’ve saved it for a future reminder as well as sharing it.

    B

    Reply
    • Cristina Silvia says

      April 30, 2017 at 11:19 pm

      Thank you so much, Bren! I also forget about them sometimes.

      Reply
  3. Lisa says

    May 2, 2017 at 5:39 am

    Thank you for clearing this up for me, Cristina! I had no idea there was a difference between the types of links placed in blog content so this post was an eye-opener for me. I now know what to do if I decided to add monetization to my blog at some point in the future.

    Reply
    • Cristina Silvia says

      May 5, 2017 at 7:01 pm

      Thanks for stopping by, Lisa! I’m really glad that you learned something new from this post. NoFollow links are very important if you want to monetize your blog.

      Reply
  4. Cristal says

    June 14, 2017 at 2:42 am

    Thank you for clearing this up! I am still wondering though, do I have to add rel=nofollow to all links, or can I simply check the box under Theme SEO Settings to Apply nofollow to this post/page for WordPress? Thank you in advance!

    Reply
    • Cristina Silvia says

      June 15, 2017 at 3:31 pm

      You’re welcome, Cristal! If you already have SEO settings that do that, you don’t need to manually add the rel=nofollow attribute. Just check the box, and everything should be alright.

      Reply
  5. [email protected] says

    June 16, 2017 at 5:46 pm

    Cristina, great explanation of no follow. When I’m linking a URL in Word Press, there is a box you can check that says “add no follow”. I check that, but in my Yoast SEO, it doesn’t say you have “X” number of no follow links. Just follow links. Am I doing something wrong?

    Reply
    • Cristina Silvia says

      June 16, 2017 at 6:32 pm

      Hi, Carol! I think Yoast SEO only shows internal no follow links. Yoast SEO is very helpful, but it’s not always accurate.
      I checked your blog, and you have no follow links in a post. The plugin works, so you should keep using it.

      Reply

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