Member Avatar for rohnsmith

I am little confused here.Google says it does not pass any value to no follow links but I have too many no follow links and my website still getting good rank.So what is truth..?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by franklin4005

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A quick, modern clarification for and the others who started this thread back in 2009: Google changed how link attributes work in 2019. On September 10, 2019 Google announced rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" and said rel="nofollow" would move from a strict directive to a hint that Google can use along with other signals; for crawling/indexing the change took effect on March 1, 2020. That means a nofollow today is not automatically "worthless" — it’s a contextual signal rather than a blanket rejection. (developers.google.com)

That change explains a lot of the disagreement in the replies (for example , and ). Practical guidance from Google now: keep using rel="nofollow" where a link should not be endorsed, use rel="sponsored" for paid/advertising links, and rel="ugc" for user‑generated content (comments, forum posts). Multiple values can be combined (for example rel="ugc nofollow"). Example HTML patterns:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored">Sponsored post</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc nofollow">Forum reply</a>

See Google’s outbound-link guidance for details. (developers.google.com)

Why a site can still rank well despite “lots of nofollow links”: Google uses many signals (on‑page relevance, content quality, internal linking, engagement metrics, authoritative editorial links that may be dofollow, etc.), and since 2019 some nofollow links can be treated as hints in certain cases. Also, nofollow was never a reliable way to forcibly stop a URL from being indexed — use a meta noindex, X‑Robots‑Tag, or proper robots rules for that purpose. (developers.google.com)

Short checklist to act on now (low friction, high impact):

  • Audit incoming links in Search Console and third‑party link tools to separate editorial vs. UGC/paid sources.
  • Tag paid/affiliate links with rel="sponsored"; tag forum/comment links with rel="ugc" (or nofollow) and moderate UGC to limit spam.
  • Measure link value by referral traffic and conversions (Analytics / GA4 conversion events) instead of PageRank alone.
  • Keep producing useful, link‑worthy content — editorial links still matter most.

Recommended Answers

All 53 Replies

Member Avatar for AirForceOne

Backlink is backlink, no matter dofollow or nofollow. Of course, dofollow backlinks would benefit your PR at the same time. :)

Member Avatar for clawid

Yeah I agree with you AirForceOne. It doesn't matter whether it is dofollow or not but now Google prefers nofollow. Maybe your site is in sandbox!!!

Member Avatar for canadafred

Backlinks is but one of many factors Google uses to determine rank. It is not the end all be all of ranking. However incredible this may sound, perhaps you have good content. Content is usually far more important to the search engine than incoming links. You can have a zillion links but if you haven't any content worth offering an Internet visitor you won't get high rankings. Five years ago, maybe, but not today.

Member Avatar for clawid

Thanks.. Content is the King.. That's one of the factor that you can drive more traffic to your website.

Member Avatar for BlackhatSEO

no follow link is also a backlink it wil come into accout when pr comes into..

Member Avatar for canadafred

no follow link is also a backlink it wil come into accout when pr comes into..

... you mean when new PR values are assigned. Yep. that's about amounts to it. Any link building can be a great way to gain PR, follow or nofollow. Increases traffic too but not the knid that'll make a telephone call for your service or purchase your product, no, Internet noise. Robots, crawlers and marketing people looking to click and follow links don't matter whose site it's on. Great thing that PR. Impresses the hell of web site owners too. "Look, we're at PR 5!", and yet the search engine rankings are slipping or non-existent and the coveted PR5 website is being smoked by PR1 web pages in the SERPs. Why's that GreyHat?

Edited by canadafred because: spelling
Member Avatar for ap09.com

Well, having too many nofollow inbound links is not a problem as however they do not have link juice but still they help in terms of diverting traffic towards a site.

Member Avatar for hyldajydan

Hi there,

Well, Google do not read the no-follow links, so google don't able to remove that links.

Many Thanks,

Member Avatar for skylarslad

They don't influence your rank directly, but they help to improve your traffic and traffic is one of the reasons of your top position.

Member Avatar for qingtim99

No follow links do not pass you any PR juice, are you sure your good rank are contributed by no follow links? I believe it might be some other factors boost your site, such as your own good content. Though no follow links do not pass PR juice, but if these links are highly relevant, they can also help, I think.

Member Avatar for brayan

I am agreed with you skylarslad. no follow links help to improve your traffic and traffic is one of the main reason to be on the top.

Member Avatar for burgesscecil

in my point of view "no" ...bcoz we can get direct traffic to that links as well

Member Avatar for beewizards

Yes, I agree even I have a site with no-follow links and it ranks well.

Member Avatar for dammy2007

Content,Keywords and related back links are Key factors

Member Avatar for marissa jasmine

That's right..
You must choose "follow" because it can be increase website traffic...

Thanks and hope it can help

Member Avatar for perliequeen

My humble 2 cents worth,

Traffic Wise - dofollow or nofollow link doesn't matter as long as the link is from a quality site that brings you good traffic.
So please do not exclude nofollow links in your SEO campaigns.

SEO Wise - some of my nofollow links do show up but some don't. I don't know exactly how the google algo works. Who does?

Member Avatar for lindawood

No-follow links are beneficial for diverting traffic towards your site.

Member Avatar for vijendrasnv

Back links are always helpful and Google also importance to it.
Although these no follow links are important in some conditions.
Thanks.

Member Avatar for mattmark

I think a little value still is being passed but not confirmed.......

Member Avatar for jfreemon

They're worth getting. Organic backlink growth says that you'll get both nofollow and follow links, not just one or the other.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

I still think that no follow are valuable - read this:

Member Avatar for mackone

Nofollow links help in getting traffic to your site - that's about it.

Member Avatar for esmondflora

all no follow means is that search engine bots don't click the link and go to the site, but they still crawl the text

Member Avatar for TravisTrinity

this is quite clear.... but how the link itself and its presence works for the rank? will be counted?

one million dollar question!

Member Avatar for ljianyih

So, after reading all these posts, does no-follow link contributes to the pr? If so, why so many forums and blogs wanna put the no-follow attribute in their pages? :?:

Member Avatar for jay 11

So, after reading all these posts, does no-follow link contributes to the pr? If so, why so many forums and blogs wanna put the no-follow attribute in their pages? :?:

They add 'no follow' to encourage honest participation. In other words, they do not want people commenting who are only looking to get a link. Quite frankly, I would do the same if it were my blog.

Member Avatar for Nichetraffic

So, after reading all these posts, does no-follow link contributes to the pr? If so, why so many forums and blogs wanna put the no-follow attribute in their pages? :?:

No Google is definitely clear about no follow attribute. It does not confer PR but can help get pages indexed
Also doing well in the search engines i.e appearing high for your search terms is not the same as having PR
You probably have decent on page optimization or are after low competition websites

Member Avatar for witty4u

No there is not true no follow means crawler do not visit your site but it cached the link ...means google crawler do no not divert form that site it only cache that site content .....
people put no follow because in blog many people takes link so to prevent the diversion blogger use no follow code ..

Member Avatar for fernandestricky

No Follow links are not totally worthless.
If they are from your related niche, it will be an added advantage.
Yahoo search engine still gives some weightage to nofollow links.

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