Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What's the difference between follow and nofollow links?
-
I understand this may be a really dumb question and from my understanding there is a piece of code in some url's that tell search engines not to follow that link. I am interested in finding out what the purpose of nofollow links are and how they apply to search rankings.
Thanks for the help
-
Thanks for the insights.
It really helps
-
Thanks Tait,
That is awesome information and thanks for responding so thoroughly!
-
Spiders from search engiines "crawl" the web by following a link from one page to another. Using a rel=nofollow HTML attribute on a link tells the search engine not to follw the link and crawl the page that the link points to.
Search engine rankings by sites like Google are based on the premise that the best content has the most links to it (this is a super over-simplification, I know). "nofollow" links aren't counted by Google when they assign value to the page being linked to.
Most often sites use "nofollow" to block links from user generated content that might be used to manipulate search engines. An example of this might be a blog that nofollows all the links in it's comments so that spammers don't show up and flood the comment section with links to sites they'd like to rank higher in google.
-
Basically, a link with rel="nofollow" will not pass link juice to that page.
The nofollow can be used to link to outside content without passing link juice, and is widely used in many sites with user generated content and profiles to prevent link spamming.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Paid-for featured article on dailymail.co.uk with follow links
Hey Mozzers, Our PR team are paying for a featured article on dailymail.co.uk to increase brand visibility and coverage on a high traffic website. The article, however, is fairly thin content, and it has a couple of follow links back to our own site. From an SEO point of view, how do you feel about this?
Link Building | | RWesley0 -
Nofollow links with high spam score
Hi All, Is it worth setting co-operation with website that has incoming links with spam score 96% despite the fact they're mostly nofollow? From my understanding there's still connection set between websites bit no negative impact on my SEO profile. Am I right? Thanks for all opinions.
Link Building | | Optimal_Strategies0 -
Are stackoverflow links follow or nofollow?
I've tried to find the answer to this question myself, but I've found differing opinions. The conclusion I've come to is that Stackoverflow allows follow links when the user that posts the link has sufficient reputation or if the link receives user validation. Has anyone else here used Stackoverflow.com that knows the answer to this question? 🙂
Link Building | | RG_SEO0 -
How do we optimise links from a parent company to a subsidiary on different domains
So we are the agent for an industrial company. They don't have a great website (well its pretty but doesn't rank) and have 5 product pages with a variety of products on each. We've taken those products and turned them into 50 pages with good on page optimisation. Now they've just agreed to give us a link on each page and I'm trying to figure out what the best text and link will be. As far as I can see there are three options Visit our agent for X region - sending to the home page If you are from X region you can request a sample of product group from our agent - sending to home page and product category page on our site If you are looking for X, Y, Z or P, Q, R in this region contact our agent there. - sending to home page and individual product pages The aim of this is to boost my page authority as 98% of the top 10 in SERPS have pages with zero authority and rely on the on page optimization and DA. Is this the best approach or are there other better ways of approaching the problem. It's worth noting that there is a total separation of control and ownership of the websites. I'm also starting to work with them to improve their on page optimisation and get links from their parent company to increase link juice
Link Building | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
A link with "return false"- OSE sees as a No Followed Link
Hello, I couldn't find a clear answer to the impact on SEO for a link written in this way: [" class="expert_info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=) [Does the "return false" act as a "no follow"? I came across this in our link data in Open Site Explorer which lists these links all as "no follows." However, an engineer I spoke to said that it shouldn't impact search engine behavior. Any ideas? Thank you in advance! -Sarah K.](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=)
Link Building | | OneMedical0 -
Linking to sites that link to porn or casinos, my site getting penalized?
I have some link exchanges with some sites to get web traffic but when i ran the bad neighborhood link checker, i found that one site links to some casinos and another site has one link to a porn site. Is this getting me penalized? should i remove the links to these sites? Thanks, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
How to Manually Check if Link is Follow or No Follow?
So I just got the link - yippee! When I look at the source code href line with my url I don't see the term 'no follow'. Does this mean I have a followed link?
Link Building | | Clicksjim0 -
How do sites have so many 'total links'?
I've been analyzing some of our competitors: essayedge.com and papercheck.com Both sites have a large number of 'total links'... about 93,000 each. The former has about 1,200 linking root domains while the latter only has 195. Even for 1,200 linking root domains, 93k total links seems like a ton to me. Our site has 101 linking root domains and only 299 'total links'. I'm quite new to this whole SEO game and admittedly still learning a TON. Am I missing something here? How do sites generate so many links? This seems nuts to me. Thanks for any help!
Link Building | | TBiz0