Whenever it comes to building backlinks in SEO, we have two types of links. They are dofollow links and nofollow links in SEO. Both links improve SEO.
You often heard that No-follow backlinks don’t pass link juice and don’t provide any value. It is partially true. But it helps to rank your blog better in SEO, find it how.
We create the nofollow links from dofollow links.
Do you know, according to Moz’s study 99.2% of top-ranking websites in search engines that appear in SERP results, have at least one external link pointing to that website.
Then, why were we using two types of external links, do both the links have SEO value?
Yes, both the dofollow link and nofollow link have significant value on link building in SEO.
To know the values of the link in SEO, you need to know about the dofollow link and nofollow link.
Table of Contents
What are dofollow links in SEO?
Usually, all the web page URL links are dofollow links, unless it changed. Dofollow links are HTML attributes, which allow the search engine bots to crawl and follow the links.
The dofollow links pass the link juice from one web page to another. Dofollow links are considered as the vote of quality.
If you are linking any dofollow link of the other page, you are passing your page authority or link juices to that specific web page.
What are nofollow links in SEO?
Nofollow links are also an HTML attribute, which is made by adding rel=”nofollow” HTML tag to the dofollow links.
In other words, the links with rel=“nofollow” HTML tag on them are called nofollow links.
The nofollow links say to search engine bots that not to follow the link and avoid sharing of link juices.
Always use dofollow links for internal linking. Internal linking is an underutilized technique in SEO.
The technical difference between the dofollow link and the nofollow link.
For example, a dofollow link looks like.
The nofollow links will look like
What is link juice in SEO?
The link juice in the SEO world refers to the sharing of one web page value with the other page.
If you get dofollow links from high domain authority sites, then the link juice passes the value, and your page authority also increases.
It usually refers to the backlinks from high domain authority sites that are high-quality backlinks.
If there are more high-quality dofollow backlinks, then higher link juices flow, and domain and page authority will increase.
What’s next,
It is full of traffic and your website’s server will be crashed.
It sounds good, right?
Here, another question,
If dofollow links only pass the link juice, then why should I consider the no-follow links.
Is getting nofollow backlinks a waste of time?
Probably, not.
Nofollow links also improve SEO, and nofollow links also have a significant effect on the web page.
Know how it is.
When should I use nofollow links?
We use the nofollow links, when you are linking to low authority sites or you don’t know the authority of the site, we should use the nofollow link.
If you want to add outbound links to other sites, but don’t know about the quality and authority of that site, then a Nofollow link is preferred.
Whenever you want to protect your link juice from flowing through other pages, you need to use nofollow links.
Should I use nofollow for sponsored links and paid links
Google webmaster guidelines state that any paid links should be Nofollowed. Any page that leaks page rank should be Nofollowed.
To be on the safer side, do all your sponsored links and paid links to be Nofollowed.
For example, if you are placing any banner ads on your website, make sure it is a nofollowed link.
Then what’s about affiliate links?
The affiliate links also need to nofollowed, or it is best advised to use rel=sponsored link HTML attributes to the affiliate links.
You can use affiliate link management plugins like Pretty links, to make all your affiliate links No-follow and manage them efficiently under one dashboard.
If you are using sponsored links, it shows Google that you’re doing some business, and it also sometimes helps to improve brand value.
Shorter URLs perform better in search engines, learn to create SEO friendly URLs.
Where you can find mostly nofollow backlinks
Technically, the link with rel=”nofollow” tag is nofollow links.
But the inbound links from some sites are always nofollow links.
Some sources of nofollow backlinks from other websites
Usually, outbound links from many popular sites are nofollow. They use the rel=”nofollow” tag on all of their outbound links.
Some popular site that gives only nofollow backlinks.
- Social media like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and many more
- Blog comments
- Press release links
- Links in YouTube, Wikipedia, medium are normally nofollow links
- Most of the article publishing websites.
Are you still thinking, nofollow links don’t have any SEO value?
Here are their major benefits, and how nofollow links help you get into top ranking in SERP results.
Benefits of nofollow links in SEO
Many people say that “nofollow links don’t add any value to SEO”.
But it is not perfectly true.
Then, Find it how.
1. Nofollow links will bring you more traffic
If you are doing any guest post in any popular blogging site or at any magazine, you will get nofollow links.
If the guest post was really good, and people get attracted, it leads to more shares. The perfect blog post shows your expertness in the particular domain.
Most times, it creates curiosity in people to know about you and read your articles. If you have done your guest post in your related domain, it usually brings more traffic to your site.
Through this you can gain a new audience and views your pages get, it leads to high page authority and your domain ranking will also increase.
Whenever more people land on your page, you get comments. If a blog gets more comments, it increases your site’s user-friendly experience. In every way, it helps to increase your SEO value.
2. Social media will drive traffic and increases your SEO through social signals
Usually, bloggers share their newly released blog articles on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more.
If your article was informative and useful for users, they will retweet or share it with others.
If they share your post many times, it will be taken as a positive social signal. Social signals also have a major impact on ranking.
Sometimes it helps to faster indexing of the new blog post in the search engines.
Here is a detailed study of how social signals influence the top ranking of sites
3. Nofollow links can change to dofollow
How nofollow link will change to dofollow links
Even though nofollow links said to have no power, it cannot stop people from clicking it. If you place your links in any online media websites, their millions of followers will get a chance to read your article.
Placing your hyperlinks with proper anchor text improves your value.
When people click the link to see your content, if it finds useful for them, they will link your articles on their website pages. Sometimes it helps to improve your brand name.
If many people like your content and it is informative, then they will place your page links in their pages and it leads to an amazing SERP boost to your webpages.
If your page link is shared by any higher domain authority sites, Google will consider it as a good information source.
Even though you don’t get dofollow backlinks from higher authority websites, you can get a decent amount of dofollow from medium authority websites.
In this way, other than getting one first-tier link, you can get many second two-tier links.
First-tier links are the higher domain authority website, whereas second-tier is considered as a medium level domain authority website.
4. More leads and conversions
You can be an influencer.
If your name and brand exposed to other major influencer brands, who already have millions of followers, your smartness could lead some of their followers behind you.
You can also get a chance to introduce your new developing brand to the massive audience group.
So it could increase your leads and conversions.
5. Nofollow links directly give an SEO boost
Everyone says, nofollow links don’t possess any SEO boost or value.
But it is not completely true.
Look at an interesting case study from semrush.
A person bought a handful of nofollow backlinks from high authority, SEO related terms blog.
His targeted keyword was “backlink software”.
So he got an anchor text with backlink software.
See the results nofollow backlinks results with proof.
His page was ranking at #1 for that keyphrase (backlink software).
This case study proves that nofollow links also boost SEO, and it leads to more traffic.
Even though we say nofollow links don’t improve SEO value. But they designed the Search engine algorithm in improving the SEO for nofollow links too.
Maybe nofollow links have little power of dofollow links, but backlinks always do the duty of increasing your page rank.
6. Natural link building
Nofollows contributes to natural link building. There is no exact ratio of natural link building.
But, using both dofollow backlink and nofollow, backlink considered being a healthy natural backlink structure.
If all the backlinks are dofollow links, then it may lead your site to think as a spam site.
So use the dofollow and nofollow link carefully with anchor text, to build a perfect link structure of your website. So that your website gets a higher rank in search engine results (SERP).
Related resources
- Write SEO friendly articles to perform better in search engines.
- Search engines like shorter URLs, so learn to create SEO optimized URLs.
- Higher authority ranks and SEO are dominated by backlinks, learn about backlinks to improve rankings.
- The perfect interlinking structure increases page authority
- Optimize your keywords with semantic SEO, semantic SEO helps to optimize a single page for many keywords.
Finally, Nofollow links wrapped up
Whenever using dofollow or nofollow links and building outbound links, link only with the trusted sites.
There is no proper ratio of mixing dofollow and no-follow links, but build your hyperlinks with anchor texts carefully.
Don’t think linking nofollow links to a spam website not identified by search engine crawl bots.
The google algorithm still gives some authority to nofollow backlinks links, so build your links perfectly.
Thanks for spending your valuable time. If you find this article useful, kindly share it with others.
Do you know any other benefits of Nofollow links in SEO? comment below.
