When you earn a backlink, one of the first questions to ask is whether it is dofollow or nofollow. The answer determines whether that link actively passes authority to your site — or simply drives traffic without any ranking benefit. Understanding link attributes is fundamental to building a link profile that genuinely improves your rankings.
What is a dofollow link?
A dofollow link is the default state of any HTML hyperlink. When a page links to yours without any special attributes, it is dofollow by default. You do not add anything to make a link dofollow — the absence of a nofollow attribute means it passes equity.
This is what a standard dofollow link looks like in HTML:
<a href="https://seolinkscan.com">Free SEO Tools</a>This link passes PageRank and relevance signals from the linking page to seolinkscan.com. Google treats it as an editorial endorsement of the linked site.
What is a nofollow link?
A nofollow link has an explicit rel="nofollow" attribute added to the HTML tag that instructs search engines not to follow the link or pass equity through it:
<a href="https://seolinkscan.com" rel="nofollow">Free SEO Tools</a>Google introduced the nofollow attribute in 2005 to help combat comment spam. The idea was that site owners could add nofollow to user-submitted links (blog comments, forum posts) to prevent spammers from manipulating rankings by flooding sites with spammy links.
Does Google completely ignore nofollow links?
Not entirely. In 2019, Google updated its treatment of nofollow links from a hard directive (we will definitely not follow this) to a hint (we may or may not follow this, at our discretion). In practice, Google uses nofollow link information as a hint for crawling and indexing but claims it does not pass PageRank through them. Some SEO practitioners believe highly relevant nofollow links from authoritative sources contribute minor relevance signals — but this remains debated and any effect is substantially smaller than from dofollow links.
What are the other link attribute types in 2026?
Google introduced two additional link attribute values in 2019 alongside updating the nofollow treatment:
rel="sponsored" — must be used for paid links, affiliate links, and any link that was placed in exchange for payment or compensation. This is Google's explicit replacement for using nofollow on paid links. Failure to mark paid links as sponsored can result in a manual action penalty.
<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored">Partner Link</a>rel="ugc" — User Generated Content. Should be used for links in user-submitted content like blog comments, forum posts, and community contributions where the site owner has not editorially vetted the linked content.
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc">Comment Link</a>Attributes can be combined: rel="nofollow ugc" or rel="nofollow sponsored" are both valid.
Where do nofollow links commonly appear?
Many links you earn or build will be nofollow by default because of where they appear:
- Wikipedia — all external links on Wikipedia are nofollow. Despite this, Wikipedia links are valuable for referral traffic and brand visibility.
- Social media platforms — Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram links are all nofollow
- Blog comments — most CMS platforms add nofollow to comment links automatically
- Press release distribution sites — most press release links are nofollow
- Large news sites — many high-authority publications add nofollow to links from user comments and some editorial links
- Paid directory listings — reputable directories add nofollow or sponsored attributes to paid listings
Should you bother building nofollow links?
Yes — for two reasons. First, a natural backlink profile contains a mix of dofollow and nofollow links. A profile with 100% dofollow links looks artificially constructed — real editorial linking patterns always include some nofollow links from social media, comments, directories, and other sources. Second, nofollow links drive real referral traffic. A nofollow link from a high-traffic publication or Wikipedia can send thousands of qualified visitors to your site every month, regardless of the SEO equity implications.
Use our anchor text analyser to check your link profile's mix of dofollow and nofollow links and ensure your profile looks naturally diverse.
How do you check if a link is dofollow or nofollow?
To check any specific link manually: right-click the link on the source page and choose "Inspect" (Chrome developer tools). Look at the <a> tag in the HTML. If it contains rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", or rel="ugc", the link is not passing equity. If it has no rel attribute at all, it is dofollow.
For bulk analysis of your entire backlink profile, our anchor text analyser and tools like Ahrefs Webmaster Tools show the dofollow/nofollow breakdown across all your referring domains.
Summary
- Dofollow links pass PageRank and ranking equity — they are the primary target of link building efforts
- Nofollow links (rel="nofollow") are treated as hints by Google; they drive referral traffic but have minimal direct ranking benefit
- Sponsored (rel="sponsored") must be used for paid and affiliate links — mandatory for guideline compliance
- UGC (rel="ugc") should be used for user-submitted content links
- A natural link profile includes both dofollow and nofollow links — 100% dofollow looks artificial
- Nofollow links from high-traffic sources are still worth building for referral traffic and profile diversity
Continue reading: What is content marketing and how does it drive SEO results?