Nofollow links - why?

[serialeonline]

Do you need to build no-follow links if they don't transmit power? What's the meaning of that? I'm currently working on this site and I'm learning link building.

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

@serialeonline here is a helpful article about when to use Nofollow links, what they are and what they mean.

You wouldn't proactively seek out or "build" nofollow links, they are used when a site owner wants to link to another site without passing authority - something you wouldn't want to waste your time building, when what you want are actual referral links.

The HubSpot community is a great example of this - HubSpot may not want to pass on authority for links created here in the community, so nofollow, noreferrer, and noopener are added automatically.

Google introduced a new option which would be better in this case, which would be rel="ugc" for user-generated content to further classify the information and provides an alternative to nofollow that does not pass on domain rank.

[APrigent · Accepted solution]

Hello @serialeonline,

If you are working on link building strategy, you must have seen that some people also recommend to do "no follow" links. I understand that you ask yourself this question!

The no follow links are indeed not taken into account in the same way as the do follow links. They do not transfer "SEO power" from one site to another, and are interpreted as much less important by the algos of search engines.

But having a certain percentage of no follow links also allows to have a link profile that looks "natural" and healthy in the eyes of the algorithms. And this is what we are trying to build to have an effective link building strategy! If you only make do follow links with over optimized anchors, you risk taking a Google penalty and being de-referenced 😉

It is generally considered that a natural link profile for a website is about 80% of links in do follow, and 20% in no follow.

I should point out that these recos are general data, and each SEO strategy depends on the website, the industry and the themes on which you want to rank.

I conclude by advising you to create content with high added value for users, to relay them on social networks and to work on your brand image to get natural links to your site, rather than relying on a paid link strategy.

I hope I helped you,
Alice

[Mirawekken]

No-follow was introduced as a link attribute back in 2005 as a way to tell search engines like Google that the link should not be “counted” by them.

The problem back then was that they counted all links as votes of confidence in a website as that was how Google’s algorithm was created.

But, certain links like advertisements and paid links should not be counted as such as they are not votes, but bought. So the nofollow was intended as a way to show that.

It has since been used extensively by websites to show that they do not trust a link and do not want Google to think they endorse it.

Some website owners like this  do it on all blog posts if they allow guest posters (I think it is lazy) because they do not know or care to check what links the posters are adding to their content.

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

@serialeonline here is a helpful article about when to use Nofollow links, what they are and what they mean.

You wouldn't proactively seek out or "build" nofollow links, they are used when a site owner wants to link to another site without passing authority - something you wouldn't want to waste your time building, when what you want are actual referral links.

The HubSpot community is a great example of this - HubSpot may not want to pass on authority for links created here in the community, so nofollow, noreferrer, and noopener are added automatically.

Google introduced a new option which would be better in this case, which would be rel="ugc" for user-generated content to further classify the information and provides an alternative to nofollow that does not pass on domain rank.