What are nofollow links?
Links from websites with high authority in the eyes of search engines can be very valuable for your website and not least your SEO. But there is a big difference in whether those who link use dofollow-links or nofollow links when they point links towards your website.
When an external website links to yours with a nofollow link, it means to Google that the person who linked has asked the search engine not to follow the link. The reason for this could be that the linker may not know your website and therefore will not "recommend" your landing page to Google.
By default, all links are dofollow. The way they are changed to a nofollow link is by adding a rel="nofollow" tag to the link. When this is done, the link will not affect the search engine ranking of the linked website, as Google generally does not transfer PageRank or anchor text for nofollow.
The above is the inverse of a dofollow link, which is why the vast majority of website owners would rather have a sea of dofollow links than nofollow links.
Learn more about how to acquire dofollow links in this dictionary article[1] or read on here to understand why you shouldn't be intimidated by nofollow links.
Do nofollow links have value?
Note! That nofollow links are not completely without value. For example, if you get a nofollow link that you have earned, it is more likely that others will also choose to link - and these can easily be dofollow. This means that a nofollow link from one website can easily result in a dofollow link from another website.
In addition, nofollow links still drive traffic to your website, so a nofollow link from a high-traffic site can actually end up being a more valuable link than a dofollow from a mediocre site.
Furthermore, a nofollow link may be able to be changed to dofollow. For example, you can contact the website that has linked to you with a nofollow link and talk to them about what it takes to change the link to a dofollow link.
Last but not least, Google itself states that they general don't follow nofollow links. This leaves an opening that Google sometimes follows them. There are lots of theories around this topic. For example, some people in the industry believe that all nofollow links receive a small amount of PageRank. Others believe that only selected nofollow links receive PageRank and the last group believes that too much emphasis is placed on the meaning of the word in general and that Google does not transfer anything at all when it comes to nofollow links.
How can I tell if a link is nofollow?
As previously written in this text, a link is always dofollow by default. For a link to be changed to a nofollow, the rel="nofollow" attribute must be added.
If you want to check whether a link is nofollow or dofollow, you can check it via Chrome, for example: Select the link you want to check -> right-click and select check -> notice if the rel="nofollow" attribute has been added.
In most cases, you can also use your linking tool programs (e.g. Ahrefs) see which links are dofollow and nofollow respectively.
