Member Avatar for phoenix06007

So there's an unofficial "rule" that the engines don't follow links on a page after the first 100 or so they find.

Not sure how real it is, but for the sake of this conversation, let's assume it's real.

The question is:

If you have 175 links on a page, and you nofollow the first 125, for example, does the crawler skip them and follow your other 50 links as if they were the ONLY 50 links on the page (outbound, of course)?

Mostly a theory question, but one I found intriguing and didn't have an immediate answer for.

Please discuss.

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Dani AI

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Short answer: there is no documented, hard “follow only the first 100 links” rule you can reliably exploit. Crawlers parse the whole HTML and then use heuristics (crawl budget, link prominence, site quality, rel attributes) to decide what to fetch and index. Relying on nofollowing the first X anchors to make later links behave as “the only ones” is not a dependable strategy.

Modern nuance: rel="nofollow" (and the relatives rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc") are signals, not absolute commands. Search engines have changed how they treat these attributes over time, so behavior can vary and anecdotal tests (like those mentioned by ) often give mixed results. That variability is why site owners keep nofollow on user-generated areas: it helps control spam risk (a point raised) even if it doesn’t guarantee precise link equity outcomes.

Practical guidance to ensure important targets are seen and crawled:

  • Put priority links in the main content (not buried in massive lists or footer dumps).
  • Include important URLs in an XML sitemap and via internal contextual links.
  • Paginate or collapse very long lists and expose next/prev or load-on-demand so each chunk is crawlable.
  • Use rel="sponsored"/rel="ugc" where appropriate instead of treating everything as generic nofollow. Example:
    <a href="https://example.com/paid" rel="sponsored">Paid link</a>
<a href="https://example.com/comment" rel="ugc">User comment link</a>

How to test: check server logs and Google Search Console URL Inspection to see if bots request and index the target pages. That empirical approach beats assuming a numeric cutoff. Finally, for site owners worried about spam vs. link value (as brought up), balance anti-spam measures with architecture changes that surface genuine links rather than trying to sculpt flow with large-scale nofollow toggles.

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Member Avatar for Dani

The reason not to have so many links is because it comes off as unnatural to the search engines ... If a link is supposed to be a "vote" for that page, and you vote for half the Internet, there's just way too much dilution to make any of your votes count.

Plus, it's really sketchy just how the search engines respond to nofollow. I've played around and solidly found beyond a doubt that I actually do pass massive amounts of PR with DaniWeb's nofollow links (so you might want to consider adding a forum signature even though it's nofollowed!).

Member Avatar for seotogo

The reason not to have so many links is because it comes off as unnatural to the search engines ... If a link is supposed to be a "vote" for that page, and you vote for half the Internet, there's just way too much dilution to make any of your votes count.

Plus, it's really sketchy just how the search engines respond to nofollow. I've played around and solidly found beyond a doubt that I actually do pass massive amounts of PR with DaniWeb's nofollow links (so you might want to consider adding a forum signature even though it's nofollowed!).

So, not to be disrespectful since you can do what you want with your own website, if there is no difference between nofollow and dofollow then why not make your forum dofollow again like it used to be?

Member Avatar for jay 11

So, not to be disrespectful since you can do what you want with your own website, if there is no difference between nofollow and dofollow then why not make your forum dofollow again like it used to be?

Because otherwise DaniWeb would be linking to a ton of spam. Unfortunately, such is the way with social networks. Same reason why respectable bloggers nofollow their comments. It's the most effective way to combat spam while staying in the good graces of the search engines.

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