Which is best NoFollow or DoFollow Links?
In the world of link building, you will learn about links and how important they are.
What are the different types of backlinks?
Essentially, there are just two varieties of backlinks: dofollow links and nofollow links. If you are viewing a web page you will not see the difference between them. The distinction is in the source code. It determines how all search engines including Google will view your backlink profile. It is natural for a website to have both. They both have different purposes and should be part of your SEO strategy and are both generated over time. To learn more about how backlinks can help you read our FAQ.
Dofollow Backlinks
Dofollow backlinks are the most popular and important type of tool for your website SEO. They are referring clickable links that are inserted into the text so traffic can move from one site to another.
Putting a dofollow backlink on your site is showing Google that it is an organic link. This means that the website didn’t purchase the link—and that you endorse the accuracy of the content at the end of the backlink.
Dofollow is honestly saying to Google and the other search engines that link is leading to powerful information and it should be regarded as such. You attribute authority to this page.
When dofollow links are put in articles it’s just a routine backlink. That’s one of the factors as to why dofollow links are the most popular — they’re the simplest to put in place. They also pass something called link juice which is a major boost to your search ranking and domain. They can be placed in paid or non-paid guest posts, sponsored blog articles etc.
Nofollow Backlinks
Nofollow backlinks are more scarce. This is because they are less valuable. They send signals to search engines to ignore a specific backlink.
Google’s official definition terms of the nofollow tag are, “‘Nofollow’ provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines ‘Don’t follow links on this page’ or ‘Don’t follow this specific link.’”
The portion of dofollow vs nofollow that a site has will differ. Google requires a healthy mix of both for a strong backlink profile including internal and external.
The most significant disparity between these two types of links is that Google assigns a lot of importance to dofollow links — which means they’re excellent for SEO. Nofollow links, on the other hand, are disregarded by Google’s algorithm mostly. That implies they’re seldom helpful for SEO.
Where do nofollow links come from?
Even though nofollow links are less prevalent, there are still lots of places on the internet to get nofollow links. You’ll most frequently get these kinds of links from websites where you can upload links and content yourself because those sites don’t want to guarantee the exactness of the content.
Here are several areas that nofollow links generally come from:
- Social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
- Comments made on Blogs
- Content aggregation websites, such as Scoop It
- Q&A websites, such as Quora
- Forums comment, such as Reddit
- Press releases
Many high-authority websites, such as Wikipedia and the Huffington Post, use nofollow links to lessen the amount of spam link requests they get.
Are Nofollow backlinks useful for SEO?
Surprisingly, nofollow links do produce some SEO benefits.
Generally, Google does not follow these types of links most of the time, but there are special cases in which Google will follow these backlinks. It’s difficult to say when those events are because Google hasn’t parted with that data. The online SEO community has done many tests to distinguish a few situations when nofollow backlinks are followed and if they can help your rankings.
High-authority websites
There’s some data that nofollow backlinks from leading websites, like Wikipedia or Healthline.com, can advance your organic rank.
It is thought that this is because they are websites that Google fully trusts. They are identified for content that is notably high quality. So, if those sites are associated with different websites, it tells Google that a linked website is also worthwhile. In these circumstances, Google will generally overlook the nofollow link.
However, if you were to get up a dofollow link from Wikipedia, that would still be more helpful than a nofollow link from the same origin.
There are probably very few websites that fall into this classification.
Indirect benefits of nofollow links
Possibly the most significant reason you’ll need a nofollow link is the indirect benefits of gaining one. We don’t have any solid data to say that nofollow links are beneficial, but there is enough anecdotal proof to show that they aren’t harmful. If you’re starting or are in the middle of any link-building campaign, don’t neglect websites that only offer nofollow links, particularly if they’re greater, high-authority sites. They’re still worthwhile and a search engine still values them.
When should you use dofollow and nofollow backlinks?
Generally, you’ll want to insert dofollow links when linking to other sites from yours. If you are linking to helpful sources that improve your reader’s experience, there’s no reason not to use a dofollow link.
If for whatever reason, you’re linking to several low-quality sites, you might want to contemplate applying a nofollow tag so Google doesn’t think you’re declaring them as reputable and of a high standard.
That isn’t the only instance you’ll apply a nofollow tag, though. According to Google, there are other circumstances in which you’ll want to use nofollow links.
You don’t have control over what gets posted
If you have a discussion forum or comments section on your site, you’ll require all the links posted are nofollow. This will help decrease spam comments on your forum. If marketers know they can not post dofollow links from your site, they’ll be less willing to post a ton of unrelated links to spammy websites.
The main links from your website that are dofollow links will be in the written text using keywords, not the comments section. Google bots will see this when they crawl your site for indexing and the impact will be better for you.
