Nofollow vs dofollow: the core difference
The difference between nofollow vs dofollow comes down to one thing: whether a link passes ranking authority. A dofollow link is the default — when you write a plain <a href> with no special attribute, search engines follow it and pass a share of PageRank (link authority) to the destination, helping it rank. A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", which tells Google and other crawlers not to count that link as an endorsement for ranking purposes.
There is no actual rel="dofollow" attribute — "dofollow" is just the community name for a normal link with nothing blocking it. So every link is dofollow until someone explicitly marks it otherwise.
Here is the part people miss: a nofollow link still works as a link. A human can click it, land on your site, read your content, and convert. Google can still discover the URL through it. The only thing nofollow changes is the *ranking signal* — not the traffic, not the discovery, not the brand exposure.
Quick rule: dofollow = "I vouch for this page." nofollow = "I'm linking, but I'm not vouching."
How to read a link in the HTML
To tell whether a link is nofollow or dofollow, look at the rel attribute in the raw HTML. A dofollow link looks like this:
html
<a href="https://example.com">anchor text</a>A nofollow link looks like this:
html
<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">anchor text</a>Since 2019, Google added two more specific rel values, and in 2020 it began treating all of them as hints rather than strict directives:
- `rel="ugc"` — for user-generated content links: blog comments, forum posts, profile links. It says "a user put this here, not the site owner."
- `rel="nofollow"` — the catch-all when you don't want to pass authority and the link isn't paid or UGC.
You can combine them, e.g. rel="sponsored noopener". To audit your own pages and spot links that are missing the right attributes, run a free SEO + GEO audit and check the link section.
Nofollow vs dofollow vs sponsored vs ugc
Each link attribute exists for a specific situation. Picking the wrong one — like leaving a paid link as dofollow — is a classic way to draw a manual penalty. Here's how they compare.
| Attribute | Passes authority? | Crawled? | When to use | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dofollow (default) | Yes | Yes | Editorial links you endorse | <a href="..."> |
| rel="nofollow" | No (treated as a hint since 2020) | Usually | Untrusted or low-priority links | <a rel="nofollow"> |
| rel="sponsored" | No | Usually | Ads, affiliate, paid links | <a rel="sponsored"> |
| rel="ugc" | No | Usually | Comments, forums, user content | <a rel="ugc"> |
The safe defaults are simple: links you place editorially to genuinely useful sources are dofollow. Anything you were paid for is sponsored. Anything a visitor posts is ugc. Everything else you don't want to endorse is nofollow.
Do nofollow links help SEO? (Yes — just not how you think)
Nofollow links help SEO indirectly, even though they don't directly pass PageRank. Treating them as worthless is one of the most expensive mistakes in link building. Here is what a nofollow link actually does for you:
- Discovery and indexing. Google still crawls most nofollow links, so they help bots find new pages on your site.
- A natural link profile. Sites with *only* dofollow links look manipulated. A healthy profile has a realistic mix of nofollow and dofollow.
- Brand signals and citations. Mentions of your brand across forums, social, and Q&A sites build the kind of entity recognition that increasingly feeds AI search engines.
Since March 2020, Google treats nofollow as a hint for ranking and crawling — meaning it *may* still use a nofollow link as a ranking signal if its systems decide to. So the old belief that nofollow links pass zero value is outdated. They pass less, and unpredictably more than zero.
If you want the bigger picture on earning links without paying, see our guide on how to get backlinks for free. And because the clickable text still matters for relevance and user trust, pair it with smart anchor text.
Why most social and forum links are nofollow
Most social media and forum links are nofollow by design, and it's not a conspiracy against marketers — it's spam defense. Any site that lets the public post links (comments, profiles, posts) would get buried in PageRank-farming spam if those links were dofollow. So platforms strip the authority signal while still letting the links function for humans.
Here's where the big platforms stand in 2026:
- Facebook — outbound links are nofollow.
- X / Twitter — outbound links are nofollow.
- YouTube — description links are nofollow.
- LinkedIn — most outbound links are nofollow.
- Wikipedia — external links are nofollow.
- Quora — outbound links are nofollow.
Does that make them useless? No. These platforms drive enormous referral traffic and brand visibility, and they're heavily crawled by both Google and AI engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT. A nofollow Reddit citation can absolutely influence whether an AI tool mentions your brand — which is its own ranking game.
- Did money change hands?If the link is an ad, sponsorship, or affiliate link, use rel="sponsored".
- Did a user post it?If it's a comment, forum post, or profile link, use rel="ugc".
- Do you not want to vouch for it?If you're citing an untrusted source, use rel="nofollow".
- Is it an editorial recommendation?If you genuinely endorse the page, leave it dofollow (no rel).
- Audit the pageRun the SEO Auditor to confirm each link carries the attribute you intended.
When should you use a nofollow link?
You should use a nofollow (or sponsored/ugc) link whenever you're linking out but don't want to pass an endorsement. The decision is almost always about *trust and money*, not SEO trickery. Common cases:
- User-generated links — comments, forum posts, and user profiles should use
rel="ugc". - Untrusted sources — when you must cite a site you don't want to vouch for, use
rel="nofollow". - Low-priority pages — login, cart, or terms pages where you don't need to spend crawl signal.
Conversely, keep links dofollow when you're editorially recommending a genuinely useful resource — that's how the web is supposed to work, and it's what Google's algorithm is built to reward. Don't nofollow your internal links or your trusted citations out of paranoia.
Want to confirm your pages are sending the right signals? Run a quick scan from the homepage tool or browse the full SEO + GEO checks to see exactly which links pass authority and which don't.