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.
Domain Authority and nofollow links?
-
Hello,
I'm wondering, are 'nofollow' links from websites with high domain authority beneficial? Would they boost our own DA?
In essence, I'm wondering if there is added value (other than visitors clicking the link) to being linked to by a 'nofollow' link.
Thanks!
-
Great - thanks for the info guys!
-
Yep, having a natural link profile is what it is all about. No follow and follow links, social media links, text and website links, forum and blog links. It's all comes together in the link graph overall, as a whole - and allows the search engines to calculate.
No follows, don't actually pass any 'juice' on a link level, but having these signals allows search engines to calculate the nofollow into the variable, and give weight in itself.
It's a wonderful thing

-
NoFollow links are highly beneficial, if you take Rand Fishkin's point of view (which I'd strongly recommend).
Basically a NoFollow link comes from forums, comments and other online activity which shows that not only are you purely trying to build backlinks, you're actively participating in the community.
Obviously Follow are essential for your SEO "juice", but a combination of NoFollows shows that you're not only fetching for rankings, your website actually has relevance to the wider community. You may not get a direct 1:1 benefit like a Follow link, but Google can still see the DA and PA that a NoFollow is coming from, and can index that just as readily (even if it is in a completely different way).
P.S. This is a somewhat contested opinion, so I'd add the disclaimer that this is what I think.
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
-
Value of Links? What is each link worth?
Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time. Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating First Link 2nd-5th Link 5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5 $5 $2 $1 $0 15 $7 $3 $2 $1 25 $25 $10 $5 $2 35 $45 $20 $7 $3 45 $65 $30 $11 $4 55 $95 $45 $19 $5 65 $200 $100 $45 $6 75 $350 $120 $65 $9 85 $700 $240 $95 $15 95 $1100 $450 $200 $30
Link Building | | wellandpower1 -
I just uncovered a massive 500+ domain PBN linking to competitors
As the title, some competitors I've been watching are using a PBN they (or their agency) have built. I'm looking to get some discussion on how you approach situations like this - do you just report all of the domains to Google and pray they do something? There are 4 sites I'm looking at, all competing in the same niche with very similar websites (different branding and content, but essentially the same pages). I thought all were related, but after Excel-ing all the domains to see which overlap I've found that there's several sets; PBN 1 covers 117 domains that link to competitors A, B & C. Signaling to me that these are owned by the same person. PBN 2 links together B & C with 30 domains, PBN 3 is just C with 40 domains. PBN 4 is just B with 105 domains. PBN 5 is just A with 10 domains. PBN 6 is D by itself with more than 340 domains. Signaling to me that this one probably isn't owned by the same person. It looks like new domains are added to these PBNs every week and this has been going on for quite some time. Now, I'm fully against use of PBNs that don't use authentic websites that provide value, and I can't find any of these sites that aren't just a basic WP template with a single-word text logo followed by spun content. This is a goldmine, because according to Ahrefs these sites are pulling in well over 500,000 monthly visitors between them, and these links make up the majority of each site's link profile. If these networks were to crumble, that would open up a big opportunity for more authentic sites to rank well. How would you recommend to tackle this? Do I find example URLs and write reports for each of the 500+ domains or are there better ways of working through this?
Link Building | | Leads.Bz0 -
Nasty links
Hi My first q on here (hoorah!), and it's about links (boo!). I've got what appears to be a handful (but worryingly, increasing in number) of links pointing to my site like this: http://condos.mrgulffront.com/florida-condos-for-sale/320-scenic-gulf-drive-miramar-beach-fl-32550-mls-567591/ I've made contact with the sites concerned, and had only one positive response who flatly denied all knowledge of it. The issue (as far as I can see) is that as in the above example the links (on the bottom right in the grey box) are forever changing so not always visible. Can anyone offer any guidance as to these kinds of nasty links.... I'm right at the v beginning on this "path of seo understanding" so please don't assume prior knowledge! Thanks in advance.... tom
Link Building | | T-J-I0 -
Should I disavow nofollow links?
I've found a bunch of nofollow links with the help of Link Detox. Now, should I disavow such links (after contacating site owner directly and unsuccessfuly) or i can just filter my nofollow links and handle dofollow ones only?
Link Building | | VinceWicks0 -
What's more important page authority Vs domain authority?
Hello everyone, I am fairly new to SEO so I'm still trying to get my head round everything, I am currently looking into some back links .. well looking at competitor's back links to copy. I was just wondering what's more important page authority or domain authority? So for example if a page has a page authority of 50 and a domain authority of 10 is that better than if a page have page authority 10 and a domain authority of 50. Thanks so much in advance!
Link Building | | vanplus1 -
Linking to root domain or index page
While link building, should I link to index page of my website i.e www.mydomainname.com/index.html or should I link to root domain i.e www.mydomainname,com Also I see duplicate title error for index page and root domain in error statistic. How can I get rid of this.
Link Building | | ArtiKalra0 -
Text Link vs image link?
Which passes most link juice a text link or an image with the correct 'alt' attribute? Do the pass the same amount or is one more valuable than the other?
Link Building | | SamCUK0